Pleas on Deaf Ears
"He grew to love and admire the Syrian people and felt at home there. Our son's journey culminated in him embracing Islam. Sadly he is not free to continue his life's work serving the people of the region."
Ed Kassig
"We are so very proud of you and the work you have done to bring humanitarian aid to the Syrian people."
"Our hearts ache for you to be granted your freedom so that we can hug you again."
Paula Kassig
"I needed to make a drastic decision. It was a huge identity thing; it was time to re-evaluate. I needed a game changer."
"This work is important for the message that it sends to people back home that one of the best aspects of the American way of life is our ability to come together in the face of adversity and to stand beside those who might need a helping hand."
"In five years, if I can look back on all of this and say that our organization is able to truly help people, that I was able to share a little bit of hope and that I never stopped learning, then I will know this all stood for something."
Peter Kassig
"I first met Peter Kassig in May of 2012. We were both studying introductory Arabic at the Saifi Institute in the Gemmayzeh area in Beirut, Lebanon. Saifi isn’t just a school: it’s a hostel, two bars and a restaurant. It is a rare place, where both expats and locals truly socialize and it isn’t hard to meet new people there."
"Aside from studying Arabic, Peter was 24 and trying to figure out his place in the world. I was 30 and trying to get over a hard break up. We both are Americans and like to drink. He is an intense guy with a big heart. We quickly became friends during the month I knew him there."
Nick Schwellenbach
It has been a year's-worth of captivity for 26-year-old Peter Kassig, abducted last October as he was delivering food and medical supplies in eastern Syria. No one will likely ever know whether he has relived that statement in his mind, with the realization that there will be no opportunity for him to think back five years from when he stated his satisfaction with his life trajectory as a humanitarian aid worker dedicated to delivering aid to suffering Syrians.
Last seen and heard from, Mr. Kassig was kneeling in a desert landscape wearing an orange jumpsuit concluding a video from the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham featuring the savage murder by beheading of British taxi driver Alan Henning. His parents have made an impassioned public plea for mercy, asking the murderers of two American journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and with British aid worker David Haines to spare their son's life; he had, after all, dedicated himself to a humanitarian mission he had tasked himself with, to aid Syrian civilians in dire straits.
The video concluded with the warning threat that Mr. Kassig is slated to be next in line for martyrdom. He will die for Islam. As a convert to Islam he has already surrendered to Islam. All that is left is to become a shaheed; to die for Islam. Not in the conventional sense as a jihadist, but a martyr nonetheless. This idealistic young man with a compassionate sense of obligation toward a people whose condition he pitied makes a contribution all his own.
He is an exceptional young man in many ways, first serving his country's military from which an honourable discharged resulted. Discharged for medical reasons, he returned to the United States to attend Butler University in Indianapolis to study political science. He was fascinated by his introduction to the Middle East, and mesmerized by the conflict in Iraq and its aftershocks. Trained as an emergency medical technician, he moved to Beirut.
There, in Beirut, he worked as a medical assistant in a volunteer capacity in border hospitals treating families fleeing the Syrian conflict along with Palestinian refugees. Eventually he founded a relief group of his very own, Special Emergency Response and Assistance, for the purpose of delivering medical aid in conflict zones. An exemplary visionary but one whose vision and purpose and determination was not shared by the group inflicting horrific damage on the psyches of the oppressed.
Labels: Atrocities, Conflict, Islamic State, Islamism, Syria, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, October 09, 2014
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