- Ilana FreedmanOnce again a European country has bowed to terrorism and put the rest of the world at heightened risk. On Tuesday, November 17, a ransom of $3.3 million was paid by the Spanish government to a pack of Somali pirates, to free the 36 crew members of the Basque tuna seiner fishing boat "Alakrana". The nature of the small fishing boat made it abundantly clear that the target of this piracy was the human cargo and the high ransom they would command.
The tuna boat was hijacked by pirates in the Indian Ocean before dawn on the morning of October 2. They had cast their nets some 375 miles east of the Somali coast when they were captured. They were held captive for seven weeks while the negotiations between the pirates and the Spanish government dragged on.
It must be a fearful thing to be a fisherman on a boat commandeered by 12 heavily armed pirates who threaten them with death while the weeks of captivity drag on. But the consequences of a government paying a $3 million ransom go far beyond this story. Terrorists are emboldened when they are rewarded for their acts of terror. The potential loss of many more lives than were saved here once again raises the question: where do you draw the line when dealing with terrorism?
The Price of Ransom
Our Western principles hold that each life has value. America was built on the fundamental belief that "all men are created equal . . .with certain inalienable rights . . . [including] life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But when others, who do not share these values, put our lives at risk in the name of money, power, or religion, we are faced with a dilemma. Do we pay the price demanded in order to free those captives, each of whom has value within the context of a free society, and bring relief to their anxious families? Or do we consider the consequences of such an appeasement: that it encourages even more acts of terrorism by proving that our respect for the lives of our people is a valuable bargaining chip; and that the payment of a ransom - money, the release of imprisoned comrades, prestige and power among their peers - is a price we are more than willing to pay in order to save the lives of their hostages.
Israel has found that this imbalance in values can elicit dramatic results. When dealing with their enemies, in whose eyes one Israeli life has proven to be worth many of theirs, the exchange of hostages has almost never been equal. Over the last 30 years, Israel has exchanged nearly 7,000 Arab prisoners in order to secure the release of 19 Israelis, and the bodies of eight others. In 2004, for example, Israel traded 436 Arab prisoners and the bodies of 59 Lebanese fighters for one Israeli civilian and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers. In 1996, Israel released 65 prisoners in exchange for the return of the bodies of two soldiers from Lebanon. Israel's largest prisoner exchange occurred in 1983, when 4,600 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners were exchanged for six Israeli soldiers captured in Lebanon in 1982.
What Israel has never really learned is that these exchanges prove to terrorists that Israel will always pay a high price for the return of its soldiers and civilians. Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier kidnapped into Gaza in a cross-border raid by terrorists, has been held for more than three years. Rumors of his pending release suggest that he will be exchanged for over 100 Palestinians currently in Israeli prisons.
Among the consequences of these uneven exchanges is that freed terrorists will often return and commit more acts of terror. This incentivizes the capture of Israelis by terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hizballah. In fact, Hamas recently demonstrated this principle, taking it to a new level, when a Gaza 'charity', linked to the terrorist organization, offered $1.4 million to anybody who would capture an Israeli soldier.
Likewise, when it comes to maritime piracy, the ante keeps going up. The alarming rise in piracy in the past year should be a stark warning. A total of 306 incidents were reported to the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC) in the first nine months of this year (in 2008, the total number of attacks for the entire year was 293). In the same period, the use of guns in these attacks has risen by more than 200%. If the pattern continues, the number of attacks on ships plying international waters in 2009 will approach 400.
A total of 661 crewmembers were taken hostage so far this year: 12 kidnapped, seven killed, and eight reported missing. A United Nations Security Council report specifically blamed escalating ransom payments for fuelling the rise of piracy off the Somali coast. Ransom paid in this year alone has exceeded $100 million, making maritime piracy an exceedingly lucrative business. When an adversary is willing to let his own men die as a consequence of achieving a greater aim - whether it be money, religion, or power - he holds the upper hand.
Paying astronomical ransoms to maritime pirates comes at a significant cost, because of the indirect impact on world affairs. First, the cost of shipping rises dramatically, as insurance premiums rise and the cost of goods transported by sea also rise. There is a far more insidious consequence as well, related to the flow of ransom money following payment. The Somali pirates actually see relatively little of the ransom money after the dust settles. They are a small but important link in a much larger organization, whose tendrils reach far into the Middle East and around the world. There, power brokers use the stream of ransom money as a funding mechanism for drugs, money laundering, human trafficking, and terrorism. The same ransom money that returned the hostages to their families, now goes to support suicide bombers and terrorist training. As the appeasement of maritime piracy provides needed capital to fuel these enterprises, its value as a cash cow will spur a piracy epidemic of global proportions.
Bringing Terror Home
There is an Arab proverb that says, "He who brings a lion into his home, loses his children to the wild." While the Israelis are willing to trade prisoners for hostages after the fact, they discovered long ago that negotiating with terrorists during an attack is counter-productive and wreaks far more havoc on society than an immediate strong response against the perpetrators. Their longstanding rule against negotiating with terrorists has helped to limit attacks against its population.
The Israeli model has its down-side - because there is always the possibility that innocent hostages from the initial attack may fall as a result of the response. And this is considered a tragedy of epic proportions. But the message is clear and strong, and its practice has saved the lives of countless others.
There are unintended consequences that arise from negotiating with terrorists. Although we think we take the high ground, standing on the lofty principles of fairness and what we consider to be decency, they perceive our kindness as weakness and foolishness. While we negotiate, they laugh at us and plot their next attacks. In the eyes of the terrorist, negotiations are perceived as a sign of weakness and naïveté, giving them time to regroup, and encouraging future attacks. While we seek to appease, they seek out our soft spots at which to aim their weapons. As the Israelis discovered a long time ago, the price of appeasement is far too high to pay.
Today, the lion is in our home, and every day it feeds on political correctness and appeasement. When we fail to call terrorism by name, we stimulate its growing appetite for violence. The deaths of thirteen men and women in Fort Hood has demonstrated quite clearly a consequence of our irrational pre-occupation with diversity and political correctness. But we call it murder, not terrorism, and we limit our ability to prosecute it and impede our ability to prevent it from occurring again.
Instead of recognizing deviant behavior for what it is, we try to rationalize why it is normal. Instead of reporting anti-social and violent rhetoric to authorities, we excuse it or ignore it. We try to appease those who would hurt us, and hope that our good intentions will make them magically stop wanting to do us harm.
We cannot afford the luxury of ignoring what is in front of us because it is uncomfortable or politically incorrect. We are at war with an implacable enemy. Whether it takes the form of a pirate on the high seas, an egocentric president in Iran or North Korea, or a jihadist in our backyard, appeasement is the worst possible strategy of all. The $3.3 million ransom paid last week to maritime terrorists will come back to haunt every ship that passes through open waters. Whatever attitude spawned the payment - whether it was fear, cowardice, political correctness, greed, political pressure, compassion, moral blindness, or just fatigue - it is likely to bear the burden of responsibility for setting yet one more precedent for the growth of terrorist empowerment around the world.
Ilana Freedman is CEO and Senior Analyst for Gerard Group International. Gerard Group specializes in intelligence analysis for business and government. The company provides intelligence-led programs to secure facilities and operational processes at home and overseas. For more information, please visit our website at gerardgroup.com
Gerard Group International was founded in 1983 and quickly achieved a reputation for excellence for our innovative approach to problem solving in a time of rapid technological change. We are best known for integrating relevant and often critical intelligence into programs that provide real and lasting solutions to the immediate and long-range concerns of our diverse client base. 
