Dwight Schultz Quotes
Has one hostage from Lebanon come back with a photograph of his abductors? Has any hostage ever come back with a photograph of his abductors smiling? I mean, this was so incredible!
Schultz, Dwight. "Dwight Schultz - Biography." IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/name/nm0001707/bio.
She served as the head of the Task Foce that the President asked to come up with better poliocies and procedures for coping with situations were Americans were being held hostage for ransom. The poliocy had been that the United States would not pay meny for hostages and it was a crime for the families and friends to do so. After the report, the government still would not pay terrorists for hostages, but the new policy allowed family and friends to do so if they wanted. A number of Amricans have been murdered when hostage money was not paid. Some argue that the government should pay the ransom lest life and death depend on the wealth of the family of the victim. Most terrorism experts argue against paying at all. In addition to encouraging the terrorists to take more Amercian hostages, the hostage money goes to the terrorists who use it to endanger and kill other Americans. There is no good answer to this situation.
Alluding to French willingness to pay ransom for hostages:
Asked if he would relent in his attitude toward Iraqi President Saddam Hussein if the Iraqi leader would free American hostages and make concessions:
The Taliban terrorists would try and kill, kidnap and hold people for ransom following a Muslim tradition dating back to the Barbary Pirates. While there is always pressure to negotiate to alleviate the immediate situation, the negotiation is in and of itself, a reward for the terrorism. Hence the general’s rigid view.
See {587287} for a later complementary statement.
For the last 300 years, Muslim terrorists—corsairs at sea and petty tribal leaders on land—have made a lucrative business of kidnapping people and holding them for ransom. When Thomas Jefferson went to war off the Barberry coast, the Americans were the only Western nation who did not want to appease the terrorists and pay the ransoms or pay an annual “tribute” to guarantee safe passage (protection money). The European powers at the time and since could crush the terrorists militarily but there would be an economic cost for the expedition and lives would be lost. The typical calculus was that it was cheaper to pay the ransom than to pay the cost of a military solution. Even the United States then paid the yearly tribute for a while. However, this has reinforced the hostage taking behavior over the years and it is still in force. While the United States has a policy against paying ransoms, our government maintains a blind eye to private citizens, families or private companies paying to free the hostages. The Europeans, in contrast, generally allow even the government to pay ransoms. Weddady and other Muslim leaders have and continue to urge a policy of no ransom and use of force wherever possible. Muslim nations like Algeria and Turkey have learned that this is the best way to handle kidnapping terrorists and every few years, new terrorists try again and they attack quickly. In contrast European hostages are taken by the hundreds throughout the year. Meanwhile, piracy and hostage taking for ransom has spread to some Asian cultures so the world problem is not uniquely with Muslim terrorists any longer.
By paying kidnappers who hold Americans hostage for ransom, the United States would just be encouraging the kidnappers and produce more kidnapping. However in some hostage situation, especially with ISIS and other terrorists the refusal to pay ransom means a horrible and cruel death for the American kidnap victims. Many of the European nations tend to secretly pay the hostage takers just as they were will to pay the Barbary Pirates and Corsairs in the 18th century. There is no right answer other than to defeat the terrorists and put them out of business.
William Dwight Schultz is an American television, film and voice actor. He is known for his roles as Captain "Howling Mad" Murdock on the 1980s action series The A-Team and as Reginald Barclay in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, and the film Star Trek: First Contact. He is also known in animation as the mad scientist Dr. Animo in the Ben 10 series, Chef Mung Daal in the children's animated series Chowder, and Eddie the Squirrel in CatDog.
