To Sacrifice? Or Not to Sacrifice? THAT is a Terrible Question...

Prompt: Hijack!!

Although, I would never even dream of becoming the leader of this country, let’s, just this once, pretend that I am the President of the United States of America…it does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it??

The nation’s current policy on terrorism is as follows:

• The US will not negotiate, pay ransom, or make any agreement involving hostages with people supporting terrorism.
  
• Although, the federal government will do everything in its power to return any persons being held against their will by terrorists in as safe a manner as possible.
  

And I whole heartedly agree.

Now, now. Before you get your panties all in a wad, let me finish. Imagine that terrorists hijack an American plane and threaten to blow it, and everyone aboard, to pieces if my country doesn’t release from custody certain terrorist criminals. If it was my responsibility as president to come to a decision I would decide to say “Nope. No way.”

I believe that no negotiation is the best way. How many times in movies has the pretty girl been captured by the villain and used for bait/ransom to get the handsome hero to do what he wants? And how many times has that same pretty girl desperately told the hero “Don’t listen to him!!! Don’t do it!!”? Take the animated Hercules for instance. (Bear with me…) Meg is in a chokehold thanks to Hades who is telling Hercules to give up all his immortal powers or the girl gets it. Meg tells Hercules not to listen to Hades, but what does the oaf do? He agrees and gives all his godlike ability over to the lord of the dead. Sadly, Meg made a deal with Hades from the beginning that she would serve as bait to get Hercules’s powers as long as Hades didn’t kill him. So, not only does the hero lose all his cool powers, but he gets his feelings hurt as well. Meg did tell him though…

See, what if I agreed to hand over the criminals, and the hijackers had already planted a bomb on the airliner and they kill the passengers anyways? And even if they didn’t blow up the plane, those newly freed criminals could be the very ones to develop another terroristic attack where even more innocent lives are lost. In my view, I would not want my country to stoop low enough to even make out what terrorists are saying, much less actually negotiate with them. Any person who thinks it’s cute to just randomly blow up buildings with thousands of people inside, is not even good enough to look at.

Some people, including myself when I first read the prompt, may question the morality behind this decision. The idea that my decision could kill 100 people just to keep, maybe, five captured terrorists in American custody is frightening even to me. But, what if the criminals crack and give up information about the other terrorists, for example: where they all LIVE! :) You could be saving hundreds of thousands of people in the future!

Governments are not godlike. They are made up of humans: Humans who fumble and make mistakes and are not perfect. The job of deciding who may die and who may live should not be on any person’s shoulders, but somebody’s got to do it. Personally, I am very glad it isn’t me.