instruction:
Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.
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The hostage rescue dilemma. Saturday's failed hostage rescue mission in Yemen was indeed tragic . While the official details as to exactly what happened have not yet been released , it appears Luke Somers, an American journalist, and Pierre Korkie, a South African teacher, were killed by their captors during a night-time rescue attempt carried out by US Navy SEALs . Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) had been holding Somers and Korkie captive for over a year . It was the second such attempt to rescue Somers in two weeks . On November 25, a SEALs team hit what they thought was the compound holding Somers , who, as it turns out, had been moved from there just hours before . In Saturday's operation, the SEALs knew Somers' exact location . To maintain stealth, they landed by V-22 Osprey several kilometres away, and then made the trek overland to the compound where Somers and Korkie were being held captive . But something went terribly wrong in the final approach . Perhaps it was a barking dog or some other noise , but the SEALs came under fire as they approached the compound's main entrance . The element of surprise, which is so critical to rescue operations, was lost , and a fierce firefight ensued . Within 30 minutes, the SEALs had secured the compound and put Somers and Korkie, who were both still alive on a V-22 that had a surgical team standing by . Unfortunately, medics were unable to save them . Plainly necessary . For Somers, Saturday's rescue mission was as urgent as it was plainly necessary . Late last week AQAP released a video stating he would be killed in 72 hours unless unspecified demands were met . Those demands have not been made public, but likely involved payment of a ransom or release of AQAP captives, something the US is prohibited by law from doing . For Korkie, the sense of urgency in attempting the rescue operation is more controversial . According to the South African charity Gift of the Giving, a deal had been made with AQAP to release Korkie in just a matter of days, suggesting to many that it would have been better to wait . Maybe there was a deal that would have gone through in the end . Maybe there wasn't . But in rescue operations, hope is not figured into the equation , where planners and decision makers have to weigh the risks of action against the consequences of inaction . By their very nature, hostage rescue operations are among the most difficult and risky military missions to carry out . With little margin for error, either in intelligence or the operation itself, they demand highly trained and equipped special operations units that only a handful of countries have . Are they dangerous and uncertain? Absolutely . Are they impossible? No . In 2012, US Navy SEALs rescued Jessica Buchanan, an American aid worker, and Poul Hagen Thisted, a Danish aid worker , who had been held hostage by Somali pirates for 93 days . The pirates were demanding a $45m ransom for their release . In this particular case, precise intelligence as to their exact location, along with concerns about Buchanan's rapidly declining health, were major factors in moving forward with the rescue mission . Under the cover of darkness, the SEAL Team parachuted 19km from where they were being held, and then moved cross-country to conduct the rescue . Nine pirates were killed during the operation , and Buchanan and Thisted were unharmed . In 2009, US Navy SEAL snipers ended the hostage ordeal of American Richard Phillips, captain of the cargo ship Maersk Alabama , which had been hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean five days earlier . Talks with the pirates ended when they threw the phone used to communicate with negotiators into the ocean . When one of the pirates pointed his rifle at Captain Phillips' back , snipers shot and killed all three in near simultaneous fashion . Captain Phillips was unharmed . Heartbreaking failures . In 2005, US Delta Force operators rescued Roy Hallums, an American civilian contractor kidnapped by an al-Qaeda cell in Iraq, after 311 days in captivity . Again , the intelligence as to Hallums' location was exact - pull up the kitchen carpet and open the faux cement trap door leading into his one room cell . Hallums was unharmed in the operation . But , as was all too evident on Saturday, there are heartbreaking failures, too . This past July, US special operations forces attempted to rescue James Foley in Syria . Unfortunately, the intelligence as to where he was being held was incorrect . Foley was brutally murdered by ISIL just a few weeks later , the videotape of which was released on the internet for the world to see . In 2010, the US special operations team attempting to rescue her in Afghanistan accidentally killed Linda Norgrove, a British citizen . There are other failures, all tragic, as well . But there are also other successes , where hostages like Jessica Buchanan, Poul Thisted, Captain Phillips and Roy Hallums, all of whom faced indefinite captivity or even death, are home with their families because decisions were made to rescue them based on calculated risks . No guessing, no maybes, no "let's keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best" . Rescue missions are risky, both for the hostages and for the operators who carry them out . Lives are at stake , and it's never an easy choice to give the "green light" . But given the circumstances, particularly when dealing with terrorist organisations, leaders can't always sit back and wait to see what happens . Sometimes, it's less risky to act than not to . And in the case of a hostage rescue operation, I'd place my life in the hands of men dedicated to the task before taking my chances with the likes of a terrorist in the hope that maybe they'll let me go .
