Why Negotiating With Jihadis Is Always A Mistake

Remember the South Korean missionaries the Taliban kidnapped a couple of months ago?

The 23 South Koreans were seized as they travelled by bus from Kabul to Kandahar on July 19. Two of the male hostages were beheaded, but the rest, who were women, were released after G-d knows what kind of treatment after the South Korean government agreed to pull its troops out of Afghanistan and prohibit any Christian missionaries from going there.

According to today's Daily Telegraph it took more than just that to get the women released...South Korea paid a hefty sum to the kidnappers and the Taliban has been using the hostage cash to fund attacks on US, British and coalition troops.

And according to Taliban leaders interviewed in the article by The Sunday Telegraph, the money has also been used to train homicide bombers to carry out terrorist attacks in Britain and America.

They had precise details on the transaction, and knowing the mindset of these people and what they see as weakness of the West when it comes to casualties as well as the Islamic tradition of kidnapping hostages, putting them in harrowing conditions and ransoming them for big money as a way of waging war, I have absolutely no doubts that they're telling the truth.

BBC reporter Alan Johnston was likewise ransomed when he was kidnapped by Hamas allies the Dugmush clan, and so was the Christian Science Monitor's Jill Carrol, although the paper has managed to keep the price of her liberty quiet thus far.

They are far from isolated instances.

It's difficult for any humane person to turn their back on a weeping, distraught hostage, especially if it's a woman - that's how we Westerners are made..and the jihadis know it. So kidnapping westerners, especially journalists or naive `peace activists' or aid workers has turned into a ready source of cash.

Every time this scam is pulled off successfully, it increases the likelyhood that it will happen again and again..and as the Telegraph article shows, that has consequences beyond an increase in hostage taking.