The White House to Announce Major Terrorism Policy Shift – Negotiating with Terrorists

The White House is announcing a major shift on terrorism policy: The U.S. will allow negotiation with terrorists.

CNN reports about a policy change that will run directly counter to decades of U.S. posture against terrorism:

The White House will release on Wednesday a presidential directive and an executive order that will allow the government to communicate and negotiate with terrorist groups holding Americans hostage, a source briefed on the matter told CNN.

While the government will maintain its policy of not making “substantive concessions” to captors or paying ransoms, the White House will announce that officials will no longer threaten with criminal prosecution the families of American hostages who do pay ransoms to their relatives’ captors, according to a senior administration official.

The policy will specifically permit the payment of ransom money by private families to terrorist groups. This would not only encourage terrorists to commit such heinous acts again, it would provide them with the funding to do so.

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