We do not negotiate with terrorists?

[general_kill]

Remember those beheading and ransom videos a few years ago? I remember there was a really push for the government to pay the ransom for some of the hostages. People's lives could have been saved if the government simply did something.

But for the past year or two, I haven't seen one report of someone getting kidnapped and being held for ransom. So can we credit this to our policy not to negotiate with terrorists? Is it a policy that the Bush administration has used that actually works?!

I can only imagine what Iraq would be like if we paid for every hostage.

Btw, I've watched enough movies to know that the policy not to negotiate with terrorists goes back longer than just the past 8 years

 

[Archbob]

No,
They just haven't caught as many people lately.

 

[bigdog5994]

you know what i think your right

 

[general_kill]

No,
They just haven't caught as many people lately.

How come? There's more Americans there now than back when the war started.

 

[EnlightenmentHK]

Not negotiating with terrorists is not an exclusively Bush policy or a remotely new one. It just follows the very basic and reasonable tenet that if you give in to violent extortion more people will try to violently extort you. Because apparently it works.

 

[cubsfan6506]

Yes negiotiating with terrorists is a slipery slope. It's like giving a bully your milk money.

 

[Ecofarm]

Another example of Bush genius.

 

[BasketCase]

Big problem with this issue: when a ransom is paid, the people who paid it keep their mouths shut. Whenever you read about terrorists being all kind-hearted and cuddly and releasing their captives, note in the article how they never say what the actual agreement was. The victim or victims were released.....in exchange for what? The news never tells you.

My two coppers: don't pay the ransoms. Free the hostages by killing their captors. Don't pay them money, and don't release their comrades. Because, first and foremost, most of the gangs who specialize in kidnappings don't do it for the ideology. They do it for the money. To kill the business, you have to make it unprofitable (and dangerous), and you need to avoid letting their co-workers out of prison. Pay the ransom or release the prisoners they want released, you're merely giving them the resources to kidnap or kill more innocent people.

 

[Leonel]

The idea is that if you capitulate to hostage takers, other potential hostage takers will look at this precedent and think "HEY! If it worked for them, why not us?" and so everyone starts taking hostages because they've seen it work before.

 

[azzaman333]

Terrorists have no reason to free hostages after they get the money anyway, so there is no purpose to negotiating with them. All that'll happen is the terrorists get richer as wel as killing people/blowing stuff up.

 

[general_kill]

Not negotiating with terrorists is not an exclusively Bush policy or a remotely new one. It just follows the very basic and reasonable tenet that if you give in to violent extortion more people will try to violently extort you. Because apparently it works.

Read my first post again

I know no policy that works could have possibly originated from Bush

just kidding Bush supporters

 

[History_Buff]

Hardly a new policy. Does anyone know the last time someone in the US managed to successfully collect a kidnapping ransom?

Big problem with this issue: when a ransom is paid, the people who paid it keep their mouths shut. Whenever you read about terrorists being all kind-hearted and cuddly and releasing their captives, note in the article how they never say what the actual agreement was. The victim or victims were released.....in exchange for what? The news never tells you.

I have a sneaky suspicious the deal is simply "let them go, and we won't kill you." Though it would be interesting if the authorities were paying everyone off . . .

 

[Archbob]

The only way to deal with terrorists is to threaten them with imminent and total destruction.

 

[general_kill]

Hardly a new policy. Does anyone know the last time someone in the US managed to successfully collect a kidnapping ransom?



I have a sneaky suspicious the deal is simply "let them go, and we won't kill you." Though it would be interesting if the authorities were paying everyone off . . .

Eesh, I know it's not a new policy, I even mentioned it!

 

[The Yankee]

Terrorists have no reason to free hostages after they get the money anyway, so there is no purpose to negotiating with them. All that'll happen is the terrorists get richer as wel as killing people/blowing stuff up.

If they plan on doing it again for money, they have an interest in keeping their end of the bargain.

 

[azzaman333]

If they plan on doing it again for money, they have an interest in keeping their end of the bargain.

If they plan on doing it again, they have a much larger chance of getting caught. Plus, if they don't kill the hostages, they also have a much greater chance of getting caught.

 

[Elta]

What's all this then?

We haven't been negotiating with terrorist since comic books in the 1930s - everyone knows that we do not negotiate with terrorist. We meaning presidential leaders that ask action heroes to save people.

 

[EnlightenmentHK]

If they plan on doing it again, they have a much larger chance of getting caught. Plus, if they don't kill the hostages, they also have a much greater chance of getting caught.

Why would they be caught? They're usually kidnapping foreign nationals whose involvement will typically end once the negotiations and payment does. These things usually occur in impoverished, highly corrupt nations that simply don't have the resources and/or interest in pursuing these things too harshly. But there are in fact companies who make a small cottage industry out of handling these ransom demands. And if they run into a group or even a region that makes a habit of reneging on deals and killing hostages...they're unlikely to find people willing to deal with them in the future. Granted there's fewer guarantees and no official safeguards, but the same basic rules of any business apply. 'Screw your customers, and they're unlikely to return'.

They have an interest in keeping their end of the bargain...one way or the other. Doesn't mean they will, but its usually pretty likely that they will. Most are not ideological. They have not vested interest or burning desire to see Americans or Westerners die. Nor is 'killing the witnesses' necessary for them to get away. They simply want to get paid.

 

[BasketCase]

I have a sneaky suspicious the deal is simply "let them go, and we won't kill you." Though it would be interesting if the authorities were paying everyone off . . .

Relief workers and corporate personnel are the favored targets of kidnappers-for-money. It's rarely the authorities who pay the ransom--it's their employers. The oil company wants its workers back, the relief agency wants its relief workers back. And out here in the Free World, governments don't have ironclad control over those companies, so the companies pony up. And they never want anybody else to know they did, so when interviewed by the media, they keep their yappers shut and we never find out they paid up the money.

 

[Berzerker]

Reagan negotiated and more people got snatched, I like the reaction of Mel Gibson in that movie where his kid is taken. This ransom will be a bounty on thy head!