We understand why the family of one of the newsmen ISIS beheaded last month is bitter over Washington’s refusal to pay ransom to win his release.
Still, the hard truth is that this refusal may help save many more lives by reducing the incentives for terrorists to take our citizens hostage in the first place.
“Our government was very clear that no ransom was going to be paid” to rescue captured reporter James Foley, his mother, Diane Foley, told The New York Times. “It was horrible, and continues to be horrible.”
Months before they murdered him, Foley’s kidnappers demanded cash and the release of Muslims held by the United States. Washington told the Foleys it wouldn’t swap prisoners for hostages and that US policy forbids ransom payments, even by the family itself.
We appreciate the unfathomable anguish this must have created for the Foleys. Especially when European countries — notwithstanding their public denials — have long been paying terrorists ransoms to free their citizens.
The Obama administration itself traded five Taliban leaders for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
Though Washington claims Bergdahl’s case is different because he was a prisoner of war, that distinction might be scant consolation to the Foleys — and is likely lost entirely on the terrorists.
The pressure to negotiate grew even greater Thursday with the release of a new ISIS video. In it, another captive journalist, John Cantlie, complains of Britain and America’s refusal to negotiate.
These people and their families are in impossible position. Yet there are powerful reasons not to relax the ban on ransom payments, and the Obama folks are to be applauded for not bending.
For starters, caving in only encourages terrorists to do it again.
“What is hard to prove is how many Americans have not been kidnapped as a result of the fact that the enemy knows they will not get a penny from us,” says Gen. John Allen, the retired general who commanded our forces in Afghanistan.
Plus, ransom to terrorists — unlike ransom to ordinary criminals — finances more terror. As the Times noted in July, al Qaeda and its affiliates hauled in $165 million in ransoms since 2008 alone, mostly from Europe.
“Kidnapping for ransom has become today’s most significant source of terrorist financing,” said David Cohen, who oversees the Treasury Department’s terrorism and financial intelligence operations.
Ransom is the price terrorists set for an American citizen. The way to stop it is for Washington to make clear that the price a terrorist will pay for taking an American hostage is even higher.