The men who seized the US journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan were using a common terrorist tactic. It has been used by little-known groups to achieve an international profile, as when a virtually unknown Eritrean group seized a British journalist in the seventies. On that occasion there was never any serious concern that the man would be killed. The kidnappers spent the three months in which they held him, arguing their cause. When they released him, he wrote extensively about his experiences. The insurgents became widely known and the journalist, though suffering fear and discomfort, had achieved some excellent copy. That did not, however, in any way justify what the Eritreans had done.
The classic example of the futility and counterproductivity of hostage taking was in Lebanon. Over time, militant groups seized a large number of American and European hostages, many of whom had made their home in the Lebanon and loved the country and its people. One of the others grabbed was a man who had come to the country to negotiate the freedom of earlier hostages.
Ransoms or political demands were made. Sometimes the ransoms were met and the hostages released. However, the political demands were never granted. The hostage takers murdered some of their captives in a vain attempt to ratchet up the tension and the potency of their threats. The only thing that this brutality achieved was to ignite a justifiable loathing in the world at large. They brought shame upon Lebanon, upon their community and upon whatever cause they claimed to support.
Also condemned were those few governments that caved in and sought by clandestine methods, to pay off the kidnappers. In the short term, they may have secured the release of one of their nationals, but in demonstrating that they were capable of being suborned into paying a ransom, they were condemning all their other citizens to the likelihood that they too would be seized if they strayed into the path of the kidnappers.
The British always vowed that they would never pay or sanction the payment of any ransom, a line later taken up by the Americans. Thus, if hostage takers said they would kill a kidnap victim unless money was handed over, then that was what they were going to have to do. The governments’ view has been that tragic though the reality is, it remains better that one or two unfortunate individuals should be slain, than the conditions created for open season for kidnappers on any of their citizens in the conflict region. On this basis, Daniel Pearl was a dead man the minute the terrorists seized him. Washington was never going to give in to any of their demands, least of all a change in the conditions of Taleban and Al-Qaeda suspects held at Guantanamo Bay. Butchering a trussed up prisoner is hardly going to force any such review. More likely, it may encourage US guards to behave with less, rather than more, consideration toward their prisoners.
Those who grabbed Pearl have guaranteed the hostility of the international press corps, have disgusted world opinion, deeply embarrassed the Pakistan government and caused the white hot anger of the US war machine to focus upon them. They will probably deeply regret their knuckle-headed savagery.
