How to deal with terrorists

[Rising_Sun]

KGB showed 30 years ago it had the balls to deal with Hezbollah.

Meanwhile the democratic, human rights obsessed West continues to be a sitting duck for Islamic, and other, terrorists, by inviting more and more attacks by failing to retaliate.

Lebanon
Hostage Crisis

Hostages? No Problem Soviets Offer ‘How-to’ Lesson In Kidnapping
BY JACK MCKINNEY
Posted: January 15, 1986

Are you among those frustrated Americans who have wondered how the Soviet Union’s only hostage crisis in Lebanon was resolved in just a month, while the plight of the six U.S. hostages held there continues to drag on without any

break in sight?

Well, according to the Jerusalem Post, the Soviets turned the trick by forgoing diplomacy in favor of a brutally more direct approach to the problem.

Simply put, they presented the kidnappers with chilling proof that terror can cut both ways. Literally!

The crisis began last Sept. 30, you might recall, when four attaches from the Soviet Embassy were kidnapped in Beirut by Muslim extremists. Western news agencies received individual photos of the four men that same night, each with an automatic pistol pressed against his head.

The photos were accompanied by a note from a hitherto unknown group calling itself the Islamic Liberation Organization. The message warned that the four Soviet captives would be executed, one by one, unless Moscow pressured pro- Syrian militiamen to cease shelling positions held by the pro-Iranian fundamentalist militia in Lebanon’s northern port city of Tripoli.

Although the Soviets attempted to open some channel for negotiations with the kidnappers, there was no immediate let-up in the shelling at Tripoli.

Only two days after the kidnappings, the body of one of the four kidnapped men, a 30-year-old consular secretary named Arkady Katov, was found, shot through the head, on a Beirut trash dump.

Apparently, that’s when the Soviets dropped the idea of sweet talk and turned the matter over to the KGB.

Less than four weeks later, the three remaining hostages were freed on foot only 150 yards from the Soviet Embassy.

The pro-Syrian daily Al Sharq credited their release to the clandestine efforts of Brig. Gen. Ghazi Kanaan, the chief of intelligence for Syrian forces in Lebanon.

Western journalists reported that the kidnappers were forced to free the hostages because a block-to-block search by pro-Syrian militiamen was closing in on them.

But it wasn’t until last week that Jerusalem Post diplomatic correspondent Benny Morris uncovered the most compelling reason why the three Soviets were released, emaciated and tired, but otherwise unharmed.

According to Morris, the KBG determined the kidnapping to be the work of the Shiite Muslim group known as Hezbollah, or Party of God. This was the same radical pro-Iranian faction that figured so belligerently in the mass hostage-taking from the TWA airliner at Beirut Airport last June.

Unlike the approach the United States used to resolve the TWA crisis, however, the Soviets did not bother negotiating with Hezbollah through Nabih Berri, Lebanon’s justice minister and leader of the Shiite Amal militia.

Instead, the KGB kidnapped a man they knew to be a close relative of a prominent Hezbollah leader. They then castrated him and sent the severed organs to the Hezbollah official, before dispatching the unfortunate kinsman with a bullet in the brain.

In addition to presenting him with this grisly proof of their seriousness, the KGB operatives also advised the Hezbollah leader that they knew the indentities of other close relatives of his, and that he could expect more such packages if the three Soviet diplomats were not freed immediately.

The message was a lot more extreme than Ronald Reagan’s vague allusions to using “Rambo next time,” but the swift release of the three remaining hostages indicated that the Hezbollah big shot couldn’t handle having terror shoved back in his face.

Post reporter Morris quoted unidentified observers in Jerusalem as noting:

"This is the way the Soviets operate. They do things - they don’t talk.

“And this is the language the Hezbollah understand.”

http://articles.philly.com/1986-01-15/news/26052630_1_hostage-crisis-soviet-captives-islamic-liberation-organization

[JR11]

Japan recently announced a $200 million payment towards the international fight against ISIS. In response, ISIS are threatening to murder a number of Japanese hostages unless a ransom of $200 million is paid by Japanese to them. Not quite sure how the Japanese would go about paying this ransom. Be that as it may, it poses a huge difficulty for the Japanese government.

If I were a hostage in the hands of the Islamaniacs - or any sort of political maniacs - I would like to think that my government would make all efforts to secure my release, alive. All right but … it is depressingly clear that payment of ransoms only encourages the hostage takers (or simple kidmappers) to continue with the kidpapping tactic. Perhaps the Israeli response to hostage taking - release large numbers of Palestinian prisoners in return for the release of a small number of Israeli prisoner/hostages - makes some sense to the extent that it responds directly to human lives. However, one might point out that Israel’s policy of imprisoning large numbers of Palestinian civilians without trial is hardly exempt from criticism. In any event, trading hostages for money or hostages with hostage takers still appears to lead only to further hostage taking, and further demands for ransom of some sort.

Not sure I would approve of the KGB approach; seems a bit drastic. Resolute refusal to pay ransom, however, has much to recommended it as a policy, if consistently applied. Hard on hostages, I know. However, paying off hostage takers in any form does no more than encourage further hostage taking. The needs of the many would appear, in these circumstances, to outbid the needs of the few. Hard to say so - but so it on balance, a hard line seems to have a lot to recommend it. Whether this needs to chop off bitings is another matter … Yours from the Ljubianka, JR.

