Bill Clinton may be getting all the credit for the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two female American journalist detained by North Korea, but there may be a reason why it has taken so long for the hostage situation to be resolved:
Years ago, police documented something called the Stockholm syndrome. Robbers had held up a bank in Sweden and held the patrons and employees hostage. After days of negotiations, the captives were freed and emerged from the bank enraged – at the cops. Psychologists determined that a lifeboat mentality develops between hostages and their captors. Them and us, with them being the police outside screwing things up. Since that time, hostage negotiators have been trained to slow everything down, play for time, because the bad guys are very reluctant to hurt the people with whom they have bonded.
