Iraq Hostage Crises...

[wossname]

At the time of writing, Ken Bigley is being held by radical Iraqi Extremist terrorists. They are demanding the liberation of all women prisoners in Iraq, and in return they say they will release My Bigley.

Blair and Bush are adamant that they are doing all they can to help him .

If you were in their shoes what would you do?

[Cander]

Its a lose/lose situation. We lose no matter what. Give in, and they continue to take more hostages for more demands. Dont give in, the man dies and they likely continue taking hostages for more demands anyway.

Covert ops is no good unless they know where they are.

[Pino]

exactly and people are going on and on at tony blair when his limited option are as follows

1) Give them what they want (Talk the Us into releasing prisoners which would kill MANy more people) also many more hostages would be taken - loose

2) Dont give them what they want - Man will almost certainly die - loose

3) Send in covert Ops, I imagine there trying but iraq is not a small place and people are NOT going to tell you where the hostage takers are! if we dont find them soon man dies - Loose

4) Nuke the whole of iraq, - Our man dies and so do many other people

5) wait and pray - 99.9% chance he will die but 0.1% is better than nothing

[wossname]

I constantly find it a source of amazement that the Middle east has festered and congealed for so long that it is absolutely impossible to come to any peace treaty that will be agreeable to all sides.

The way things are going now, it makes you wonder if letting Saddam Hussein free would actually improve the situation. Seems like all sides have tied themselves in knots and nobody can get out without inflaming the rest of the weave.

I really feel ambivalent about this ransom affair.

I feel sorry for the hostage, but I completely understand Blair's standpoint. If I was the PM, I would have to say NO to the terrorists and let the man die. There is no other option as I see it.

Maybe we ought to abandon iraq and leave it alone, then if it ever gets out of line just wipe it of the face of the planet. Nah, probably not.

[Ex-FB]

Yip. Unfortunatley the only viable option is to let the man die.

It sucks, and if it was me sitting there, holy crap, I would want them to do anything to secure my release. But unfortunately you have to look at the long term effects of such action.

On top of that, how many civilians and soldiers have died already and few people seem to care, what's one more life if you don't know the person... (sorry to sound callouse, but you know what I mean).

[DeadEyes]

I think they should talk to the hostage takers not give in but at least talk. That way you get to learn more about them maybe even get close to a location.
For the government to say they don't negotiate with terrorists is just not true look at the IRA.
I feel sorry for him and his family, but at the end of the day he chose to go to a war zone to make money, he surely must have known the risks.
According to reports the Iraqi "government" wanted to relase one female prisoner, a bio expert, but the Americans refused.

[BodwadUK]

Why on earth dont they tag civilians

[DeadEyes]

Originally posted by BodwadUK
Why on earth dont they tag civilians

Cause then they would have to admit the body count.

[MasterBlaster]

What happened to the tried and true "Ram a broom stick up the Iraqi prisoners arses and take a picture" option.

[Shaggy Hiker]

As usual, MB comes in from outer space with an utterly original view on th matter.

The idea about tagging civilians isn't that off the wall. It would be insanely dangerous, but could you dangle someone out as bait with a radio transmitter implanted in them? After all, we can't do the special forces routine because we can't find these guys, but they don't sound like a huge group, so hitting them really hard might shatter them. To hit them, we first need to find them, and that ain't easy. Radio tracking might do, but it is virtually a suicide mission, as the person on the inside will be utterly defenseless.

The Middle East has been a battle ground as far back as human history records. The story today: Same shiite, different weapons.


Sometimes the players change places, but the game goes on.

[mendhak]

It must be that horribly hot and stifling heat which fries their brains... no wonder they're so hostile.

Which brings me to something I've been wondering about for months now:

As we know, there are some places in the world which we consider to be "a totally crap place" to live in. It may be too hot, or too cold. For example, I hated my entire time in Sri Lanka. It was either burning hot, or there were cloudbursts. Then there's Mongolia, it's either EXTREMELY HOT (in bold, capitalized letters) or EXTREMELY COLD (again in bold, capitalized letters).

People living in a place obviously implies that their ancestors came to that place from somewhere, and chose to settle down there.

So here's the question: WHY?!

Back when we were on the move around the world, what possessed the leader of that one particular tribe to say to himself, "You know what? This place looks good! Sure, it's got extreme weather conditions and it's very dusty and dry and it won't ever have a thriving computer industry, we'll have to get them from other countries, but at least it's got nice food. Well, we don't have nice food yet, but we will soon. I think that's good enough reason to stay right here in this dusthole."

Of course, over time, the generations developed characteristics that made them more accustomed to the place. But the thing is, they still feel hot. Of course, when I am there, I feel hotter than everyone else, and a native of that place feels hot, but not as hot as me, but he still feels hot!

Bah.

Anyways, that gives a good enough base to my "it's too hot there which makes them crazy" theory.

[honeybee]

Originally posted by Ex-FB
Yip. Unfortunatley the only viable option is to let the man die.

It sucks, and if it was me sitting there, holy crap, I would want them to do anything to secure my release. But unfortunately you have to look at the long term effects of such action.

On top of that, how many civilians and soldiers have died already and few people seem to care, what's one more life if you don't know the person... (sorry to sound callouse, but you know what I mean).

