Although the brutal murder of David Haines has aroused world-wide revulsion (and we must feel nothing but pity for him, and sympathy for his grieving family), I feel that there is a danger here that we may be playing into the hands of ISIS to some extent.
By definition, the aim of the terrorist is to excite the maximum of horror and terror with the minimum of effort and danger to himself. This has become immeasurably simpler and easier with the advent of modern information technology: and ISIS seems to be extremely skilful in exploiting this.
The plain fact is that we are at war with these people, and bad things happen in war. Consider the facts in this case. With just one victim at a time, they are able repeatedly to wring the hearts of the whole civilised world; Prime Ministers and Presidents plead in vain with these implacable murderers to show mercy. There was never any hope that he (or his unfortunate American predecessor, or the next hostage in their hands) will survive unless their Governments pay a colossal ransom for their release. Otherwise, they too must die horribly in order to squeeze the last possible drops of horror and disgust out of the viewers to their all too public murders.
Paying a ransom is itself a policy of despair: all it does is to self-select citizens of that particular state to be the victims of the next hostage-taking.
It may be a terrible thing to say, but we must steel ourselves not to react in this way (for that is precisely what these brutes intend that we should do). Behave as our fathers and grandfathers had to do in their wars. In WW1, 20,000 died in a single day on the Somme. Bomber Command could lose 400 men in a night in WW2. Every single man had a parent, maybe siblings or a wife and children to grieve over him as his family now grieve over David Haines.
Do not give these vile people the opportunity to "lead us round by the nose" in this way. Ignore the killings (however hard that may be or however callous it may sound). Instead let it inspire us to seek means to defeat these killers in the field, then remorselessly to track down the "executioners" among the fugitives, then extend to those found that mercy (or lack of it) they showed their helpless victims.
(I remember a photograph seen in India during the war: a captured British airman kneels in silent resignation, his arms bound and eyes blindfolded. Behind him a Japanese officer with drawn sword carefully "measures up" for the blow which will decapitate the prisoner. It could only have been taken by the Japanese themselves. There is no reason to doubt its authenticity; the Japanese would not hesitate to do such a thing. The curious thing is to how and why it came into into Allied hands. The intention is clearly the same as in the David Haines case).
D.
Last edited by Danny42C; 16th Sep 2014 at 00:17.
Reason: Typo.