[kabar]

The reality is that the government has and will continue to negotiate with hostage takers either directly or thru surrogates. How do you think we get people back from North Korea, Iran, Colombian guerrillas, etc.

I have seen it firsthand. We often did spy/prisoner swaps with the Soviets. There are details about these negotiations that are never made public to keep up the facade that we don't negotiate with terrorists or hostage takers.

[petitfour]

Terrorists negotiate a lot better when they know their time is about to expire. I don’t think that makes it to the media unless some dip wad releases that we had a failed attempt at time expiration.