[Rising_Sun]

@JR11

Japan recently announced a $200 million payment towards the international fight against ISIS. In response, ISIS are threatening to murder a number of Japanese hostages unless a ransom of $200 million is paid by Japanese to them. Not quite sure how the Japanese would go about paying this ransom. Be that as it may, it poses a huge difficulty for the Japanese government.

There is no difficulty.

Japan decides either to pay the ransom and, as you correctly say, invite more kidnappings and ransom demands, or, and this is the correct course, it refuses to pay any ransom.

Very sad for the poor bastards who will die, but a lot less sad than an endless line of future Japanese who will be kidnapped and no doubt killed from time to time to reinforce ransom demands.

@JR11

If I were a hostage in the hands of the Islamaniacs - or any sort of political maniacs - I would like to think that my government would make all efforts to secure my release, alive.

Me, too. But my government correctly refuses to pay ransoms.

@JR11

All right but … it is depressingly clear that payment of ransoms only encourages the hostage takers (or simple kidmappers) to continue with the kidpapping tactic.

These bastards are just the same as every other standover man (Oz term for criminal extortionist) all over the planet. Once you’ve given in to them, they’ll plunder you as long as you live.

These arseholes probably started their criminal careers standing over kids in primary school for lunch money.

It’s a bit of DNA that needs to be rooted out of the species, which can be done only by stopping them breeding, which accords with their desire to be sent to paradise. A 100% win/win.

@JR11

Perhaps the Israeli response to hostage taking - release large numbers of Palestinian prisoners in return for the release of a small number of Israeli prisoner/hostages - makes some sense to the extent that it responds directly to human lives.

My imperfect recollection is that a major exchange quite some time ago (in the ?1990s?) was about half a dozen Israelis for several thousand Palestinians.

All that did was set the rate of exchange, and foolishly so for the Israelis.

@JR11

Not sure I would approve of the KGB approach; seems a bit drastic.

Philosophically, I don’t agree either.

Practically, why not?

These bastards are engaged in a war against everyone who isn’t them, and a war with no rules apart from murder, rape, enslavement, pillage, plunder and extortion, so no rules should apply.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPqhm36sjVE

Japan would be better off refusing to the pay any ransom and turning the tables on the extortionists by offering the $200 million as a bounty for the head of the ISIL leader, which is considerably more than the relatively measly $10 million offered by the US http://www.voanews.com/content/us-has-10m-bounty-on-isil-leader-it-previously-held/1951892.html and quite possibly more than enough to tempt the many criminals in his ranks to chop his head off. Or, taking the KGB approach, identify much more vulnerable and accessible targets in his and his close associates’ families and offer, say, $10 million per head.

These bastards are having a dream run of being able to murder with impunity or murder in pursuit of however many virgins these f*ckwits think are on the other side of their futile deaths. They have no experience of the fight being carried to them on their own terms, at least in the current era as distinct from, say, the cycle of violence in colonial Algeria, which made its own contribution to the current problems.

[JR11]

No real disagreement, RS*. The only way that the loons/criminals can be persuaded that hostage taking is futile is to refuse to pay ransoms of any sort, irrespective of the consequences. However, it cannot be denied that this poses difficulties for democratic governments when their citizens are involved. Best regards, JR.

[Heidy]

This is our life and future for all of us; living with terrorism. The new war. This is what our ancestors had fought for???

[Rising_Sun]

@Heidy

This is our life and future for all of us; living with terrorism. The new war. This is what our ancestors had fought for???

No, this is what we have to fight for, now and for the foreseeable future.

[Rising_Sun]

@JR11

However, it cannot be denied that this poses difficulties for democratic governments when their citizens are involved. Best regards, JR.

Definitely.

But pragmatism has to win over preserving all lives at all costs.

I’ve only once been in a, very unusual, position where I had to decide whether to take a step which could have seen my client ‘disappear’ in a foreign country noted for its brutal ‘disappearing’ of opponents.

I committed my only act of professional (and gross at that) misconduct in 35 years of practice by deciding, contrary to very clearly agreed instructions from my client before she returned to that country, not to carry out those instructions. By doing so, I avoided initiating events which certainly would have seen her imprisoned and probably ‘disappeared’. It was a complicated situation which I won’t explain here.

The point is, I spent an anxious few weeks over a Christmas / New Year period many years ago in the knowledge that the life of someone with whom I had direct personal contact and for whose safety and life I had personal and professional responsibility (and to whom I had a professional duty, for the breach of which I could have been struck off) depended upon my decision and actions, so I had a rather closer experience than a politician remote from those involved as is the case with ransom demands.

It’s not a lot of fun to be in such a position, but one has to act according to one’s best judgment.

In the case of kidnappers, the best judgment is always to refuse to pay.

From my only experience of having someone else’s life in my hands depending upon my decision on how to act, I have no doubt that I’d refuse to pay a ransom and that I could live with that decision, much as I would regret it for the rest of my life. And I hope all politicians would take the same approach. But, alas, that is not the case with many nations.