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Emad Shargi, one of the Iranian-Americans traded by Biden for $6 billion and for multiple Iranian agents in the United States, did a 60 Minutes interview in which he said that, “Hostage-taking didn’t start with us and it won’t end with us. It is incumbent upon us in the United States and in Europe to come up with policies that stops innocent people being taken as hostages. And those policies need to be stronger than sanctioning somebody.”
The most obvious thing is what Iranian-Americans resist, for obvious reasons, which is a travel ban to Iran. As well as to any country that makes a habit of taking Americans hostage to trade for their people. Like Russia. And possibly China. Make it illegal for Americans to travel to Iran and suddenly the ayatollahs will have more of a problem finding hostages.
And the alternatives to that are what short of military intervention?
We could do what the Iranians do, which is take a few Iranian regime figures or their families who are visiting the United States, ship them to Gitmo, and then trade them for the hostages.
Beyond that we have no meaningful options.
I sympathize with Shargi, but he was a dual citizen of Iran and America. Dual citizenship with an enemy state shouldn’t even be legal. He spent a whole lot of time in Iran and then when he was arrested, imprisoned, and tortured, we had to trade Iranian regime agents and $6 billion.
There’s never a particularly good answer here. Back during the days of the Roman Empire, all one had to say was Civis Romanus Sum, I am a Roman Citizen, and you had to answer to the Empire. Teddy Roosevelt offered the Jihadis of his day a simple ultimatum when an American was taken hostage, “Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.” Under Czarist rule, the United States struggled to defend the rights of Jewish Americans who visited Russia.
Either you’re willing to use force or serious economic leverage to assure the safety of Americans. Since we’re not willing to do either one, we can at least stop incentivizing the taking of hostages.
Negotiating with terrorists only ends one way.
I know a way to stop the Iranians from taking hostages. Launch some cruise missiles on the mullah’s heads and every military asset that scummy country has.
Not all Iranians are bad. I used to live in Orange County CA and there were plenty of them there. More than any other place in the USA, actually. Heck my dentist and his assistant (who was hot for me) were Iranian. My wife used to force me to shop at an Iranian grocery store sometimes. To be honest, I didn’t like the food but I went along with her desires because that’s what a husband has to do sometimes.
Iran should be liberated from the mullahs and Revolutionary Guard. Kill those fuckers.
One day we had a substitute dental hygienist who was an Iranian girl. She managed to con me into getting an unnecessary x-ray, presumably she got a commission for it 🙂
“Negotiating with terrorists only ends one way.”
That’s almost a tautology, but the West is blind to it. Negotiations with an honor culture is almost always a losing proposition for the West Burton described innumerable examples in Africa and the Middle East during his expeditions, since there was trading and such going on almost every day. Even Burton generally ended up knowingly paying double. Sometimes he managed to put them in their place, but how many Burtons do we have?
I’m glad I turned you on to Burton. You really like his writing. He’s also translated “The Arabian Nights into English, although he wasn’t the first.
Interestingly enough, Scheherazade, Sinbad and the other characters were actually Indian, not Arabs or moslems. As they so often do, the Wogs appropriated that stuff and claimed it as their own. They’ve always been lowlife scum.
As if they conceived of the number zero or even knew how to use arithmetic. They still wipe their asses with their bare hands, for God’s sake. Not even derelicts and zombies in San Fran do that. They just don’t wipe. I’ve seen it on TV.
Yeah, the Indians had already invented zero before Islam existed.
There is an answer here, it’s just not an easy one. There should NEVER be hostage negotiations with a hostile regime. We once understood “acceptable losses”. An Iranian-American should either completely understand that principle or not get on the plane and hyphenated Americans should either pick a country or accept the consequences of their actions.
Having your cake and eating it too is a convenience, not a government protected right. If one chooses to travel to a hostile country, they should be responsible enough to assume the ramifications of doing so.
All true but my Church congregation makes annual trips to Israel and I’d hate to see any of them get hurt or killed. I know what you mean, though. People DO have to take responsibility for their actions.
I never go with them, though. San Jose is more than dangerous enough. I heard the stories of what Hamas did to innocent men, women and children and they were blood curdling. My trepidation to travel to Israel turned out to be well founded.
A cool reporter named Cohen on Newsmax said a raft of journalists were shown graphic videos by the IDF of the Hamas atrocities and he tried not to vomit while watching it. He said a lot of journos couldn’t take it and walked out of the presentation. I don’t blame them. I won’t watch that shit.
I don’t go to Mexico anymore, either. Not since the cartels took control.
I’m not into international travel anymore but Switzerland sure seems nice.. And I have lots of friends in Indonesia, and people there are generally friendlier than Americans. And the chicks are hot.
I have no immediate plans to travel to Israel, though. I catch enough shit here at home.
The difference here is Israel isn’t a hostile regime. I’ve been there, both in uniform and with my church group. Iran, Syria and Lebanon are hostile. Travel there should be off limits or one-way, period. Catering to duel citizenship’s is a fool’s errand for the US.
The Crusades are looking more attractive.
Except for the Children’s Crusade. That was a bad one.
The Knights Templar were mostly cool, though, although I don’t think they liked Jews. They considered the Holy land the land of Jesus and Christianity.
The Knights of Malta were the coolest, though. They expelled every islamopithecine from the island.
What they did with Tripoli and the Barberry Pirates taking ship crews from American Ships hit them wear it hurts Land the. Marines shell their areas and defund the United Nations totally
When the US was a new and much weaker nation, the issue of Americans being taken at sea as slaves that could be ransomed or tribute could be paid to avoid that, it was dealt with by Jefferson and Madison in two wars with the Barbary Pirates, who were Muslims from the Maghreb.
Israel has always been geriatric on this issue. I mean really geriatric which you can see from the 81st lash. As if survivors had some message besides truth for Israelis.