Just wondering: What if one of the persons captured was some bigshot in one of the American firms that has bagged reconstruction contracts in Iraq? Or take any other big company operating or intending to operate there. If any of their president/chairman or such lot were kidnapped, would the reaction be the same? Or if the abducted persons were close to Bush or Blair or any other important political leader would it be the same?

Another point is is it going to work all the time? Phillipines has withdrawn troops to save their man, many contracting firms (non-US) have stopped operations in Iraq to save their abducted employees. It's because they don't stand to lose anything if they withdraw from the conflict, save their people and let the US fight it out alone. How many of the coalition have joined simply to be on the better side of the US? All these members will finally withdraw. No firms will operate there because whether or not the US wants to negotiate with the terrorists, once an employee is abducted, the firm will have no option but to wind up operations because of obvious reasons. Thus you will have no reconstruction work going on anywhere. Going by the recent scenes it might take a whole year or even more for any kind of safety to be established all over Iraq and for the reconstruction to start. And by the time the civilian life will have fallen to such low levels they might well revolt against the occupation.

.

[CORONA BEER]

Originally posted by honeybee
Just wondering: What if one of the persons captured was some bigshot in one of the American firms that has bagged reconstruction contracts in Iraq? Or take any other big company operating or intending to operate there. If any of their president/chairman or such lot were kidnapped, would the reaction be the same? Or if the abducted persons were close to Bush or Blair or any other important political leader would it be the same?

Another point is is it going to work all the time? Phillipines has withdrawn troops to save their man, many contracting firms (non-US) have stopped operations in Iraq to save their abducted employees. It's because they don't stand to lose anything if they withdraw from the conflict, save their people and let the US fight it out alone. How many of the coalition have joined simply to be on the better side of the US? All these members will finally withdraw. No firms will operate there because whether or not the US wants to negotiate with the terrorists, once an employee is abducted, the firm will have no option but to wind up operations because of obvious reasons. Thus you will have no reconstruction work going on anywhere. Going by the recent scenes it might take a whole year or even more for any kind of safety to be established all over Iraq and for the reconstruction to start. And by the time the civilian life will have fallen to such low levels they might well revolt against the occupation.

.

why do you use so many words?

[Verrona]

Just send in an H-bomb.

End everything.

Kill everyone

Then laugh at Iraq

[Shaggy Hiker]

Originally posted by mendhak

Back when we were on the move around the world, what possessed the leader of that one particular tribe to say to himself, "You know what? This place looks good! Sure, it's got extreme weather conditions and it's very dusty and dry and it won't ever have a thriving computer industry, we'll have to get them from other countries, but at least it's got nice food. Well, we don't have nice food yet, but we will soon. I think that's good enough reason to stay right here in this dusthole."

That's probably how ethnic food got started in the first place. People moved into a region and decided that it was time to set up a local cuisine. Then they started looking around for something that people elsewhere wouldn't have thought of eating, and they ate it. If there was nothing different to eat, they just tried taking something familiar and cooking it differently. Gives them a sense of place.

[NotLKH]

Option #6) Secretly start implanting those doggie GPS chips in every foreigner in Iraq, whenever they go in for their physicals.

Unfortunately, it Won't help any of the current hostages.

[Ex-FB]

Originally posted by Shaggy Hiker
That's probably how ethnic food got started in the first place. People moved into a region and decided that it was time to set up a local cuisine. Then they started looking around for something that people elsewhere wouldn't have thought of eating, and they ate it. If there was nothing different to eat, they just tried taking something familiar and cooking it differently. Gives them a sense of place.

Ah - that explains Haggis.

[mendhak]

Originally posted by Shaggy Hiker
That's probably how ethnic food got started in the first place. People moved into a region and decided that it was time to set up a local cuisine. Then they started looking around for something that people elsewhere wouldn't have thought of eating, and they ate it. If there was nothing different to eat, they just tried taking something familiar and cooking it differently. Gives them a sense of place.

If you've ever had something called "fried booz" you'll realize that you're absolutely correct. :sick


P.S: Don't ever try it. Don't even think about it. I'll kill you if you do.

[wossname]

*** is fried booz?

[visualAd]

I agree with the PM. You shouldn't negotiate with terrorists, doing so will give them an excuse to abduct again. I admire his consitency and determination in the wqhole Iraq situation. I still however think going to war was a bad idea, I think deep down he knows that and now knows he must see it through.

All the reason to let him stay another term - if I were the leader of one of the oposing parties I would say "his mess - he stays in power until he's sorted it".

Again the whole situation boils down to the rich and the powerful. The developed countries deliberatly keep 3rd world conuntires poor, people suffer, people die - and why?? due to the greediness of others. The consquences are terrorism, people feel bitter and hatred - towards those who are more fortunate than them.

The situation makes me sick inside - what makes me even more sick is the likes of you and I cannot change it.

[Ex-FB]

Originally posted by visualAd
I still however think going to war was a bad idea, I think deep down he knows that and now knows he must see it through.

All the reason to let him stay another term - if I were the leader of one of the oposing parties I would say "his mess - he stays in power until he's sorted it".

What? And give him another 4 years to drop you into an even deeper mess? Unfortunately it's teh soldiers and civilians who have to live with his mistakes, at worst he's going to lose his job and get a health ex-presidential pension.

[mendhak]

Originally posted by wossname
*** is fried booz?

It's a (bad) Mongolian dish. Almost raw meat boiling in it's own filth and juices. Tastes worse than it sounds. Don't ever have it. I will hit you if you do.