Dear Friends,
It seems to me that when it comes to trading hostages for criminals, doing it is a bad practice, but doing it with terrorists is suicidal insanity. The Poor Israeli soldier who was kidnapped is one such example. We all want to see hostages returned safely, and we all want to see people reunited with their families, but if the cost is too great for society then it cannot be done. Because the cost, we can be assured, will go up exponentially.
The first argument always made is that trading hostages for criminals is a way to insure plenty of hostages will be taken. Society will be put at greater and greater risk from the hostage takers. Anytime a risky experiment goes well, (is profitable), it causes a vacuum that sucks everyone nearby into it. One example is the Mexican situation with kidnappers.
In Mexico kidnapping is rampant. You just kidnap someone then demand a terrific ransom. Cut off a finger or two, (to show you mean business), and bank the cash. No muss on fuss. Easy peezy. The government looks the other way and you find some other shmuk to kidnap. As more people get paid off more people go into the business. It is economics 101. If a business model is too lucrative, others enter it, raising competition, thus lowering profits. But not in the Mexican kidnapping business…
Now, negotiating with terrorists, on how much they will be paid for their evil actions, is a Faustian bargain at best. Terrorists see any negotiation as a sign of weakness. Terrorists only keep a bargain as long as they want and terrorists have only malevolence in their hearts. It is like negotiating with the devil over your soul when you are sinless. He has everything to gain and nothing to loose while you have everything to loose but nothing to gain.
Not to mention the slippery slope, that once a government is cutting deals with criminals, paying them for criminal acts, where does it stop? Would the government then pay a different criminals not to engage in graffiti? What if that was commonplace and now they paid another criminal, who was engaging in serial rape, to go to prostitutes, how far down that slope do you think society would slide? Remember, if you told the average American in 1970, abortion would not only be legal but would be available on demand, in less than 10 years, in the US, they would have laughed at you. Slippery slopes have a way of being very slimy.
It is precisely that I want to see people united with their families that I don’t want to see governments trading criminals for hostages. As I pointed out before, it is economics 101, that any business model that pays is imitated. That this kidnapping worked, will cause, unquestionably, more kidnappings. Other families will suffer the loss and bereavement of a loved one being taken hostage by a fiend. Inevitably, more and more, as the business model shows it’s profitability. How long before the terrorists are taking people from the streets, torturing them on camera, and trading them back for some terrorist or another? How many more innocent will suffer for one, seemingly virtuous, action?
But it is the nature of modern liberal democracies, to do great harm to their own self interests and the interests of their citizens, for political expediency. Perhaps the terrorists are right, that the West has become weak. Not in military strength but in resolve. The terrorists best friend is the complacent politician who is engaged in teaching helplessness to their constituents. Maybe we have learned helplessness so well we will lay back and watch survivor season XII while we are being eaten, like lions eat a paralyzed wildebeest, stomach first.
So unless we are a paralyzed wildebeest then trading hostages for criminals is bad practice. This will encourage the terrorists to take more hostages, is bargaining with diabolical forces, creates a loose loose for society, is a slippery slope and assure that others will suffer. Perhaps instead, a non suicidal society, would; execute any criminals asked for by the terrorists, that have been convicted of murder, and double the sentences of those who have not. Then ask if the terrorists had any more requests. The hostage would certainly be killed but there would be no other hostages taken. The problem would be solved and society could have another few years of peace. Instead government has decided to reward hostage taking. But maybe it will turn out better this time, with the terrorists in Israel, than it did with the gangs in Mexico…