answer:
Saturday's failed hostage rescue mission in Yemen was indeed tragic


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Paris attacks: unless we overcome fear, self-censorship will spread. We have a blasphemy law . No electorate has approved it . No parliament has passed it . No judge supervises its application and no jury determines guilt beyond reasonable doubt . There' s no right of appeal . And the penalty is death . It is enforced not by a police bound by codes of conduct, but by a fear that dare not speak its name ; a cowardice so total it lacks the courage to admit it is afraid . The British are the world's worst cowards . It is one thing to say you don't approve of Charlie Hebdo's cartoons . But the BBC, Channel 4 and many newspapers won't run any images of Mohammad whatsoever . They would at least have acknowledged censorship if they had announced that they were frightened of attacks on their staff . They would have clung to a remnant of their honour if they had said:"We are not censoring out of respect. We loathe the murderers who enforce their taboos with Kalashnikovs. But we do not want to spend years living in hiding, as Salman Rushdie did. Or be stabbed in the street, as Theo van Gogh was. Or hear an Islamist smash at our door with an axe and cry:"We will get our revenge," - as Kurt Westergaard did. So we are backing away." Admittedly, an honest admission that terror works would shred the pretence that journalists are fearless speakers of truth to power . But it would be a small gesture of solidarity . It would say to everyone, from Pakistani secularists murdered for opposing theocratic savagery, to British parents worried sick that their boys will join Islamic State, that radical Islam is a real fascistic force . Instead ,  most journalists have lived a lie for years, as have many in the arts, academia and comedy . We take on the powerful - and ask you to admire our bravery- if, and only if, the powerful are not a paramilitary force that may kill us . The mass murder of cartoonists and police officers at Charlie Hebdo, and the attacks on Jews, which revive so many foul memories of European fascism, will change our world - almost certainly for the worst . Unless we find the courage to overcome fear , the self-censorship will spread, and not only in the media . Colleagues who wanted historians at a London museum to talk about the long history of depictions of Muhammad in Islamic art last week were met with panicking press officers trying to shut them up . Historian Tom Holland, who received death threats after he challenged the creation myths of Islam, said:"I cannot think of any other area of history where debate is so nervous." He hopes that historians will continue to say that the Koran was a manmade creation, but doubts that journalists will be keen to take their work to the public . This is not a small capitulation . In the 19th century, the textual criticism of German scholars revealed that the supposed word of God in the Bible was a mess of competing stories . It did as much damage to Christianity and Judaism as Darwinism . Anyone hoping to repeat the exercise by taking apart the Koran and the hadiths today will be restrained by the fear that they will end up as dead as satirists who try to do the same with anti-clerical humour . My friend and comrade Maajid Nawaz was a jihadi before he converted to liberalism and understands the totalitarian mind . He says that people still do not realise that radical Islamists do not just want to impose their taboos at gunpoint . They want to "create a civil war" so that European Muslims accept that they can only live in the caliphate ; to encourage the rise of the white far-right so that ordinary coexistence becomes impossible . If they win one demand , as they are winning in Britain, then they will up the tension and move to another . As soon as you look at demands rather than labels, the wall dividing extremists from the rest begins to crumble . Saudi Arabia is Britain's trusted partner and ally . It receives vast quantities of armaments and in turn pumps propaganda into British mosques and universities . As Paris looked like a war zone, it flogged the Saudi liberal Raif Badawi for insulting Islam . At least they did not kill him, you might say . But if the religious courts had found him guilty of apostasy - that is, of taking the adult decision to abandon the religion of his childhood- the sentence would have been death . European liberals ought to have stopped, as the lash fell on Badawi's shoulders, and wondered about their queasiness at criticising the religions of the "powerless"and "marginalised" . The Saudi Arabian monarchy is all too powerful , as are the other dictatorships of the Middle East . Power depends on where you stand and who stands below you . The unemployed man with the gun is more powerful than the Parisian journalist . The marginal cleric may have a hard life , but if he sits in a sharia court imposing misogynist rules on British Muslim women he is to be feared . European liberals might try to be true to their principles and ally with dissidents, liberals, leftists and free thinkers within Muslim communities . They might help ex-Muslims who fear that one day they will be murdered for apostasy . They might reflect that a Muslim man will encounter xenophobia from the right , but they will hear no rigorous criticism at university or other leftist institutions of the sexism, anti-semitism, homophobia and bloodlust of militant religion . Self-interest ought to be a motivator . Fear of radical Islam is not only driving support for the National Front in France and Ukip here, but providing an excuse for more attacks on civil liberties, including, despite David Cameron's pious words after Charlie Hebdo, attacks on freedom of speech . I hope I am wrong , but I cannot see a culture shift on this necessary scale happening . I fear we must look forward to a lying and frightened future .
