Should we ever negotiate with terrorists?
My answer is, no.
Never.
Whether I am a member of our military services, or simply an American abroad, if I am kidnapped, held hostage, or threatened, I do not believe that our government should ever negotiate with the attempted kidnapper, hostage-taker or thug.
Signalling that hostage negotiations are possible is an abnegation of our historical stance and policy of never negotiating with our enemies. I was reminded of Fabrizio Quattrocchi, in his final moments. "Vi faccio vedere come muore un italiano."
Me too, bub.
But...
What is our current foreign policy on kidnapping, hostage-taking and/or thuggery? As an American, can you rely upon you country to track down these rhetorical miscreants? I don't think so.
We've lost more than common sense in three years. We've lost common decency.
Americans will never back down to threats; whatever and any type of threat. That's not what Americans do.
3 comments:
Good post.
Bad mistake in showing an utter lack of common sense.
Somehow the poison of appeasement got unlearned a mere 70 years after World War II.
Man, was that ever a screw-up. I suppose he was trying to show solidarity with Israel, but that was just stupid.
Rule #1: Never let the perfect become the enemy of the good.
When I was at OSU, Russian Studies was a "real" curriculum. We had real discussions about the threats the U.S. faced in the world, and the need to have in place, forces to counter-balance those threats.
We would use force in response to kidnap or terror. I refer to Becker on probability of detection and severity of outcome as the deterrent.
There are going to be areas of extreme naivete for candidate Cain. We're just going to have to buckle down, and make sure he's getting the data dump necessary to avoid these types of mistakes in the future.
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