Iran Payment Wasn’t Ransom, but it Was Ransom

[MADem]

1. IF we can use the kidnapper's money to pay all ransoms, I say pay ransoms as needed.

This is a right wing meme. The use of the word "ransom" is absurd in this context.

A quid pro quo is not a ransom--and that's what this was, an exchange.

We don't "sort of" owe Iran money. We TOOK their money in exchange for weapons, and then we didn't deliver the weapons. We owed them either the weapons, or their money back.


A ransom is when one party gets fucked over in exchange for the lives of others. Someone enjoys a "net loss" when a ransom is extracted.

In this case, both parties had something "owed" to them. The timing of the payback was, simply, coordinated.