The issue of terrorism must be dealt with firmly. We must work very hard to avoid loss of life. We must work very hard to avoid civilian casualties. And those terrorists and Baathists are holding the people of Fallujah hostage. We must release the hostages.
The country is indebted, cloaked by an instability that discards the possibility of development and leaves it hostage to foreign financial markets.
At the beginning, because the lives of the hostages were at stake, then during this silent period we have taken several measures like not accepting the ultimatum of the terrorists threatening to kill our foreign affairs minister.
In fact, this is a blackmail of the terrorists at the expense of the suffering of the hostages.
Unprovoked attacks on Israel's borders, murdering Israeli soldiers, taking Israeli hostages and showering rockets targeting and killing Israeli civilians are not furthering any legitimate goal.
I would hate to see operations in the Congo held hostage to Sierra Leone but I really think that's the way it's got to be. At one point we've got to decide to get it right and we've got to be professional.
Then came the hostage crisis during which Carter did nothing to rattle the ayatollahs who hung tough until Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, when they suddenly backed down.
We will fight hostage taking like we fight terrorism.
The big-time journalists generally had kidnapping insurance through their news organizations. Usually, it would pay for a crisis response company to help negotiate for a hostage's release. Freelancers most often had none.
After spending 460 days as a hostage, I did emerge a fundamentally changed person. But I think, like everyone does as they grow older and probably wiser, I can look back at my earlier life - my history, my mistakes, the joy I felt as a young woman traveling the world - with some objectivity and even some humor.
