The Hostage Crisis...three little words that carry a very large and important meaning. Today when we acted out the crisis, I was the character Major from the government. We met with the President and his Oval Office advisors, but failed to save the American hostages and managed to attack the so-called terrorist. It might have helped the whole adventure if I actually understood what I was suppose to be doing and the role I was playing. Things started to make sense to me at the end of the first session and the beginning of the second session, but it was too late. Problems had already occurred in our group.
The major problem that caused animosity among the American advisors were different ideologies and communities. For one, it was very difficult to get all of the information from the terrorists or Ambassadors because our group didn't have a speaker phone. Since we didn't have a speaker phone it was hard to get the full and whole conversation that had just occurred and communication was therefore made ten times more complicated. However, we cannot put the blame of our 'failure' on the shoulders of communication or the cell phone we used. As a group we had different ideas and beliefs on what should happen and what really happened. The blame cannot also be put on the shoulders of the CIA director, because he was telling us all of the information he received to the best of his ability.
Another problem the government tried to overcome was the terrorists demands. However, the government didn't realize we could actually contact anyone from the country of Needak. This posed a major problem because the most important demand was the Needak 10. As a member of the government, I also thought that we couldn't use the Needak 10 as a lever or way to have our hostages set free. I believed that the United States couldn't use the Needak 10, because we weren't the ones who tried, convicted, and imprisoned the prisoners.
After the crisis it was helpful to discuss what happened during the sessions. It helped explain everything that occurred today. Hearing Ciara explain more about the terrorist and what happened. It made everything make more sense. Also hearing the other students explain what they did to try and help the American Government, the whole situation made more sense. A prime example of this is Jakob. He was killed by the terrorist because the government failed to act quickly enough. As he started to explain what he was doing, more and more of the exercise made sense. Maurice also explained and brought in a different view, because he had the chance to see both sides of the hostage situation. Overall, this whole experience was a learning adventure.