Fareed Zakaria Quotes
Spain has been battling terrorism for 30 years while we were trading arms for hostages.
Fareed Zakaria, Editor, Foreign Affairs, Time & Newsweek International, Commentator and Host, The Global Public Square, ABC This Week, March 21, 2004
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Bosnian Serbs took United Nations peace keepers hostage in 1995.
Islamic Religious Fundamentalist Terrorists in Algeria had kidnapped over 100 Western Hostages including some Americans. One of the terrorist’s “demands” was for the release of convicted murderers and terrorists in the United States. The official policy which she stated was not totally accurate. On several occasions, U. S. Officials or third parties representing them had “unofficially” negotiated with terrorists. In many cases this was a tactic to buy time and military action followed and in other cases unofficial ransoms were actually paid. The United States has had to contend with this problem with Islamic Terrorists and Pirates since the Thomas Jefferson Presidency when he argued against John Adams who wanted to pay the tribute while Jefferson preferred military action.
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.
Fareed Rafiq Zakaria is an Indian-American journalist, political commentator, and author. He is the host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS and writes a weekly paid column for The Washington Post. He has been a columnist for Newsweek, editor of Newsweek International, and an editor at large of Time.
