Re the hostages, it sounds cold, but perhaps a better policy would be to presume that hostages are dead as soon as they are taken, and proceed with whatever action would be warranted if there were no hostages. If they happen to be alive at the end, wonderful.
I've thought hard about this and would be accepting of it, were I a hostage. I wouldn't like it, mind, but I'd understand the reasoning; and I wouldn't want to be used to emotionally blackmail my loved ones.
In the long run, if hostages aren't useful as leverage, they will stop being taken.
exactly! It's a hard choice for a government to make, but that government is responsible for the lives of all its citizens, history has proven time and time again what happens when governments give in and negotiate deals for the return of hostages - long lasting peace never actually lasts and more people are killed in the long run.
This is most true when dealing with the rabid dogs that are Hamas.
It reminds me of the old Bonanza episode "Death at Dawn". Ben Cartwright is kidnapped by the leader of a criminal gang and his sons are told that if the law follows through with the hanging of a convicted murderer who was part of that gang, they would hang Ben. Throughout the night, his sons search desperately to find their father, but the time for the hanging approaches, the family fractures, with Little Joe and Hoss wanting to turn the Farmer loose to get their father back and Adam holding the line that no, justice had to be served.
In the end, Adam was left by himself to march the murderer to the gallows and see him hanged.
Of course the episode ended with Ben being freed, but it has always stayed with me. It would be an incredibly hard decision to do what Adam did, but I understand and agree with why he did it. If the convinced man had been turned loose, how many others would he have killed, especially knowing that he wouldn't be stopped at all by the local law? Was the lives of all those other people a worthy price to pay for the single life of his own father?
To me, the same thing applies to governments and terrorists. All a cease fire and negotiation does is tell those terrorists their strategy works; that all they have to do is keep taking hostages and they'll be left free to do whatever they want, especially if they've been beaten back and need time to rebuild. So they snatch hostages, get a peace deal negotiated, then build back and strike again, killing hundreds more and maiming thousands through their dirty bombs and missile strikes. In the end, moving to save 59 people will result in hundreds more dead as Hamas has already proven in the past they don't honor deals they have made with infidels.
shoot, with the rumors and even evidence before our eyes that the other Muslim nations won't take Palestinian refugees (we saw this in real time when Egypt closed the border), its a good bet Hamas don't even honor deals they've made with other muslims!
Hamas has NEVER honored ANY cease-fire with ANYONE. They wouldn't honor one now. The only deal is, once they're all DEAD, then they can't start fighting again.
The proper treatment for hostage-takers is to presume that the hostages are dead, and then take a ferocious vengeance for them.
If you pay the danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.
Carpet bombing is out of fashion now. But it had the effect of not just damaging the intended target, it also helped break the will of the civilian population. Had we lost WWII we would have certainly been convicted of war crimes for what we did in both Germany and Japan.
I'd heard that about the Palestinians before.
Re the hostages, it sounds cold, but perhaps a better policy would be to presume that hostages are dead as soon as they are taken, and proceed with whatever action would be warranted if there were no hostages. If they happen to be alive at the end, wonderful.
I've thought hard about this and would be accepting of it, were I a hostage. I wouldn't like it, mind, but I'd understand the reasoning; and I wouldn't want to be used to emotionally blackmail my loved ones.
In the long run, if hostages aren't useful as leverage, they will stop being taken.
exactly! It's a hard choice for a government to make, but that government is responsible for the lives of all its citizens, history has proven time and time again what happens when governments give in and negotiate deals for the return of hostages - long lasting peace never actually lasts and more people are killed in the long run.
This is most true when dealing with the rabid dogs that are Hamas.
It reminds me of the old Bonanza episode "Death at Dawn". Ben Cartwright is kidnapped by the leader of a criminal gang and his sons are told that if the law follows through with the hanging of a convicted murderer who was part of that gang, they would hang Ben. Throughout the night, his sons search desperately to find their father, but the time for the hanging approaches, the family fractures, with Little Joe and Hoss wanting to turn the Farmer loose to get their father back and Adam holding the line that no, justice had to be served.
In the end, Adam was left by himself to march the murderer to the gallows and see him hanged.
Of course the episode ended with Ben being freed, but it has always stayed with me. It would be an incredibly hard decision to do what Adam did, but I understand and agree with why he did it. If the convinced man had been turned loose, how many others would he have killed, especially knowing that he wouldn't be stopped at all by the local law? Was the lives of all those other people a worthy price to pay for the single life of his own father?
To me, the same thing applies to governments and terrorists. All a cease fire and negotiation does is tell those terrorists their strategy works; that all they have to do is keep taking hostages and they'll be left free to do whatever they want, especially if they've been beaten back and need time to rebuild. So they snatch hostages, get a peace deal negotiated, then build back and strike again, killing hundreds more and maiming thousands through their dirty bombs and missile strikes. In the end, moving to save 59 people will result in hundreds more dead as Hamas has already proven in the past they don't honor deals they have made with infidels.
shoot, with the rumors and even evidence before our eyes that the other Muslim nations won't take Palestinian refugees (we saw this in real time when Egypt closed the border), its a good bet Hamas don't even honor deals they've made with other muslims!
Hamas has NEVER honored ANY cease-fire with ANYONE. They wouldn't honor one now. The only deal is, once they're all DEAD, then they can't start fighting again.
The proper treatment for hostage-takers is to presume that the hostages are dead, and then take a ferocious vengeance for them.
If you pay the danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.
Carpet bombing is out of fashion now. But it had the effect of not just damaging the intended target, it also helped break the will of the civilian population. Had we lost WWII we would have certainly been convicted of war crimes for what we did in both Germany and Japan.
Great links to why all the fear & loathing of the Palestinians, NFO.