Britain Stands Against "The Bully"

This is exactly what the terrorists want: people to cry out.
Striking terror into the hearts of innocent people in order to get what they want.
And as usual: people die.
Same pattern. Over and over.
And make the United States look bad in the process. Well, it appears to be working. Gotta admit that such a manipulative group would figure out how to achieve that act. They've been doing it for years.

Applause to Britain.
Negotiating with a terrorist group is like...

• ...going to the dentist who tells you, "This isn't going to hurt." (Yeah right. One word: novocaine.)
  
• ...getting a shot from a doctor who says, "You're just going to feel a poke" as he wiggles the needle into your skin.
  
• ...telling your teenager to clean their room. (Ain't gonna happen. Under the bed and inside the closet are good hiding places to throw things quickly out of the way.)
  
• ...making deals with the devil. (Quote from Warrick on CSI episode #103 "Crate and Burial": You start making deals with the devil, you don't get to walk away. You understand what I'm saying?)
  

You get the point.

Britain Stands Firm as Hostage Pleads
By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 23, 2004; 2:07 PM

LONDON, Sept. 23 -- Britain stood firm Thursday in refusing to bargain with the kidnappers of a British civil engineer in Baghdad despite an emotional direct appeal from the victim to Prime Minister Tony Blair.
…
Bigley's brother Paul accused the United States of intervening to prevent a prisoner release that Iraqi officials had agreed to. "We had a stay of execution and we have saved my brother's life for at least 24 hours," he told BBC radio. "That was a shadow of light in a big, long, dark, damp, filthy, cold tunnel. Now this has been sabotaged."

He added: "Is this a puppet government or are the Americans moving the goalposts to suit their own aims again?"
…
The only two known women prisoners are Rihab Taha and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, both of whom are senior scientists who worked on deposed leader Saddam Hussein's alleged biological weapons programs. There was confusion earlier this week when Iraqi officials suggested that Taha could be released. But U.S. officials made clear that the former germ warfare specialist is in American custody and would not be freed in response to the kidnapers' demands.

Blair received unsolicited support from his main political opponent, Conservative Party leader Michael Howard. He said he hoped the Bigley family would forgive him for wholeheartedly endorsing Blair's stance.

"We cannot give in to people who behave in this barbaric fashion," Howard told the BBC. "It would be a green light to them to take more hostages and kill more people. I feel desperately for Kenneth Bigley and his family. And I feel for Mr. Blair too, who is in the most unenviable predicament."

The terrorists know what they are doing.
Putting the ball in someone else's court to make a choice... a choice THEY already made: to die or not to die. With an ultimatum attached.

Again, people die.
That's the price of terrorism.