At times, I think that it is an immoral act committed by people with few, if any, morals. Other times, I think that it is an act of desperation committed by people who can’t get what they want by any other means. On a good day, I think that it is some of both. If you think that I am talking about Hamas taking civilians as hostages that can be used as bargaining chips, you are correct. But it isn’t only Hamas.
Russians taking Ukranian children from their parents is no less horrific. Trump’s minions taking children from their migrant families and then deporting their parents is nothing less than hostage-taking. Senator Tuberville’s holding up military promotions in an effort to force the military to do his bidding on reproductive freedom for women in the military is also hostage-taking. Speaker Johnson’s holding up appropriations for Israeli aid and humanitarian aid to Palestine unless funding is extracted from the IRS is hostage-taking too. Holding up Ukrainian aid to extort some other concession from the government is as well.
Hostage takers engage in extortion of one type or another. It is a form of the asymmetric use of force. The hostage taker is too weak to achieve his goals without resorting to extortion. So, the hostage, whether human or a policy or institution, becomes a pawn, who has, in the eyes of the hostage taker, no intrinsic value. The hostage is simply a thing to be used to extort from those who value the hostage something that the hostage taker cannot otherwise obtain. Whether the hostage is an innocent person or something abstract unrelated to what the hostage taker wants, the act is odious. It is tantamount to taking the hostage taker’s own family hostage and telling the extortionist, “Relent on your demands or we kill them all.”
I think that jihadists might be unmoved in such a symmetric face-off, but I wonder whether Senator Tuberville or Speaker Johnson or any of the MAGA caucus would have the conviction to say, “Go ahead and shoot them.”
I would hope not.