Emotional Rescue: Praise for Sea Victory Could Presage Carnage

[Magda Hassan]

Well now wait a minute. I'm having a trouble understanding your logic. A hostage has no value unless the kidnappers are willing to kill him. Furthermore, the pirates interviewed in the Aussie 60 Minutes piece that Maggie linked to repeatedly made the point that they didn't much care if they got killed because they didn't have much of a life anyway.

Kidnapping is a violent act that uses the threat of more violence as leverage. I don't see anything incredible about fearing for the life of the hostage whether guns were pointed at the hostage at that instant or not.

I think that what Peter and others are suggesting is that the action of the US has now endangered the future negotiations and lives of all hostages and made bloodshed a much greater possibility even likelihood. It has upped the ante. De-escalation is the key to successful negotiation in such a situation and this is not what was done. Until now no hostages have been killed by the 'pirates'. There are currently still 200 hostages held whose release has yet to be negotiated and finalised. The Rambo-esque response of the US in the recent case has changed everything and for the worse. They didn't have to act that way. The 'pirates' were getting to the stage where they just wanted their own lives to be secure. They were out of ammunition and therefore effectively unarmed. As Peter L said there were clearly other ways to end that situation with out loss of life. But that action wansn't chosen. Now because of the wanton loss of Somali life their attitude towards (some) their hostages may also change for the worse. It also confirms for the 'pirates' the double standards and lack of regard for their lives with the western piracy of the local fishing resources and disregard for the local population to access food and have an unpolluted environment going unpunished and unacknowledged. Previously the 'pirates' just wanted the money and were happy to release the hostage but now revenge may play a role and they may be more trigger happy in future also as they are much more anxious about coming out of it alive. And though they are certainly willing to take huge risks because they are deperate they are still human and want to stay alive too. Think of it like a scaled down version of Bush's response to 9/11. Totally over the top and now US citizens (and others) are much more vulnerable to attack then before.

Kidnapping is a violent act but it is only a tactic. A means to an end and not an end in itself. Kidnappers are not murderers even if death is implied, as it implicitly is, that is not their aim. From the hostage negotiator point of view murder (of the kidnappers) should also not be an end in itself. What is required is the resolution of a stand off with out the loss of any life. It is also implicit in a response to a kidnapping that it may result in the death of the kidnappers. But again it should not be the outcome.