STRONG REMINDER U.S. APPEASEMENTS COULD BE DISASTROUS.Byline: SCOTT HOLLERAN Local View AS the trial of those accused of murdering Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl
Daniel Pearl (October 10, 1963 – February 1, 2002) was an American journalist who was kidnapped and murdered in Karachi, Pakistan. is scheduled to get under way at the end of the week in Pakistan, the case is a powerful reminder of the early lessons in America's war. While the war is new, its causes are not. The death of Pearl echoes the essential conflict in the world today - Western civilization Noun 1. Western civilization - the modern culture of western Europe and North America; "when Ghandi was asked what he thought of Western civilization he said he thought it would be a good idea" Western culture vs. anti-civilization. Engulfed by today's breaking news culture, it's easy to forget that Pearl's murder is merely one in a long series of primitive acts against Americans by Islamic terrorists. Before Pearl, there was Leon Klinghoffer Leon Klinghoffer (September 24, 1916–October 8, 1985) was a retired appliance manufacturer from New York who was disabled (from a stroke) and used a wheelchair for mobility. , an old man rolled alive in his wheelchair off the decks of the cruise ship Achille Lauro The Achille Lauro, formerly the Willem Ruys, was a passenger liner. It is most remembered for its 1985 hijacking. Ordered in 1938, her keel was laid in 1939 at Vlissingen, Netherlands, for Rotterdamsche Lloyd. ; there was Robert Stethem Robert Dean Stethem (November 17, 1961 – June 15, 1985) was a United States Navy diver and steelworker second class. He was murdered by terrorists during the hijacking of the commercial airliner he was aboard, TWA Flight 847. , a Navy diver Navy diver is a general term to describe members of a country's naval forces who specialize in underwater diving and military diving.
tr.v. be·head·ed, be·head·ing, be·heads To separate the head from; decapitate. [Middle English biheden, from Old English beh . As the body count suggests, the spread of terrorism has proliferated unabated - and the principle of appeasement appeasement Foreign policy of pacifying an aggrieved nation through negotiation in order to prevent war. The prime example is Britain's policy toward Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in the 1930s. plays a causal role. When the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was destroyed by a car bomb, killing 63, in 1983, America refused to go to war with Iran, though Iranians were blamed - and never caught. Later that year, when the Marine headquarters in Beirut were attacked by Muslim terrorists, killing 24 Americans, America did not retaliate. Instead, we withdrew the Marines from Beirut. Predictably, appeasement backfired; the same embassy was attacked again, killing 23, and Iran's Hezbollah hijacked a jet in Athens, Greece, executed Robert Stethem and demanded the release of 766 terrorists by Israel. Our response? President Reagan pressured Israel to release the terrorists, which Israel did. American appeasement was unending. By the turn of the century, Islamic terrorists had car-bombed a U.S. military facility in Riyadh, truck bombed the American air base residence in Dharan, Khobar Towers, and bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa - one in Kenya and the other four minutes later in Tanzania. The human toll in these incidents was more than 500 Americans killed and thousands wounded. Appeasement played a direct role in Pearl's fate; arrested Islamic terrorist Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh sheikh or shaykh Among Arabic-speaking tribes, especially Bedouin, the male head of the family, as well as of each successively larger social unit making up the tribal structure. The sheikh is generally assisted by an informal tribal council of male elders. , who admitted that he organized Pearl's abduction Abduction Balfour, David expecting inheritance, kidnapped by uncle. [Br. Lit.: Kidnapped] Bertram, Henry kidnapped at age five; taken from Scotland. [Br. Lit. , had kidnapped three British citizens and an American in India in 1994. During a rescue operation, Sheikh was caught and jailed. But in 1999, terrorists hijacked a jet, stabbed a passenger to death, tossed the corpse onto the tarmac and demanded Sheikh's release. Sheikh was released. Sheikh's diary chillingly offers pity toward the West's appeasement. When Sheikh kidnapped a young Englishman named Rhys Partridge - one of the four Westerners he snatched - Sheikh wrote: ``He looked at me and said, 'Can I buy my way out of this?' I started explaining gently that he hadn't understood the situation.'' Neither does President Bush; despite the heinous murder of Pearl - and the horror of Sept. 11 - America remains locked in a pattern of appeasement; the Bush administration recently announced a policy reversal that the United States will sometimes pay ransom to kidnappers. The statement came hours before Pearl's death was confirmed. Bush's appeasement toward terrorists is an engraved en·grave tr.v. en·graved, en·grav·ing, en·graves 1. To carve, cut, or etch into a material: engraved the champion's name on the trophy. 2. invitation for more kidnapping and murder - a promise of no-interest financing for America's executioners, with millions more lives at stake. It is in this sense that appeasement is what's wrong - very wrong - with the world. Appeasement, and its corollaries, granting moral equivalency to Palestinian terrorists, refusing to name Yasser Arafat as a terrorist, paying ransom to terrorists, has plainly yielded what is careening The careening of a sailing vessel is laying her up on a calm beach at high tide in order to expose one side or another of the ship's hull for maintenance below the water line when the tide goes out. toward World War III World War III (abbreviated WWIII), or the Third World War, is a term used to describe a hypothetical conflict on the scale of World War I and World War II, or even larger, such as a nuclear holocaust. . Detractors should note that Pearl is dead because his butcherers had been released, coddled and appeased for decades. With the United States ready to pay ransoms to terrorists and equivocating on calling terrorism by its proper name, Islamic fundamentalists have no reason to stop their war against the West: terrorism is working and fundamentalist Islam is winning. When the man accused of Pearl's murder, Sheikh, was repatriated to his native Britain two years ago, former hostage Partridge's mother was outraged, pleading: ``Now how many other innocent families are going to suffer?'' As the Pearl trial begins, the cycle of appeasement continues, reminding us that Pearl's horrifying death is not the first. Unless the appeasement is stopped and the war is fought with unyielding might, it promises not to be the last. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Daniel Pearl |
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