Obama paid ransom to Iran to release prisoners, and lied about it to the public

So your position is paying the ransom is a good idea you just can't say its a good idea? why can you do it but not say it?

 

Sometimes it is and sometimes it is not, in international politics, nothing is black and white. You cannot follow rigid rules.

 

Obama disagrees. He says you never pay ransom for citizens. He doesn't add caveats.

 

Lol, are you three year old? It is just laughable people are attacking him on this point.

 

Thank you for that lesson there are many here that needed it. BT most of all.

 

Imagine the reaction if we sent a plane-load of cash to Iran and they reneged on their promise to release hostages? Republicans would say, "how could you send all that cash to Iran without even making sure the hostages were free?" They were mad enough about signing the nuclear deal without the hostages included in it. Of course, had they been included, I suppose the story line would have been that Obama paid a ransom-in-kind in the nuclear deal.

The reason we don't pay ransoms is that we don't want anyone to think they should go capture some Americans to make a quick buck. So, the relevant question here is, has some rogue now taken the lesson that they should go ahead and kidnap some Americans to flip for cash? I think the answer is no because, if Iran had no hostages, we would still have given them the money as a result of settlement talks. They didn't need the hostages to get cash; having hostages became a liability to them receiving the cash, which they had to get rid of. You could argue that having hostages gave them leverage to get the settlement (debatable), but not for getting the plane-load of cash.

Besides that, if some bad actor looks at this and says, "Aha! Obama will pay ransoms!" what would it matter? The deal with Iran wasn't a simple money-for-hostage situation. There's nuclear compliance, there's sanctions, there's frozen assets, there's Russia, there's oil and geo-politics. If we cut a deal with Iran, it wouldn't mean we'd cut a deal with every Tom, Dick, and Harry with an American in his basement. Even with the most cynical view of this deal with Iran, who would think we'd do a deal with ISIS or the Zetas, or North Korea? Finally, aside from all that, Obama is only president for a few more months.

So, final analysis: not really a ransom, not an indication of a willingness to pay a ransom, and not an incentive to commit kidnappings to get a ransom. Seems to me Obama did it the right way.

 

How much investment do you think the US has in 10 naval special operators?

It takes about $1,000,000 of training to produce a SEAL.

 

Right? I mean, Spielberg spent $70M to save just one private.

 

Interesting analogy. Mexico got their money and US got land - contract satisfied for both parties. US got $400M and Iran got ______ (blank) - contract unfulfilled. We're the morons?

 

http://http://freebeacon.com/national-security/state-dept-warns-iran-seeking-capture-u-s-citizens/

Guys it wasn't a ransom. It was totally unrelated.