The Discerning Texan
-- Edmund Burke
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Iranian Hostages, Part Deux
How difficult is that to understand? And why is the American public not outraged at its media's complicity in sugar coating the Iranian threat?How do you feel about the American hostages in Iran?
No, not the guys back in the Seventies, the ones being held right now.
What? You haven't heard about them?
Odd that, isn't it? But they're there. For example, for two months now, Haleh Esfandiari has been detained in Evin prison in Tehran. Esfandiari is a U.S. citizen and had traveled to Iran to visit her sick mother. She is the director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, which is the kind of gig that would impress your fellow guests at a Washington dinner party. Unfortunately, the mullahs say it's an obvious cover for a Bush spy.
Among the other Zionist-neocon agents currently held in Iranian jails are an American journalist, an American sociologist for a George Soros-funded leftie group, and an American peace activist from Irvine, Ali Shakeri, whose capture became known shortly after the United States and Iran held their first direct talks since the original hostage crisis.
[...]
Two months in an Iranian jail is no fun. Four years ago, a Montreal photo-journalist, Zahra Kazemi, was arrested by police in Tehran, taken to Evin prison, and wound up getting questioned to death. Upon her capture, the Canadian government had done as the State Department is apparently doing – kept things discreet, low-key, cards close to the chest, quiet word in the right ears. By the time Zahra Kazemi's son, frustrated by his government's ineffable equanimity, got the story out, it was too late for his mother.
Still, upon hearing of her death, then-Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham expressed his "sadness" and "regret," which are pretty strong words. But then, as Reuters put it, this sad regrettable incident had "marred previously harmonious relations between Iran and Canada." In his public pronouncements, Graham tended to give the impression that what he chiefly regretted and was sad about was that one of his compatriots had had the poor taste to get tortured and murdered onto the front pages of the newspapers.
With an apparently straight face, Graham passed on to reporters the official Iranian line that her death in jail was merely an "accident." The following year, Shahram Azam, a physician who'd examined Kazemi's body, fled Iran and said that she had broken fingers, a broken nose, a crushed toe, a skull fracture, severe abdominal bruising, and internal damage consistent with various forms of rape. Quite an accident.
The longer American prisoners are held in Evin, the more likely it is they'll meet with a similar accident. It would be nice to think the press has ignored these hostages out of concerns that they might inflame the situation. (To date, only National Review, Bill Bennett on his radio show and various doughty Internet wallahs have made any fuss.) Or maybe the media figure that showing American prisoners on TV will only drive Bush's ratings back up from the grave to the rude health of intensive care. Or maybe they just don't care about U.S. hostages, not compared to real news like Senate sleepovers to block unblocking a motion to vote for voting against a cloture motion on the best way to surrender in Iraq.
[...]
In America, public opinion is in no mood for war with Iran. In Washington, Congress is focused on finding the most politically advantageous way to lose in Iraq. In Europe, they've already psychologically accepted the Iranian nuclear umbrella. In the Western world, where talks are not the means to the end but an end in themselves, we find it hard despite the evidence of 30 years to accept that Iran talks the talk and walks the walk. Once it goes nuclear, do you think there will be fewer fatwas on writers, stonings of homosexuals, kidnappings in international waters, forced confessions of American hostages and bankrolling of terror groups worldwide? These latest hostages are part of a decades-old pattern of behavior. The longer it goes without being stopped, the worse it will be.
Labels: Hostages, Iran, Islamic Fascism
Saturday, July 21, 2007
UPDATED Taliban claims to have executed German hostages in Afghanistan and have taken S. Korean hostages also
Ever since the Iranians took the American Embassy hostage in 1979, events have proven that to give the enemy what it asks in exchange for hostages results in evenonly results in more hostage taking.
For example, when UN peacekeepers or individuals from NATO countries were taken hostage in Iraq, and then the UN and Italy, for example, rewarded the groups engaged in this barbarism by pulling out of Iraq as requested, the perceived benefit derived by the country (and the UN) getting their people back, in effect made the problem worse for everyone else on the planet; each "success" from the terrorists' perspective only serves to encourage more such activity. Al Qaeda's early success with UN and Italy in Iraq may indeed have led to many of the behadings we witnessed later. But I would take it a step further. If a government gives in to hostages, then that government has just announced to any and all takers that they will buckle (again) under pressure to hostage-taking terrorists. And so the likelihood of more attempts against the "appeasing" country rises also.
Only when hostages are taken and the kidnappers' demands not met (or negotiation is refused altogether) do the terrorists then look for other methods of leverage. It does a terrorist organization no good at all to risk exposing their operation if there is going to be no "payoff" in return. But unfortunately, this often costs the hostages their lives. It is almost as if all free nations need to get together and agree that political hostages have to be treated by governments as casualties who are already dead. If the hostages are then released, great; but to give our enemies more leverage by doing the "easy" thing is to say that those who contemplate taking such barbaric actions will be rewarded by so doing.
If the Taliban really did kill these German hostages, it undoubtedly was to exert pressure on the Merkel government to pull its troops. But if Germany does pull out, expect the hostage taking--even inside Germany--to increase rather than decrease. And the South Koreans must also show more strength and resolve than they have shown in recent years.
It is difficult for governments in these circumstances to do the right thing. But they must be encouraged--diplomatically and otherwise--to hold the line against the terrorists. Because giving in will only make the situation worse.
Labels: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Hostages, Islamic Fascism, Taliban
