The price of a Life

I read this morning in the Globe and Mail about how a Canadian freelance journalist was kidnapped back in November and about how the Taliban were asking for a 375,000$ ransom in exchange for her life. The woman's name is Beverly Giesbrecht, also known as Khadija Abdul Qahaar, after converting to Islam. She publishes a pro-Islamic website, Jihad Unspun.

I'm not sure what the Canadian government is going to do, but I'm assuming we'll pay the ransom and get this woman back to West Vancouver as soon as possible. Regardless of her political views she is still a Canadian and should be treated with the same respect as any other Canadian would if he/she were in the situation.

The whole article has lead me to ask myself: who comes up with these dollar amounts and how are they evaluated? What is the price of a human life? How is a life valued?

Does the ransom amount depend on your job, your looks, your country of origin? Your countries willingness to pay? I'm not sure, but I find the idea of putting a price tag on a life something absolutely disgusting.

Just by typing the words TALIBAN and RANSOM into Google I came up with a few figures:
-Korea paid 4,000,000$ for the release of 21 hostages (190,476$ each)
-Korea also paid 20,000,000 for the release of 19 hostages (1,052,631$ each)
-Channel 4 (England) paid 150,000GPB (266,736$ CDN) for a hostage
-India paid 15,000,000INR (370,212$ CDN) for the release of a hostage

Newsweek claims that ransom demands is the second largest source of income for the Taliban. Which also brings me to the question of: how can we stop these kidnappings if we keep paying? And the even bigger question of: Are we willing to sacrifice people to end the cycle of extortion and kidnapping?

One the one hand, I hate the idea of paying a terrorist group any amount of money for any kind of reason. But I hate even more the idea that people are held captive and may die if we don't. It's a lose-lose situation. If someone dies, we lose. If we pay, we lose.

All I have to say is that I find this entire practice of kidnapping to be absolutely appalling and that anyone from any faith, Islam or anything else, should be punished by whatever god they believe in when judgment day comes.

Muchacho Enfermo

Pakistan : Hey Swat...you're still on your own!

Why has Pakistan abandoned Swat? Over the last two years Pakistan made it clear that its policy concerning the goings on in the Swat province was a strategy known as “head in the sand”. Yesterday the people of Swat finally had something to cheer about: The Pakistani government and the radical groups that control swat struck a deal that would make Sharia the official rule of law in Swat.

Apparently all rejoiced at this news in Swat, the Globe and Mail reports people dancing in the streets, markets and schools reopening. Good news for all right? Especially given that the bargaining position of the residents of swat started from the very weak : “Ordinary people want peace at any cost.”

Maybe... but maybe not... What about the schools that have already burned down, what about the market where women get executed for shopping, what about the countless other atrocities? Will the Sharia help the people or help the radicals? Because as we all know the law can always be bent to serve those in power.

NATO experts now fear that Swat will become a hotbed for extremists and Taliban who want to slip in and out of Afghanistan. That means bad news for our Canadian troops. “We should all be concerned by a situation in which extremists would have a safe haven,” NATO spokesman James Appathurai said.

The people of Pakistan are worried that a deal like this will set precedence that extremists might seek to repeat in other provinces and regions of the country. The director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said “It will spread to the rest of the Frontier province (...) once it spreads to Frontier, then why not Punjab ”.

I’m no expert on the matter, far from it, but when I hear the words: deal, government, Taliban and peace in the same sentence, something just strikes me as not right.

So just to recap:
-Pakistan has made a deal with the same extremists that wanted to close girl schools and execute women for shopping. Pakistan basically struck a deal with the devil.
-NATO experts are worried
-Pakistanis are afraid that this will set precedence and force Islamabad to strike similar deals in other regions.
-And people are dancing in the street?

What it boils down to folks is this: the only ones who aren’t worried are the ones in power because Swat still belongs to them.

(I’m going to read more on this subject today and hopefully someone will post here and correct me if I’m wrong.)

Muchacho Enfermo

Women must be executed for... shopping?

I read today in a blog I fallow called A Reluctant Mind that in the city of Mingora in Pakistan the Taliban have declared that all women entering the market will be executed. This was originally reported in the Daily Times.

To most of us in the west this seems crazy... as it does to most people living in urban centers in Pakistan. But the bottom line is that things like this happen even in a country that is considered a major US ally in the fight against the Taliban.

I'm just really at a loss for words I'm just in shock...


"‘Women are not allowed in the market,’ reads a banner displayed at the entrance of a market in Mingora. Taliban have banned the entry of women in markets and ordered the killing of women who violate the ban. Most shop owners have sold or shut down their businesses because of falling sales following the restriction." Daily Times

Muchacho Enfermo