Ken Bigley
Sep. 27th, 2004 07:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sobriqueKen Bigley is a doomed man.
He is being held hostage by fanatics, who are demanding the release of criminals.
They have already killed two others taken at the same time as him.
And the British government won't negotiate. Not even to save him.
It's an ugly choice to face. Being told by hostage takers that you can save this person's life, and all you have to do is one little thing. You're handed the responsibility for their life.
But we cannot yield. For to do so once, is to guarantee it will happen again. And the concessions demanded will be greater.
Ken Bigley is to be sacrified to the Greater Good. This will provide him and his family little enough consolation. The needs of the many, have outweighed the needs of the few.
How does this make us different from the Terrorists? Both are willing to give lives for their cause. Their own. Others. But neither will bend before the other.
In essence, it comes to this. They try and hide behind a false transferrence of responsibility for his life. They will kill him if we do not release the prisoners. But let's not forget that the hands doing the killing are theirs. We can never yield to terrorists. To do so, is to grant them victory.
And so we offer our best wishes. Our hopes. Our prayers. Not for a miracle. But simply that the hostage takers will relent. And let this one man. A son. Let him go home. We will not yield, since we cannot grant them that victory.
Let not this man die to prove a point.
He is being held hostage by fanatics, who are demanding the release of criminals.
They have already killed two others taken at the same time as him.
And the British government won't negotiate. Not even to save him.
It's an ugly choice to face. Being told by hostage takers that you can save this person's life, and all you have to do is one little thing. You're handed the responsibility for their life.
But we cannot yield. For to do so once, is to guarantee it will happen again. And the concessions demanded will be greater.
Ken Bigley is to be sacrified to the Greater Good. This will provide him and his family little enough consolation. The needs of the many, have outweighed the needs of the few.
How does this make us different from the Terrorists? Both are willing to give lives for their cause. Their own. Others. But neither will bend before the other.
In essence, it comes to this. They try and hide behind a false transferrence of responsibility for his life. They will kill him if we do not release the prisoners. But let's not forget that the hands doing the killing are theirs. We can never yield to terrorists. To do so, is to grant them victory.
And so we offer our best wishes. Our hopes. Our prayers. Not for a miracle. But simply that the hostage takers will relent. And let this one man. A son. Let him go home. We will not yield, since we cannot grant them that victory.
Let not this man die to prove a point.
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-27 11:13 am (UTC)The US still refuses to negotiate in any way and we lose more each week it seems.
Pride.... something about goeth before a fall?
no subject
Date: 2004-09-27 11:17 am (UTC)Yielding to the terrorists just guarantees that it'll happen again. Only next time the numbers and concessions will be greater.
All they can do is attempt to rescue him (and others in the same situation)
no subject
Date: 2004-09-27 11:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-27 11:55 am (UTC)And, really, that's all this is. People playing politics.
The terrorists don't want Saddam's two scientists released. They want "female prisoners" released. Because after the Abu Ghraib scandal there are a lot of very nasty rumours circulating about the American treatment of female prisoners in Iraq. It's just that the Americans claim that those are the only two female prisoners they have.
Thousands of Iraqi men. Just two women. It may be true, but it doesn't sound true, and that's why it's such good propaganda.
[And, as has been said elsewhere... both scientists are being held because they worked on WMD programmes that, according to the final reports from various agencies, didn't exist...]
If they's killed the hostages immediately, it wouldn't be news for more than 24 hours. This way, it's an Issue. And I bet someone somewhere is factoring the Labour party conference into this...
On the flip side, Blair is being a little dubious. In true 1984 doublethink style, we're told that we can't make a deal because they'll just kidnap more people (true) and that we can't make a deal because we've no guarantee that they won't just kill him anyway (also true).
But these two things balance each other, surely? If we make a deal and they kill him, they lose any possibility of negotiation next time, because we just won't trust 'em.
End rant.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-27 04:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-28 05:38 am (UTC)On the other hand our Tony will clearly do nothing, at least in public ,remember the CIA tryangle of Columbian coke, weapons for Hamas and the PLO and hostage release in The Lebanon.
I hope our Tony has sent the "Men in Grey Suits" in to sort this out, but I very much doubt he gives a shit. The people who are taking hostages clearly dont.
What a sorry sorry mess.