UK tactics 'led to Hassan death'

Murdered aid worker Margaret Hassan was killed in Iraq because the UK government refused to speak to her hostage-takers, her family has claimed.

Mrs Hassan, who had dual British/Iraqi nationality was abducted in October 2004. Her body has not been found.

A family statement said that during her captivity kidnappers made four calls to her Iraqi husband Tahseen demanding to speak to the British Embassy.

The government said they had wanted to "minimise" Mrs Hassan's UK links.

Three on trial

Three men are due to go on trial in Baghdad on Monday for the killing of the Care International worker - who was born in Dublin but had lived in Iraq for 30 years.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5046056.stm

is a form of sure murder by arrogance. If you never talk to your enemy how do you know he will never become your friend? How do you know what the enemy is really thinking or what their interests are? How do you know that you both don't want the same thing?

Moreover, so-called "Christians" who adhere to and support the policy of never negotiating with or talking to your enemy are not practicing the tenants of true Christianity. How can a person be "converted" unless he is spoken to. What happend with "Come, let us reason together?" "Love your enemy?" I say that most American "Christains" are anything but Christian.

And the tactics Bushco are taking to assure a conflict.

..or terrorists is pretty stupid. Hell, that is precisely what hostage negotiators do within our own police forces.

Negotiate anything of real value to kidnappers or terrorists? Absolutely not. But refusing to even take their call? That is just idiotic.

Sounds like Margaret Hassan's family has a good point here.

but don't all governments as a rule not talk with hostage takers so to reduce the incentive of people to engage in kidnappings. That's the policy that Reagan did NOT follow. Reagan's government did negotiate with kidnappers in the middle east and ended up trading weapons for hostages on a regular basis, no? (Wasn't that one of the parts of Iran-Contra??). And even today, in Iraq, the negotiations for hostage releases have been between private organizations and the hostage takers if they have taken place at all, so that employers and the aid organizations have to, themselves, decide if the ransoms they pay justify their activities in Iraq.

Just so you know. I'm not offering moral judgments on it.