# Should the US have negotiated for that reporters release? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 21, 2014, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-have-negotiated-for-that-reporters-release/696074 "2014-08-21T09:42:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-have-negotiated-for-that-reporters-release/696074/61 "2014-08-24T14:06:21Z")
You keep saying “most Muslim countries”. Okay, exactly how many Muslim countries are there and what’s the exact number of said Muslim countries that are backward? ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-have-negotiated-for-that-reporters-release/696074/62 "2014-08-24T17:57:55Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Yeah, like this load of crap from you isn’t bigoted, too, hey? Am I wrong? How many people have been killed by Muslims in response to unflattering depictions of Muhammad or alleged mistreatment of copies of the Koran? How many people have been killed by Christians in response to Piss Christ, comics depicting God as a cannibal who eats people who go to heaven or showing God with his head blown off, or that picture of a bunch of gods having an orgy? Hell, how many people did the Buddhists kill in retaliation for the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-have-negotiated-for-that-reporters-release/696074/63 "2014-08-24T19:14:01Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > You keep saying “most Muslim countries”. Okay, exactly how many Muslim countries are there and what’s the exact number of said Muslim countries that are backward? Sure, backward Muslim majority countries: Afghanistan Algeria Bahrain Bangladesh Brunei Burkina Faso Chad Comoros Djibouti Egypt Gambia Guinea Iran Iraq Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Maldives Mali Mauritania Niger Oman Pakistan Palestine\* Qatar Saudi Arabia Senegal Sierra Leone Somalia South Sudan Sudan Syria Tunisia United Arab Emirates Western Sahara\* Yemen Not Completely Backward: Azerbaijan Indonesia Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan Borderline Modern: Albania Kosovo Malaysia- Turkey- - = Pseudo countries - = Countries heading in the wrong direction in this regard ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-have-negotiated-for-that-reporters-release/696074/64 "2014-08-24T21:22:44Z")
Now define “backward”. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-have-negotiated-for-that-reporters-release/696074/65 "2014-08-24T21:50:16Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Sure we should negotiate. Release the guy unharmed, and we won’t dip your corpses in pig blood when we kill you. Otherwise, you’ll meet Allah wrapped in bacon. How charming. Thankfully when Jewish terrorists from the Irgun kidnapped and executed British soldiers and civilians the British didn’t choose to do that to any captured Jewish terrorists. Once again James Foley would roll over in his grave. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-have-negotiated-for-that-reporters-release/696074/66 "2014-08-24T21:54:38Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > You don’t know the meaning of the word. Threatening to desecrate the corpses of rapists, murderers and slavers is not bigotry against Muslims. That’s not to say that many Muslims wouldn’t take it personally and call it bigotry against all Muslims, but that’s because there are too many people in the Muslim world who take _everything_ personally. Agreed, certainly the Jews of Palestine wouldn’t have screamed about anti-Semitism if the bodies of executed Jewish terrorists were drenched in pigs blood before being buried. Similarly, in his book A Place Among the Nations, Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t express outrage at Jordanian forces taking headstones from Jewish graveyards to make into latrines. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-have-negotiated-for-that-reporters-release/696074/67 "2014-08-25T03:20:04Z")
I’d invest the money in hunting the IS down. They need to go and times a wastin. ---
**Author:** ![cain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85e7bf/32.png) [@cain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cain)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-have-negotiated-for-that-reporters-release/696074/68 "2014-08-25T05:32:52Z")
If I was about to be decapitated, I’d scream my head off. ---
**Author:** ![buddy431](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6a8cbe/32.png) [@buddy431](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddy431)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-have-negotiated-for-that-reporters-release/696074/69 "2014-08-25T15:05:25Z")
So now a different American hostage, Peter Theo Curtis, [has been released](http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-hostage-peter-theo-curtis-freed-in-syria/2014/08/24/aaa0d07d-37ac-407a-8753-23574383b4cf_story.html), after about 2 years in captivity. He was being held in Syria by Jabhat al-Nusra, an Al-Qaeda affiliate (who are generally not friends with Islamic State). It sounds like negotiations of some sort, through Qatar, have been ongoing for some time, but I wonder if Foley’s death spurred a quicker resolution. The U.S. denies that any ransom has been paid. Qatar I guess has a good deal of influence with Jabhat al-Nusra and some other groups in Syria, and has been accused of funneling funds to them (which they deny). Previous deals have involved prisoner swaps, as well as in some cases money changing hands. I doubt we’ll ever really learn what happened to make this deal possible. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-have-negotiated-for-that-reporters-release/696074/70 "2014-08-25T15:24:23Z")
[quote=“handsomeharry, post:59, topic:696074”] > [@brickbacon](#): > > Can we have some cites? I suspect that a really good military strike will end, or slow down, (which, done enough, will \*end \*something) terrorism. > Too often, it is the US demands to negotiate that increase, or at least keep up, the levels of terror. Interference to make sure that the balance of power in the ME remains the status quo. > Didn’t Israel have Arafat ready for a hole in the ground, and the US interfered with that, only to get us back in the same cycle, resulting in today’s Gaza mess? I linked to the study examining how these terrorist groups end. Obviously you cannot directly apply what was done in situation A to situation B, but the thrust of the paper as I understood it is that terrorist groups achieve legitimacy more than we acknowledge, and that a military response often doesn’t several our goals. As many have noted, ISIL seems particularly barbaric, so a strategy of cooperation may not work in this case. But, it’s worth noting the irony that ISIL’s barbarism has led some to suggest we align with Assad to take them down. Assad being the guy whose government many people were calling a terrorist regime only a few months ago. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-have-negotiated-for-that-reporters-release/696074/71 "2014-08-25T21:05:58Z")
Still waiting on that definition. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-have-negotiated-for-that-reporters-release/696074/72 "2014-08-25T21:29:05Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Sure we should negotiate. Release the guy unharmed, and we won’t dip your corpses in pig blood when we kill you. Otherwise, you’ll meet Allah wrapped in bacon. > [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > . . . the Islamic world is extremely barbaric and backwards. If not for trade with the West they would not have running water, electricity or et cetera, and most of the countries only have minimal of either of those. They are a medieval people that only begrudgingly accept parts of the modern world. > [@Grumman](#): > > Threatening to desecrate the corpses of rapists, murderers and slavers is not bigotry against Muslims. If you guys want to open a thread in The BBQ Pit where you can voice your hatred of and ignorance of Muslim people and nations, feel free to do so. Posting this nonsense in Great Debates looks much more like trolling for attention–trying to get the most shocked reaction to the silliest and most inflammatory claim. Knock it off. [/Moderating] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-have-negotiated-for-that-reporters-release/696074.md?page=3)