In my minds eye if we don't get our hostages or hostage out unharmed then we should leave the entire holding area with punishing death and destruction using any means possible. Scorched Earth!
Have you noticed that they don't grab any Russians? They did at one time but they can't afford to do it again.
Leda
It is thought that the average cost of 'buying back' an hostage costs on average between 4 and 8 millions dollars each. The certainty of receiving so much money would make taking hostages a profitable business to be increased for ever more, not only by this specific group of Arabs, but by all terrorists in the Muslim world. The whole of Africa certainly. It's money they will use to subsidize their acts of terror and killing or enslaving other human beings.
Anonymous
They can and will grab Russians, there are vendettas still to settle over the Chechen issue. The thing is though... Russians don't invade middle eastern countries which are not part of their federation.
Scorched Earth is a military tactic used to deny local resources to invading armies, lengthen their supply lines and make supplying them them more costly.
You should also note that blowing up entire villages did no more good for the American cause in Vietnam than it did for the Germans in WW2 Soviet Union.
PoohBearPenguin
Yes, let's murder 1000s of innocent civilians because our operation failed.
Look, this isn't some video game. Sometimes US ops aren't successful. Sometimes we don't get to be the heroes. That doesn't mean we should take it out on the local populace.
That'd be like a football team burning down the stadium if they lost.
?
Why would they take Russian hostages when there are no Russians meddling in the Middle East like the U.S, France and Britain. If you were there and the U.S. forces killed your family by accident or on purpose, would you not want revenge?
Abbey Normal
Like the world doesn't hate us already.