House Tries to Pass Hostage Recovery Improvement Act
Should someone who willing goes into North Korea and does something stupid be considered a hostage?
A U.S. House lawmaker has introduced a bill that appoints a federal officer charged with overseeing efforts to win the release of American citizens held by hostile groups and rogue states like North Korea.
The Hostage Recovery Improvement Act (H.R.1498), introduced by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) late last month with support from 11 co-sponsors, calls for the president to designate “an existing federal officer to coordinate efforts to secure the release of U.S. citizens who are hostages of hostile groups or state sponsors of terrorism.”
The “Interagency Hostage Recovery Coordinator” should be named within 60 days after the bill’s enactment.
While defining the term “state sponsors of terrorism,” the bill singled out North Korea as a country that should be considered a terrorism sponsor nation under the act, even though the communist nation is no longer on the State Department’s list of states sponsoring terrorism.
U.S. citizens have often been detained in North Korea. [Yonhap]
You can read the rest at the link.
There has been no need to win the return of “hostages” in North Korea because there have not been any “hostages” (in recent times).
Everybody who has been a “hostage” in North Korea has been a criminal… intentionally violating well-known laws (no Jesus allowed) or internationally standard laws (don’t slip across the border).
When we lie to ourselves about the meanings of words and the accuracy of situations, it makes it harder to make correct decisions.
As for other countries, there are some American hostages… both due to kidnapping and for “criminal” activity that is not clearly criminal.
Unfortunately, the United States government is not very worried about them… choosing to spend more time retrieving criminals from North Korea and deserters from Afghanistan.
Examples would be: Amir Hekmati, Armando Torres III, maybe Caitlan Coleman and Warren Weinstein
If the government insists on calling criminals hostages, at least rescue criminals who are doing something positive rather than just being stupid.
Examples would be: Alan Gross, Robert Levinson
Anyone in DPRK should be left there, including reporters who wait for Bubba Clinton to come “rescue” them. Any one dumb enough to cross the DPRK border, especially former soldiers who fought in the Korean War should be left to their own devices, they were not sent there at gunpoint. As far as so many other countries who have detained “spies” that are really aid workers or others who maybe ended up in-country at the wrong time we should use diplomacy to get their return or did we suddenly close all our embassies? Another area that so many people forget are children who are taken out of country by the non-custodial parent, it seems once a kid leaves the US they no longer exist, there is maybe a need for someone to assist the State Dept. to help return them here to the parent the judge determined was best parent to raise the kids.
We have a long standing policy that our government will not officially negotiate for hostages. What, exactly, is the Hostage Recovery Coordinator supposed to be doing, directing the commando teams?
“We have a long standing policy that our government will not officially negotiate for hostages.”
We HAD a long standing policy that our government will not officially negotiate for hostages.
Obama squandered that hard-earned security by negotiating the release of a piece of shyt deserter.
…not to mention all the money and political capital flushed away over Ling and Lee.
None-the-less, a Hostage Recovery Coordinator is a good idea… if their job is to coordinate three-letter intel, law enforcement, State Department, and military, with the intention of retrieving hostages rather than negotiating for them.