Angela Harlem
Jesus Online
A bit of a debate was on the radio about this the other day, and I truly reckon there are 2 sides to this subject. Intellectually we can never negotiate as we cannot give in and bow tow to them, we cannot give them strength and power, cannot give them the upperhand. We cannot weaken the resolve. We just can't.
But can we cannot let people die, knowingly. Can we?
Should the negotiations start way before we have a hostage situation? Can they start way before the terrorists are holed up in whatever/where ever with their hostages? Can we do something to prevent it getting to this stage? We try now, we have been seeing talks with various regions for years and years. Middle East Peace talks are always a topic in the news, always.
Where are we all going wrong? The terrorists who we hear most about are the ones who bloodily persue their threats and behead their hostages, or we see Beslan. And clearly there is something wrong with these people. Perhaps with many of them there is no reasoning or any means of useless negotiation or compromise anyway. How can you rationally reach a mutually beneficial decision with a man/group who is willing to behead someone or partake in the murder of a child?
One thing I did think about, was what does it make us when our hands are tied and we're forced to allow them to kill their hostages? It's a moral issue, but we're essentially allowing a murder when we could actually stop it, but intellectually we are thinking "no, we can't go down this road".
We've heard the arguments in this forum many times, and most often the argument is coming quite rationally and justly from one side or the other. How do we come at this from both?
But can we cannot let people die, knowingly. Can we?
Should the negotiations start way before we have a hostage situation? Can they start way before the terrorists are holed up in whatever/where ever with their hostages? Can we do something to prevent it getting to this stage? We try now, we have been seeing talks with various regions for years and years. Middle East Peace talks are always a topic in the news, always.
Where are we all going wrong? The terrorists who we hear most about are the ones who bloodily persue their threats and behead their hostages, or we see Beslan. And clearly there is something wrong with these people. Perhaps with many of them there is no reasoning or any means of useless negotiation or compromise anyway. How can you rationally reach a mutually beneficial decision with a man/group who is willing to behead someone or partake in the murder of a child?
One thing I did think about, was what does it make us when our hands are tied and we're forced to allow them to kill their hostages? It's a moral issue, but we're essentially allowing a murder when we could actually stop it, but intellectually we are thinking "no, we can't go down this road".
We've heard the arguments in this forum many times, and most often the argument is coming quite rationally and justly from one side or the other. How do we come at this from both?