James points us to this column by Mark Steyn, which was spiked by his editors at the Telegraph and is published at his own site. It has to do with the dangers of getting sentimental during wartime, and why we need to take a clear-eyed look at how our actions endanger other people. Obviously, the degree of national alarm and outrage over Ken Bigley's murder in Britain and Ireland simply makes it more likely that other Britons and Irishmen will be kidnapped and killed.

By contrast with the Fleet Street-Scouser-Whitehall fiasco of the last three weeks, consider Fabrizio Quattrocchi, murdered in Iraq on April 14th. In the moment before his death, he yanked off his hood and cried defiantly, “I will show you how an Italian dies!” He ruined the movie for his killers. As a snuff video and recruitment tool, it was all but useless, so much so that the Arabic TV stations declined to show it.

If the FCO wants to issue advice in this area, that’s the way to go: If you’re kidnapped, accept you’re unlikely to survive, say “I’ll show you how an Englishman dies”, and wreck the video. If they want you to confess you’re a spy, make a little mischief: there are jihadi from Britain, Italy, France, Canada and other western nations all over Iraq – so say yes, you’re an MI6 agent, and so are those Muslims from Tipton and Luton who recently joined the al-Qaeda cells in Samarra and Ramadi. As Churchill recommended in a less timorous Britain: You can always take one with you. If Mr Blair and other government officials were to make that plain, it would be, to use Mr Bigley’s word, “enough”. A war cannot be subordinate to the fate of any individual caught up in it.

And, if you donÂ’t want to wind up in that situation, you need to pack heat and be prepared to resist at the point of abduction. I didnÂ’t give much thought to decapitation when I was mooching round the Sunni Triangle last year, but my one rule was that I was determined not to get into a car with any of the locals and I was willing to shoot anyone who tried to force me. If youÂ’re not, you shouldnÂ’t be there.

None of the above would have guaranteed Mr BigleyÂ’s life, but it would have given him, as it did Signor Quattrocchi, a less pitiful death, and it would have spared the world a glimpse of the feeble and unserious Britain of the last few weeks. The jihadists have become rather adept at devising tests customized for each group of infidels: Madrid got bombed, and the Spaniards failed their test three days later; the Australian Embassy in Jakarta got bombed, but the Aussies held firm and re-elected John HowardÂ’s government anyway. With Britain, the Islamists will have drawn many useful lessons from the decadence and defeatism on display.

Our first was Daniel Pearl, so we as Americans are getting good at this. We—the Western world—must use these incidents to increase our resolve, rather than to waver. It's easy to say, and hard to do. But it's necessary.

Please link to Steyn's column, and get the word out about it.

Posted by: Attila at 09:16 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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