Hostages for Islam
In the noble and honourable pursuit of inflicting fundamentalist Islamic values upon the world, hordes of warriors of Allah have perfected their abduction methodology, in their persistent and bloody-minded dedication to instilling fear and terror on their way to achieving world-wide 'respect' for Islam and eventual supremacy. All for Islam, in celebration of its superiority as the one true religion over all pretenders to that distinction.The Western world, from amongst whose citizens, Islamists have sought to further their interests by claiming them as hostages, does not intend to fall prey to the agenda of the jihadists. Claiming, in concert with one another - rejecting the very obscene idea that human beings can be used as pawns, to be abducted and used for barter - that they will not submit to blackmail, or the usury of the benighted murderers who pose as emissaries of Allah.
From Israel to France, the United States to Great Britain, Lebanon, to Spain, all have declared that they will not exchange money or arms for the release of hostages. Rather, they will use all other means at their disposal, inclusive of 'diplomatic' exchanges between representatives of liberal democracies and those of universally outlawed terror groups. The exchange of some prisoners demanded by abductors may be acknowledged as an alternate.
But there are few countries that are comfortable with the idea that they have abandoned any of their citizens to the pitiless disposition of blood-stained jihadists without an attempt to secure the release of their citizens. It's well known how remorseless dedicated jihadists are to their cause of battle against 'crusaders' and Jews. They exhibit no frailties such as scruples against harming other human beings.
The world has been witness to the stark unblinking brutality of Islamists eager to teach precisely how dedicated they are to their mission, and how capable they are of vicious inhumanity, as for example when a horrified public was introduced to the video-taped murder of Wall Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl, In Pakistan, mere months after the attack on the World Trade Towers in New York.
The misery of incarceration by terror factions in Lebanon was well documented by Anglican envoy and hostage spokesperson, Terry Waite, throughout his ordeal as a captive of Islamists. He undertook three trips to Lebanon hoping his intervention would persuade the Hezbollah captors of western hostages to free them, before he was himself taken hostage, never to regain his freedom until the passage of five horrible years of abysmal misery.
The administration of Ronald Reagan was dedicated to freeing its nationals from their long imprisonment as political hostages. To that end, they entrusted the undertaking of freeing those hostages from terror hands to then-National Security council member, Oliver North. North used his contacts and the freedoms allowed him to act on this file to work out clandestine weapons-for-hostages deals with Islamic Republic Iran, a country with which the U.S. had no diplomatic contacts.
Afghan mujahadeen made use of Western hostages when it suited their purposes to gain advantage over agencies of the West. The terrorist group Hamas, now posing as the legitimate governors of Gaza and the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, now part of the formal government infrastructure of that country, see great profit in abducting Israelis, whether civilian or members of the military. These abductees are invaluable as potential exchanges; one Israeli-worth of abduction for up to thousands of Arab or Palestinian prisoners in exchange.
Now al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is discovering for itself just how potent an exercise in self-availment the kidnapping of Westerners can prove to be. Not necessarily or only as an exchange mechanism, but for the perceived value in the very act of abduction; the horror inspired in Western cultures by the taking of people into illegal custody, and the thought of what may befall them.
And that thought has its basis in previous events where people are subject to torture, to inhumane living conditions, to the withholding of basic human needs eventually resulting in death. Or, contrarily, the overt presentation of the power of dedicated jihadists to inspire terror by publicly beheading their prisoners, brandishing their severed heads in triumph.
The public is aware of the incidents involving Westerners sensitive to the perceived 'righteousness', the 'cause' of disaffected Islamists, those who profess to understand and to support their ruthless terrorism, themselves falling victim to abduction, privation and loss of identity. Humanitarians like aid worker Margaret Hassan, a convert to Islam, speaking Arabic, working in Iraq, was abducted and videoed blindfolded, shot to death.
Islamists may not have the monopoly on abductions, televised murders, extraordinary demands in compensation for their travail and perceived dishonour in the West, but they certainly present as exemplars of the trade.
Labels: Terrorism, Traditions
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, February 28, 2009
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