![]() The policy recommendations come after a harrowing account of the ordeal of the ISIS hostages and the gruesome fate that some of them met. But he questions the value of a no-concessions policy in deterring kidnappings and discusses various ways the government's response might be improved. Simon concedes that giving money to terrorist organizations is a different matter from paying off kidnappers motivated only by greed, making it a matter of national security. His answer is no what the policy accomplished was to insure that the American and British hostages were killed, while the French and Spanish ones eventually returned home safely. Simon's question is whether the American policy actually accomplished its objective, namely to discourage kidnapping of Americans by making it unprofitable. The American and British governments were adamantly opposed to paying ransom, while other European governments, notably the French and Spanish, made the safe return of the hostages their priority and paid up. This book is his account of what happened to those hostages and the policy questions raised by the diverse reactions of the governments involved. Joel Simon, the head of an organization called the Committee to Protect Journalists, got involved when the Islamic State started grabbing journalists in Syria in the early teens. People have been taking hostages and holding them for ransom for millennia, but in the twenty-first century it has become both a high-profile political tactic and big business. Perhaps it would be easier for someone other than a nation-state to conduct this kind of response. Deterrence is one factor, but mainly just a direct "when there are no X terrorists, there will be no kidnappings conducted by X terrorists". one American is kidnapped, 10 affiliates of the hostage-taker are taken, and if $10mm in ransom is paid, an extra $100mm bounty is put into a fund for 51% of the bodies of terrorists. My suggestion is some form of this "strategic ambiguity" program combined with guaranteed retribution - e.g. However, higher ransoms do increase kidnapper motivation overall, and some of the nation-state ransoms are so high ($30-50mm!) to actually be a major source of financing for some groups. There's long been an argument that paying ransom encourages more kidnapping, but the author makes a credible case that most kidnappings are opportunistic, not made with specific regard to the nationalities of victims. He makes a case for "strategic ambiguity", using private cut-outs to mask government involvement in paying ransom, and taking advantage of the ability of private parties to plead limited resources (which governments can't do), keeping the prices down. Overall, the author makes a case that the US/UK policy of "no negotiation, no ransom" is a bad policy, but also that the European policy if paying essentially unlimited ransom (and in the French case, massive publicity before and after release) is also bad. Most of the other American contractors I ever talked with had the same plan we used low-pro vehicles and such so our insurance/K&R policies were invalidated anyway.) Fortunately it never came to that, but I would not have hesitated. (My solution in war zones was to just spend any money I'd have spent on K&R on more security I assumed an American kidnapped in Iraq was going to be tortured/murdered, so my plan was to try to drop everyone or go down fighting. As I've lived/worked in high-kidnap-risk environments, this is interesting to me. We Want to Negotiate is an exploration of the ethical, legal, and strategic considerations of a bedeviling question: Should governments pay ransom to terrorists?Īmazing book about the Kidnap and Ransom insurance industry, government policies around paying ransom, and how to achieve the best outcomes for both individual hostage situations and policies overall. refused to do so, arguing that any ransom would be used to fuel terrorism and would make the crime more attractive, increasing the risk to their citizens. The Europeans paid millions of dollars to a terrorist group to free their hostages. ![]() Joel Simon, who in nearly two decades at the Committee to Protect Journalists has worked on dozens of hostages cases, delves into the heated hostage policy debate. In August 2014, the Islamic State began executing the Americans-including journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff-followed by the British hostages. ![]() Throughout 2014, all the Europeans came home, first the Spanish, then the French, then an Italian, a German, and a Dane. A year later the world learned they had been taken hostage by the Islamic State. Starting in late 2012, Westerners working in Syria-journalists and aid workers-began disappearing without a trace.
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