Un-christian sentimentality.

ONE OF THE more discouraging features of the hostage crisis of 1985 is how little has been learned since the hostage crisis of 1979. Now that the hostages have been released, the temptation will once again be to stop thinking seriously about the implications of terrorism--until next time. But even more discouraging than this is how much sentimentality is still dressed up as religious caring.

Why do terrorists seize whole airplanes full of hostages? American television crews will fan out into scores of homes. The anguish of families will freeze the public mind. One impulse will rise in consciousness and drown out every other. Save the lives of the hostages.

Certainly, everything possible should be done to save the lives of hostages. But this principle cannot become an absolute. All else failing, their lives may have to be put at risk. For the latest group of anguished families follows other groups: the families of the Iranian hostages, the families of the dead Marines at the Beirut airport, the families of those killed in embassy bombings, the families of individuals kidnapped month by month. Sentimentality concerning current victims dooms future families. It may be more cruel to sacrifice later victims--many, many more of them--solely to save today's.

There is also the sentimentality of "praying for" the terrorists, as if they do not know, and have not coldly chosen, precisely what they are doing. As if the issue were to "touch their hearts." As if a banner outside the church read, "Have you hugged a terrorist today?" This is the world view of those who imagine that love is located in the sentiments.

TWA 847 had many brave and experienced young men aboard. With only one pistol and two grenades, the terrorists knew exactly how to terrorize them. Every action seemed planned and rehearsed. Messages had been prepared in advance. The Terrorists--one spoke German--were able to organize precise communications between Athens, Beirut, and Algiers. Their accomplices stood ready to join them in Beirut.

The very first words they broadcast to the public revealed a strategic purpose: "Jerusalem is calling you, you that claim yourselves to be Moslems. To the people who surrendered to Israel, to Mubarak and Arafat, Hussein and Saddam . . . Jerusalem can only be liberated by the hands of true believers . . ."

The main purpose of the seizure of TWA 847 could not have been to free the seven hundred Shiites held by Israel. Israel was already in the process of releasing them. If anything, the seizure had to be rushed in order to occur before the flimsy "cover" for it simply dissolved.

These terrorists did not need religious conversion. Their religion is radical Islam. Their aim is to recapture the Holy Land--to drive out Jews, Christians, secularists, and "weak" and "pluralist" Moslems, until the Holy Places stand only in "the hands of true believers."

This is not mere psychological fanaticism. It is an ancient purpose. Many years ago when I studied in Rome, one of my friends belonged to a religious order that had originally been founded to ransom the thousands of Christian hostages taken by "the Turks." These unfortunate captives, seized while on pilgrimage to the Holy Lands or traveling abroad by ship, were held as galley slaves, chained to their oars. Whinning their liberty by ransom (sometimes by supplying a substitute) occupied generations.

Radical Islam, wedded to Leninist terror, is vastly more powerful than the numbers of its adherents warrant. What radical Islamic states cannot do, terrorists can: make successful war upon the United States.

The professionalism of these terrorists is obvious. Thousands are being trained in the arts of public propaganda and knowledge of the enemy, in the expert use of weaponry, in languages, in how to use modern urban technologies, in physical and psychological mastery, and much else. Such instruction requires schools and training camps, practice ranges, and a steady stream of fresh intelligence and evaluation.

The location of such training camps is, in some cases, well known; in others, perhaps, yet to be discovered. The identities of the terrorists' planning cadres and leading operatives need to be computerized. Their networks must be penetrated by counterspies. Their bases must be destroyed. Their most highly trained operatives must be tracked down.

MOST OF ALL, American sentimentality must be shattered. The depiction of the families' anguish must not deter us from going to causes, not symptoms. In international covert war, the United States has already suffered terrible casualties. Many more of us will die. Many more families will grieve. This is the price of liberty. To think otherwise is cowardly and shameful.

Like it or not, whenever Americans travel in the world today, their lives and personal liberty are in danger. International terrorism intends exactly such disorder. It has declared war on the United States and all its friends everywhere. No longer can pilgrims or tourists, as if children spoiled in a free society, be "unaware" of who they are and what they have at risk.

Such terrorists hold in terror Moslem civilization as well as Jews and Christians and all persons of good will. To sentimentalize such enemies is not Christian. To defeat them is a duty.