What's at Stake in the Global War on Terror

Over at National Review Online, contributing editor Michael Leeden passes along a letter from the family of deceased Navy Seal Robert Dean Stethem, who was tortured and killed by Hezbollah during an airplane hijacking 20 years ago. The letter was prompted by the German government’s release this week of one of Stethem’s murders, apparently in exchange for a German hostage in Iraq.

We strongly urge gentle readers to read the letter. Among other things, it reinforces several points noted variously in this blog. We enumerate:

*Our liberties are protected by the extraordinary self-sacrificial courage of a relatively small group of men.
*European governments are utterly irresponsible about global terrorism.
*The terrorist threat is actually quite old (the Munich Olympics were in 1972, as Stephen Spielberg has so tendentiously reminded us).
*Terrorists tend to stick together, regardless of their specific organization or ideology.
*There is absolutely no substitute for unwavering resolve against the evils of terrorism, as one cannot appease a person willing to torture and kill the innocent wholesale for a cause.

Unfortunately, it seems that the Bush administration has been complicit in the German release of this murderer. We can’t imagine why, unless it is in the vain hope of enlisting German support, which is both unlikely and mostly worthless at this stage. We would prefer that Stethem’s bravery be honored and all terrorists be warned by the hunting down and execution of this evildoer.