Last Man Standing: Whatever happened to John Cantlie?
I have just finished listening to the ‘Last Man Standing’ podcast from The Times where war correspondent Anthony Loyd investigates the fate of Islamic State hostage John Cantlie:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/last-man-standing/id1630722986
British photo/war journalist Cantlie was kidnapped by Islamic State in November 2012 and in September 2014 started appearing is IS/Daesh propaganda videos most noticeably ‘Lend Me Your Ears’. Loyd investigates what happened to Cantlie and in summary I can say this is a well-researched podcast that has a good pace and excellent production values. To be fair with the resources behind The Times one would expect it to have high production values!
The key take-away fro me is that my opinion on talking with hostage-takers has changed. Until listening to this podcast I was firmly behind the stance of the British and US governments - no negotiations and no ransom. I shared the assessment that the stance of other western governments such as France, Germany, Spain, and Italy was wrong - paying ransom was cowardly and encouraged further hostage taking and funded terror organisations. I agree with Loyd’s assessment that the propaganda value of executing US and British hostages was far greater benefit that the £millions paid. The videos produced by Daesh helped recruit hundreds, maybe thousands, to join their cause. And the videos directly led to £millions in donations from their supporters world-wide especially the very wealthy Saudis who sponsored IS/Daesh.
I am also very disturbed by the reports that senior British military and intelligence officers effectively stopped looking for Cantlie and believed that Cantlie was a traitor. Having worked on the ‘inside’ for many years I should not be surprised by the lack of humanity displayed by senior British officials and the basic lack of any interest in British hostages - from my experience senior British officials tend to blame the hostage for their own misfortune and try their best to stop families publicising their fate. Time and time again we find that the people who should be helping hostage Britons have utter inertia and lack of interest in negotiating to help. It seems to me that only when families intervene is there any success.
