The Obama administration is changing federal policy to allow the families of American hostages to negotiate ransom payments with the abductors, but a former high-ranking Air Force officer says that’s a recipe for many more Americans to get kidnapped.
On Wednesday, President Obama will announce the anticipated policy change. The change comes after the families of several Americans murdered by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, lashed out at the administration for refusing to let them negotiate and even allegedly threatening some with prosecution if they tried to pay a ransom.
Officials say U.S. government policy will remain unchanged in not paying ransom for American hostages, because they believe it will only encourage our enemies to take more citizens into custody.
Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney fears the very same thing will happen by letting families negotiate price of their loved one’s release.
“This is a very difficult one because there’s a great deal of emotion. But the fact is I think we’re going to see more cases of kidnapping by radical Islam and trying to use those Americans that are over there helping in the Arab countries as treasury bait,” said McInerney, who is also a military analyst for the Fox News Channel.
McInerney concedes that reasonable people can disagree about whether to give families the option of negotiating a ransom, but he says it’s the wrong choice and the administration is making a mistake by talking about it.
“I would much rather have not announced it because I think it will increase the number of kidnappings. I think if we had a covert program that could have been done, that would have been better,” said McInerney, who calls the policy change “a political decision.”
In addition to the protests of hostages’ families, McInerney believes the administration also changed course and adopted the policies of some European nations that allow families to negotiate with hostage takers.
The Obama administration is also promising to do a better job of communicating with the families of future hostages. Several families publicly scolded the government for infrequent updates and being treated as a nuisance when they asked federal officials for more information.
McInerney says that’s the least any government should be able to do.
“There is nothing that encourages the radical Islamists to kidnap people if we keep our people informed. So there’s absolutely no reason that the administration is not giving them up to date briefings, at least on a weekly or a bi-weekly basis,” he said.
In the big picture, McInerney says the best way to discourage more ISIS kidnappings is to wipe the radicals off the face of the earth. He is deeply frustrated by the administration’s refusal to use it’s air power dominance.
“We’ve got to take the handcuffs off our air power. Seventy-five percent of the missions that come back are not dropping bombs. I know the air commander over there says, ‘Well, the generals that are complaining have never fought this kind of war.’ He’s correct. We’ve never fought a war where we lost cities like this and air power has been so ineffective,” said McInerney.
McInerney says the Obama team is paralyzed by fears of killing innocents in the air campaign. He says that mindset cannot lead to success.
“We know where they are. We’re worried about the collateral damage. I think we have to accept it is war, accept that collateral damage and have it over quickly,” said McInerney.
