Are these pesky foreign instigators imitating Captain Jack Sparrow? Or David Bowie?

Osama is not an expert. He’s a terrorist. So no, I don’t take his pronouncements any more seriously than I take Kruschev’s assurance that the USSR would bury us. Or Kim’s endless propaganda or Castro’s or Hezbollah’s.

I think it’s strange to credit our enemies with honesty, objectivity or accuracy. The mere fact that someone is an enemy does not make them a good analyst of American actions. And it’s certainly not reasonable to imagine that they are honestly presenting their own motives or capabilities.

In this case, what is NK’s game going forward? Arrest three hostages next time and get what? Two ex-presidents? Does that really strike you as likely? For four journalists do they get two ex-presidents and a first lady? What exactly would be the point?

And do you figure Somali pirates are watching this and thinking, “Hmm, next time instead of a million dollar ransom, let’s get ourselves a Bill Clinton visit?”

This just doesn’t parse out. And you’ve given me no indication that it does. Where’s the trend line? Where’s the cause and effect?

One of the ways the Romans prepared for war was by bribing and paying off foreign powers. It’s a myth that the Romans never paid ransom. Baloney. Roman money flowed freely into barbarian hands to secure passage for Roman troops, to win releases of prisoners, to play one bunch against another. Bribing foreign powers was the order of the day for centuries.

Did Romans lie about this for home consumption? Of course. But out on the frontier the Roman generals were more interested in getting by, as soldiers usually are.

And I’d still like to hear you explain why a rational response to NK hostage taking would be attacking NK militarily and risking war that would primarily devastate our ally to the south. Or what would be accomplished by making the Somali rubble bounce as a way to end piracy.

You might ask any of the following if weakness contributed to their situations;

Robert a. Levinson (hostage or dead in Iran), Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell (hostages of FARC for a half-dozen years), Joshua Fattel, Sarah Shroud and Shane Bauer (Iranian Hostages), Eugene Armstrong (beheaded), Nick Berg (beheaded), Daniel Pearl (beheaded), Thomas Humill (escaped captivity), Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry (most likely ransomed out of captivity), Richard Phillips (Captain of captured ship - former hostage)………actually the list is endless. These people are experts too…..cite them.

Does my previous response satisfy your desires for a cite? How about as the Romans would say:

“Si vis pacem, para bellum” (if you desire peace, prepare for war.) Thats authoritative…. since they secured an empire for 1500 years.

* In October 22, 1983, the 241 U.S. Marines were murdered by Hezbollah, along with countless others injured. Consistent with the April attack, America not only did nothing to respond, but America packed up and left Lebanon. America’s non-response–for which President Reagan was never called to talk–and its swift pullout were specifically cited by Osama Bin Laden as proof that America didn’t have the will to make its enemies pay . . . or even to survive. He cited:

“the decline of American power and the weakness of the American soldier, who is ready to wage cold wars but unprepared to fight long wars. This was proven in Beirut in 1983, when the Marines fled.”…UBL

And… from the horses mouth so to speak, ………….”when people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.” Interview with Bin Laden post 9/11.

This is about as authoritative as you can get on the issues of terrorism and the use of force.

Can you site any examples? If we put hostage takings on a graph would we see the number rising over time? I don’t think so.

Reagan rewarded the Iranians after 241 Marines were killed in Lebanon. Did we see a spike in attacks on Americans? Wouldn’t we have seen subsequent cases in a fairly short time frame? Did the total number of attacks on Americans rise? I don’t recall that happening. Can you make a case?

I don’t see any kind of long-term rise in hostage takings or in attacks on Americans. If your thesis is correct we’d see some kind of trend. Is there a trend? Doesn’t look like it. In fact it looks like these thing spike and then retreat, spike again and then retreat.

Are you actually calling for us to retaliate militarily against NK? Seriously? They arrest 2 of our journalists and we do what, bomb a NK military base? And risk war? A war that could devastate South Korea? That strikes you as rational? Do you think maybe the South Koreans might not enjoy having their cities hit with massed artillery because we need to throw a hissy fit?

When people put themselves in harm’s way, as apparently happened when this pair of dolts ventured into North Korea from China, our government has no obligation to protect them. If a government crosses a border and does the same thing to our citizens, of course, it verges on an act of war.

And if those truly were tourists in Iraq who ventured into Iran, one word: Darwinism.

I feel the same way about fools who put EMTs, police officers, and other first responders in harm’s way when they climb buildings and such nonsense. Let ‘em fall.

Sometimes, there are no good solutions. So you take the one that will do the least damage to your interests and is thankfully, the correct moral choice; you save the hostages.

I think Kim would have found another way to get what he got out of us in this instance if we hadn’t bartered - probably in the nuke negotiations. We actually lost very little.

ed.