The British newspaper The Times reports that France, Germany and Italy have paid tens of millions of dollars in ransom money to free their nationals held hostage in Iraq. The newspaper bases its claims on documents which reveal that the three countries paid between 2 and 8 million dollars per hostage.

Western diplomats who have read the documents are outraged. They believe paying ransom money only encourages terrorists to kidnap more foreigners. Since the invasion of Iraq, 250 foreigners have been kidnapped. Half of them have been released.

(rnw.nl)

Bah!

Personally I'm right with the diplomats - these spineless governments are making crime pay for the militants.

What do you expect? Chirac gave Iraq a nuke plant, and Israel had to go blow it up. I mean these 3 countries are at the top of the hit parade for giving weapons, money and technology to the nations of the middle east.

Was that Chirac's fault? Beatings for him if I ever see him...

[ 05-22-2006, 05:16 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

I'v always thought of paying ransom as a "damned if you, damned if you dont" situation.

I wouldn't pay, but I'm not gonna judge the people that do too harshly if thier motive is saving lives. Good intentions pave a highway to hell though. I agree- Ultimately they do make kidnapping profitable by paying off.

There were rumours that the people who negotiate with the terrorist were so eager to settle for a ransom is because they'll get a cut from the ransom money.

The rumours were rife few years back when Abu Sayyaf terrorists from philipine kipnapped tourist from Pulau Sipadan in Malaysia. Several negotiater became instant celebrity and rich when they 'helped' their government to pay off the ransom to free the tourists.

*cough* just some useless babling from me. :rolleyes:

Here's the way you should approach negotiating with terrorists.

1. Contact them and arrange for a meeting time to exchange the money, and agree that the hostage will be set free at a later time.

2. At the appointed time, nuke the city the exchange is to take place in. Kill the women, the children, the terrorist, and the hostage all in one big blast. Kill at least 20,000 people.

I mean, how else do you deal with these idiots? The Middle East should be completely depopulated. By bombs.

I hope that's just you flexing your "wit" as opposed to your actual opinion...I fear the latter.

I hope that's just you flexing your "wit" as opposed to your actual opinion...I fear the latter. </font>[/QUOTE]What's wrong with putting those people back into the stone age, their half way there mentally and economically.

What makes us so totally great and smart ( ie. infallible and all-knowing) that we can even discuss annahilating all those middle east people I guess if you like mass murder, keep singing that song. I think that type of attitude is part of the problem.

So far bombing those middle east people has only made more of those middle east people want to bomb us back.

What kind of logic or reason dictates that we do it more and bigger?

What happens if the rest of the world bombs us back? Such a crime against humanity cannot go unanswered by even the marginally civilized world.


Is the potential for mutual assured destruction worth killing a whole bunch if not all of those middle east people?

Kidnapping will certainly end when the world does. Ironic, Mass bombing of cities and nations will accomplish the goal of ending such crimes, locally or global.

Even if only one bad guy survives, there will be no one left to terrorize. In the cruel twists of logic it is a perfect solution with the most imperfect side-effects.