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We have a blasphemy law No judge supervises its application


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Can you stop using these three labels in 2015: 'Poor people,' 'date rape' and 'victim'. Can you banish the labels "date rape," "victims" and "poor people" from your vocabulary in 2015? Labels can diminish and demean or to uplift and affirm people . 2015 will be a year of hope and dignity by redefining or banishing these toxic and harmful labels . In their place a more generous, positive and compassionate country will emerge . Here's why a deeper look at these three labels :. Date Rape . This is the most commonly talked about fear on college campuses across the country . 2014 was filled with stories of sexual abuse from the ranks of the NFL and their spouses to the iconic Bill Cosby . On college campuses date rape involves issues of consent and sobriety; of women who feel that they don't have the ability to consent or not; of alcohol and drugs like "roofies" used as excuses and no specific profile of the typical rapist . The words date and rape should never be accepted as co-joined words . My friend Tony Porter of A Call to Men says that gender based violence will only end when men address it and reassess what it means to be a man . He is correct . To be on a date is to enter into an exploration of romance, companionship and possibly love . It is about exploring the possibilities of human togetherness and relationship . Rape is a criminal and violent exercise of abuse and power . To disassociate these two words - rape and date - is to redefine the expectation of healthy and also criminal behavior . You can redefine the term date rape by celebrating the possibilities of healthy dating and mincing no words about the criminality of rape . Engaging young men in the cause of stopping gender based violence will bring with it lasting impact on healthy relationships . Victims . The accusers of sexual violence are commonly called victims . They are typically the victims of aggressive non-consensual sex . But to call them victims is to deny their courage and strength . The supermodel Janice Dickinson recently said that she is not an accuser . She explained this by saying that she is speaking her truth about what Bill Cosby did to her decades ago . How strong do you have to be to speak out against those who are iconic figures or heroes- whether clergy, Cosby or NFL players? To speak your truth against power typically results from years if not decades of inner work along with courage that reveals you have come to love yourself enough to not be intimidated by the powerful iconic figures who have committed sexual abuse . People like Dickinson are empowered, courageous victims . They give hope to others including the many men who feel that their manhood will be compromised if they speak out against their male sexual abusers . Empowered victims like Dickinson move us quickly from just feeling sorry to feeling admiration for their courageous empowerment . What happened to them is criminal and to label them as just victims demeans their courage . Empowered victims elevate their status and shine a bright spotlight on their heinous sexual aggressor . Poor People . A pervasive new classism in the United States has emerged according to columnist David Brooks of the New York Times . He posits that the meritocratic class view themselves as the respectable ones who have the ability to choose their own destiny . They view the poor as lazy, disorganized, violent and scary . In this view the poor are not proper human beings . It's a dangerous construct that dehumanizes vast segments of our community . I've spent a lifetime working with and knowing people who are poor . Most work hard and often at several jobs ; like other human beings they yearn for the best for their children and families and have aspirations to live beyond poverty . If the organization of the lives of those who are poor is different from that of the meritocratic class it is because of genetic roulette and the systems that often work to trap people in the mire of less opportunity . Brooks suggests that those who label the poor in this way live in a world that keeps them from knowing poor people . The label begins to be redefined when you take time to know those who are different from you . It is up to you to make change in the New Year by not accepting these labels and then redefining them . You will be part of creating a more compassionate, generous and positive landscape .
answer:

Can you banish the labels "date rape," "victims" and "poor people" from your vocabulary in 2015?