What do you say to the family of this young pilot? That you are sorry they burned him alive and that it is an act of unspeakable brutality. A brother, a son, a friend, even a husband and father.
What do you say to his country as the savagery gets worse and we all believe this is the way it is going to be? What is the point of condemning this heinous crime? These are only words and they count for nothing. From beheadings to a bonfire of the cruelest venalities leaves the world stupefied and not even capable of offering meaningful support to a shocked nation and a disbelieving family of a pilot who was following the orders that men in uniform follow.
His was not to question why but it was to do and die. Only, not like this. They denied him a soldier’s death. They denied him the basic courtesies afforded to prisoners of war. And they made a martyr out of Jordanian air force ace Maaz Al-Kasaasbeh. I don’t think there is one Jordanian air force pilot who will hesitate to climb into that cockpit if he is sent on a mission.
These atrocities cannot be just dismissed with expressions of regret and reaffirmations of some sort of action being taken. Nothing ever comes of the strident call to bring the culprits to book. Then, after a few days it all fades away. And we await the next atrocity. Then we condemn that and move on to the next one. These assaults on human dignity, on the tenets of faith itself and on civilized people everywhere can only be brought to a halt if the world comes together as an entity and creates a shared pool of intelligence and gets on the same page to put an end to such extremism. This cannot be achieved by one or two nations but by everyone. How many more incidents will make us acknowledge they are not going to stop.
If the United Nations has ever acted as the staging point for a global initiative this is it. This is the time to grow some muscle and show it. Otherwise all it amounts to is an exchange of meaningless expressions of horror that are a feeble defense against those that have no limits and no rules.
Fly on the wings of a prayer Kasaasbeh, you were a soldier to the end…in that must your family and your nation take pride through their anguish.
