Italy Caves In

Italy Trades Two Lives for Today in Exchange for Undisclosed Amount in the Future

Ransom: The purchase of that which neither belongs to the seller, nor can belong to the buyer. The most unprofitable of investments. -- Ambrose Bierce


Italian intelligence officials were closely involved in the release of the two female aid workers held hostage in Iraq, it emerged yesterday.

It is suspected that they were freed in exchange for a $1 million ransom, a belief that has cast a cloud over national celebrations of the release.

According to La Repubblica newspaper, the deal also included an agreement that 30 sick Iraqi children would be sent to Italy. Last night the Italian Red Cross said six children and three adults had arrived for hospital treatment.

A million dollars in order to get two people out of there, and for the right to treat 30 children.

It is the dollars and the children that make me the most nervous because the money can be used to buy so much more weaponry, or even worse: technical expertise. Not just WMD expertise, but just the ability to hire out people to make fake passports, falsify other documents, and bribe officials. There are people who make a living supplying this type of 'product', and now they have loads of cash to do it.

It may be true that Italy can somehow track these funds, but it is a risk none the less in addition to the public (terorrist public especially) thinking that the money is free and clear. In the end if a special forces mission takes them out, it will not matter because the method used to catch them will not be explained. Even if it is explained, right now terrorists are very excited about the chance to kidnap women (Italian at least) and then ransom them.

The children part is the most disturbing because it makes a terrorist look like a hero because they can appear to be not just blowing up roadside bombs, but they can do some image repair by saying they care about the children. Remember: Everything is always about the children. Politicians use this angle to paint an opponent into a corner; they add provisions to bills that might not get support that include something to help children and then, if the opposition still doesn't like the proposal, they say that the opposition does not care for children.

Politics for votes in a democracy is one thing, playing politics in a nation like Iraq by permitting terrorists to improve their image is idiocy. This information will spread: 'The group who took those hostages didn't just ask for money, they wanted to help our children... What has the US done for your children?'

If the average Iraqi feels that the process is moving too slow and can now begin to count on terrorists to barter westerners for help at home for children, the elderly, and the infirm, our road will be even harder because the average Iraqi can turn to a fellow Arab instead of an infidel.

Think these terrorists do not have this in mind? Think again: Miss Torretta told magistrates that their captors sent them on their way with 10 copies of the Koran translated into English, and copious supplies of sweets.

So, they are pretty good at PR, and that can not be by accident. It gets better for the terrorists even still: The information they obtained showed that our work had been transparent and in the interests of the Iraqi people. In the end they actually asked our forgiveness.
"They treated us with great respect, and were even attentive to our needs," said Miss Torretta, who headed the office in Baghdad of the Bridge to Baghdad charity, which worked in health and education. The women were seized at gunpoint from the office on Sept 7.

They tended to their needs?!?!?!?!?!? How about letting them travel freely? If this continues with kidnappers looking like friendly guys who are in a situation no one really likes and is only doing what they do in order to help children the road is a dark one.

Perhaps it is time we all played the videos of what these people really do.