Hostages

It is unfortunate that a drone strike killed hostages, and I won’t even get into the morality or effectiveness of drone strikes in general, but I do want to talk about hostages.

I taught a political science class at Soledad State Prison one semester.  When professors signed up to teach there, we were told that if we were taken hostage during a prison riot, prison officials would make no attempt to negotiate or bargain with the prisoners for our lives.  As bargaining chips, we would be useless.

The theory was that since this policy was general knowledge among the prisoners, there would be no incentive to take a worthless professor hostage.

It seems to make sense, and it is a good rationale for a policy of never negotiating with hostage takers.  The policy may be cruel and may initially get some hostages killed, but in the long run it should save lives.