The Unfortunate Reality of ISIS Hostages
This whole thing with ISIS has really had me on edge lately as well as with many others. It is really just bone chilling to think about and with the be-headings with the direct messages to Obama and the ransom requests for American hostages, it is all just crazy. All that can't help but make one wonder, why won't our government pay ransom for our hostages? Would they even pay ransom to prevent more be-headings of our innocent citizens? I have found myself in a few disputes over this topic lately and had just not gotten around to researching it to verify the truth without a doubt. This led me bound and determined to find an article related to this as I was sure that I remembered hearing at one point that the American Government does not pay ransom for hostages. Sure enough, I stumbled upon an article under the National Security subsection on "National Public Radio", titled "Should The U.S. Pay Ransom For ISIS Hostages?" that discusses this matter in a pretty direct and sensible way. This article was written by Brian Naylor on September 19, 2014. As it says on this page, "It is U.S. policy that the government does not pay ransom to gain the release of Americans held hostage by terrorist groups, nor does it negotiate with them." George Terwilliger says that, "Once you start down that road it's very difficult to turn back, for a long time we did pay money to the Barbary pirates, and they wound up taking an entire crew of a U.S. naval vessel hostage." As unfortunate as it is, that statement actually makes sense. It would be a never ending cycle and it would only add to our debt as a country. However, on the other hand, when you think about it, look at all the bailouts the government pays for with the banks and companies, and all the extra unnecessary money spent on sticking our noses in other countries business. Couldn't we use some of that money to keep our citizens safe? Or maybe we should just keep all of our people out of there entirely to prevent the loss of any more lives? Don't get me wrong, our no pay policy makes complete logical sense in the way they explain it. However, I guess I am just in the middle in the grey area. This is a pretty good article to check out as it points out a few different points and angles to think about when it comes to this situation regardless if you already knew about it or not. I would love to hear what you all have to say about this situation and the US no pay policy. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions for a better system to prevent so many innocent casualties?
