Blog 2: Taking Hostages for Monetarial Gain

Taking Hostages for Monetarily Gain

In the last six months IS has publically murdered 3 Americans and two Britons. The IS group has openly and widely distributed the explicit videos of these prisoners being brutally beheaded. Currently, there is a story all over the news about IS militants taking Japanese hostages and demanding money from the Japanese government to get the hostages back safely.

This appears to be the first time IS has directly targeted Japanese citizens. Islamic militants have slaughtered Japanese citizens before. In 2013 10 Japanese were killed during an attack conducted in Algeria at a gas plant, but the Japanese people were not specifically targeted.

 Japan is not among the countries participating in the U.S.-led coalition battling insurgents in Syria and Iraq, but IS is claiming that the Japanese Regime has donated $200,000,000 to support non-military activities against the Islamic State. The IS states that they want the same amount recompensed to them for the hostages to be released safely. They have given the Japanese only 72 hours from the initial posting of the demands to comply with the demands.

Apparently, the men were warned not to go into the IS areas before they left Japan. The men went anyway.

So far, Japan refuses to pay, or to bend to terrorists. Japan’s Prime Minister Abe has also been publically demanding release the immediate release of the hostages. He has been cited saying “Using human lives to threaten others is an intolerable act,” he said. “I strongly demand the immediate release and the safety of the two Japanese.” On multiple televised news stations.
Often terrorists take hostages and make public demands is not necessarily for the money they demand, but for the publicity. In this case, I believe the extremists want to get the world to believe that Japan has been spending money to kill the IS’s women and children. They are using this tactic to acquire money and get the public to believe they have been wrongly treated. It also helps to justify their actions to their own troops.
Most public replies say that they Japanese should not to pay. Some ever say that the governments need to get together and completely destroy the Islamic State with every means possible to include atomic bombing of mass areas.
The question is whether or not to pay. What will happen if the pay is mad and what will happen if it is not?
I feel that even if they pay the hostages are not guaranteed to be treated well and returned. The payment of demands will inevitably encourage the terrorists to take more hostages in the future.
 If they do not pay IS has demonstrated beyond a doubt that the hostages will be brutally murdered,, but possible discourage the fanatics from taking more hostages in the future. That type of work would not be profitable.
I am glad that I am not the one that has to make this choice. I know that I would not pay the demands. I also know that I would have to live with knowing my decision would be the catalyst to these men’s death.

References:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/01/20/purported-isis-video-threatens-japanese-hostages-in-lieu-200m-ransom/

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/01/20/isil-threatens-japanese-hostages/22034927/

http://nypost.com/2015/01/20/japans-prime-minister-islamic-state-threat-is-unforgivable/

http://www.voanews.com/content/islamic-state-militant-threatens-to-kill-japanese-hostages/2605615.html