Was He or Not

[spence]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

If we have to kill a lot of people to get him back, fine. But you don't negotiate with these people, or reward them, for their behavior. That encourages more similar behavior, and that's exactly why we came up with the phrase "we don't negotiate with terrorists".

It's good you recognize that it's only a phrase. Terrorists are negotiated with all the time. Hell, Israel once release over a thousand Palestinians (we'll assume they were all terrorists right?) for a single low-level military captive...and they're supposed to be tough right?

Your question assumes (incorrectly) that the only 2 choices were to cave in, or accept that we can't ever get him back. There is a 3rd alternative, and that's what I'd choose, and that's you use your brains and your brawn to get him back on our own terms.

I don't think they could determine exactly where he was. Looks like he was being moved around western Pakistan. That's not an easy rescue.

When that ship captain got kidnapped by pirates off Somalia, why didn't we give the pirates a dump truck full of money like they wanted? Had we done that, the probably would have let him go, right? But we didn't, we let the SEALs take him back by force, even though th ecaptain easily could have been hurt during the exchange of gunfire. And the reason is exactly the same, because that would encourage more piracy. That was one of the very few that this Bolshevik Klown got right.

Totally different situation. With the Somali pirates we knew exactly where the captive was. The order to shoot was given as they thought the Captain was about to be killed.

-spence