Why the “non-Ransom” puts US at Risk
Was it a ransom? The President says he did not pay a $400 million dollar ransom to get back U.S. hostages from Iran. Why do folks think it was?
It was not wired, but delivered in the middle of the night IN CASH on an unmarked plane.
Iranian state television revealed image of a shipping crate with loads of cash, claiming it was a ransom.
One of the hostages says they were delayed for hours, sitting on the tarmac. He asked an Iranian intelligence agent why they were not leaving. He was told they were waiting on another airplane. That is exactly how a ransom works.
Obama used ransoms to get back Bowe Bergdahl, a traitor, and prisoners in Cuba. This is his M.O. We paid $7 Million to Somoli pirates in 2010.
What is the big deal? Don’t we want Americans back?
Good question. The answer is yes, but it is a big deal, because we are signaling to Terrorists, Dictators and Rogue Nations that you get lots of stuff, like $400 million dollars from the US, if you kidnap Americans. This puts every American that travels abroad at risk, not to mention our soldiers. And according to the Wall Street Journal, Iran has taken 3 more American hostages since the January payoff.
What is worse, is that Obama did this without congressional approval or even advice. Congress decides how funds are spent.
Did the Iranians see it as a Ransom?
And let me make one more point. Whether or not Obama and Kerry see this as a ransom or simply returning funds we took from Iran in 1979 is irrelevant. It is only relevant how the Iranians see it. And they see it as a ransom paid to get hostages released.
In a follow-up report, The Wall Street Journal noted that senior Justice Department officials objected to flying the cash to Tehran on grounds, in the words of one source, that “the Iranians probably did consider it a ransom payment.” NYPost
The Wall Street Journal continued…
Revolutionary Guard commanders boasted at the time that the Americans had succumbed to Iranian pressure. “Taking this much money back was in return for the release of the American spies,” said Gen. Mohammad Reza Naghdi, commander of the Guard’s Basij militia, on state media.
You see it makes no difference how we see the crates of cash delivered at the same time that hostages were released. We can call it a coincidence until we are blue in the face. It only matter how the evil regimes of the world see it. And they definitely see it as a ransom.
