Ransom Is Not a Countermeasure
The Taliban have now murdered a second South Korean hostage. I don’t know what I can say about the Taliban that I haven’t already said, other than that the odds are good they can be tracked down for their trials and whatever appropriately miserable fate awaits them in Pol-e-Charki Prison. There have been a lot of stories recently reporting that dozens of their fighters have been killed. Stories like this may or may not indicate a more significant trend. Insurgencies can often survive heavy casualties like this and quickly replace the losses if their clandestine infrastructures — their command, control, and logistics — survive intact. But the Taliban have lost a lot of their top commanders this year, which suggests that the replacement commanders are back-benchers who make mistakes, and those mistakes are getting their people killed. Good. Yesterday, the Fourth Rail reported that the Chairman of the Taliban’s Military Council was killed in a “targeted raid” in Helmand Province, in the Southwest near Iran. If the trend can be sustained, it will cost the Taliban recruits and money. Obviously, the last thing we want to do at a time like this is to free other experienced terrorists or leaders, or give them cash.
That’s what some in South Korea are proposing, although I give great weight to Sonagi’s translations suggesting that the Taliban are catching most of the rage in the chat rooms, as they should. Roh Moo Hyun called for “stern countermeasures,” but then confused matters by adding that he still opposes any rescue attempt — he favors more dialogue, of course. The worst possible kind:
“The government is well aware of how the international community deals with these kinds of abduction cases. But it also believes that it would be worthwhile to use flexibility in the cause of saving the precious lives of those still in captivity and is appealing the international community to do so,” said the statement. [Yonhap]
Which isn’t a very subtle way of saying that he wants Taliban prisoners to be freed, knowing full well that they’d go right back to killing American soldiers and Afghan civilians. You can call Roh may things, but you can’t fault his consistency. Paying protection money has been a bedrock principle of his government from the beginning. And what special distinction does Roh make to suggest that these hostages are more deserving than others as cause to deviate from the principle that we don’t reward terrorism? The United States should quietly and unamiguously refuse to go along with this, but sadly, there’s an excellent chance that we’ll quietly yield to Roh’s pressure instead. We’ve gotten used to this sort of thing recently. Roh would be wise to remember that if things deteriorate in Afghanistan because the Taliban get new blood and money, South Korea is one of the places we may go looking for more forces.
Peoples’ Labor Party was less subtle.
July 31, SEOUL, South Korea — Officials of the labor-friendly minor opposition Democratic Labor Party, including party chief Moon Sung-hyun (C), holds a press conference in front of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul on July 31, demanding that the United States take immediate actions to defuse a Korean hostage crisis in Afghanistan. (Yonhap)
Readers will remember that one of the DLP’s two main factions, the so-called “national liberation” faction, was recently revealed as essentially a North Korean front. North’s agents in its midst played a major role in organizing violent anti-American protests that inevitably drew the adoring eye of Cindy Sheehan and the droopy eye of Medea Benjamin.
Why strain so to make this all about America, even when the South Korean people (thankfully) don’t seem to be buying it so far? Two words: election year. Unless Japan lands the Imperial Guard on Tokdo, demonizing America is the only hope the far left has of giving itself a unifying issue. In a sense, the North Korea nuclear issue is off the table for now, which is probably the best thing I can say about Agreed Framework 2.0, as long as it doesn’t last long beyond the election. The left can’t talk about the economy it ruined, either.
[Update: More spinning this into an anti-American issue, via Michelle Malkin]
What you will not see this year is any similar issue being made of China not helping to secure the release of thousands of South Koreans who have been held in North Korea for decades. Remember them? Hardly anyone in South Korea seems to. And unlike the hostages in Afghanistan, who knowingly introduced themselves into a very dangerous place, North Korea’s hostages were kidnapped off South Korean beaches and fishing boats, or are soldiers the North had agreed to return to their families in the 1953 Armistice. Not that I support paying ransom to Kim Jong Il, but if billions are being paid anyway, wouldn’t calling it ransom be a step in the right direction?
There is another alternative. If Roh would threaten to introduce signficant combat forces to Afghanistan if the hostages aren’t released promptly — I mean a battalion or more of ROK Special Forces for at least a year — that would be a significant deterrent. Those forces should not be sent on a mission of raid, rampage, and revenge, which will only make more recruits for the Taliban in the long run. They should take responsibility for stabilizing a limited area of battle space that the Taliban are currently using for recruiting or growing dope. Roh should also realize that the Taliban take hostages in part for propaganda reasons, and that they are watching how their actions are viewed. So far, they’ve generally caught a break, and the captives themselves have been the objects of far more derision. If South Korean government would vocally demonize the Taliban and ignite popular outrage against them — and we know they can do that, don’t we? — the Taliban might conclude that this enterprise is doing more harm than good. Talk of yielding to their demands will only get more people kidnapped and killed.
[Update 2: GI Korea makes a great point: “This whole thing is especially ironic when one considers the Korean government’s attitude the past five years of wanting “independent diplomacy” and a “more equal relationship” with the US, but when it is time to act like a grown up nation it is back to the were the “helpless Korea” diplomacy and America needs to do something.”]
See also:
* “Four North Koreans who sought asylum in South Korea after entering the Danish Embassy in Vietnam earlier this month have been handed over to South Korean officials in a third country, a U.S. government-funded radio station reported Tuesday.” [Yonhap]
* North Korea has held an “election,” and Yonhap helpfully passes along that “all voters across the country took part in the election with ardent revolutionary enthusiasm.” Yonhap’s coverage of internal North Korean events recently has taken on a Rodong-lite flavor, and this report of how Kim Jong Il voted is also passed along pretty much unleavened.