Greeting Kidnappings with a Stiff Upper Lip
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James Joyner | Tuesday, October 12, 2004 |
Mark Steyn’s latest column, on the Kenneth Bigley beheading, was pulled by his editors at the Telegraph for being too insensitive. He has published it, instead, on his website. He argues that the Blair government’s maudlin treatment of the Bigley case does not befit a great nation and only encourages more kidnappings. He notes, too, that Bigley was only nominally a British subject, anyway.
While Ken Bigley passed much of his life as a happy expat, his brother Paul appears to have gone a stage further and all but seceded. Night and day, he was on TV explaining to the world how the Bigley familyâs Middle East policy is wholly different from Her Majestyâs Government â a Unilateral Declaration of Independence accepted de facto by Mr Blairâs ministry when it dispatched Jack Straw to Merseyside to present formally his condolences to the Bigleys, surely the most extraordinary flying visit ever undertaken by a British Foreign Secretary. For their pains, the government was informed by Paul Bigley that the Prime Minister had âblood on his handsâ. This seems an especially stupid and contemptible formulation when anyone with an Internet connection can see Ken Bigleyâs blood and the hand itâs literally on holding up his head.
It reminded me of Robert Novak of The Chicago Sun-Times back in May, quoting âone senior official of a coalition partnerâ calling for the firing of Donald Rumsfeld on the grounds that âthere must be a neck cut, and there is only one neck of choice.â At pretty much that exact moment in Iraq, Nick Bergâs captors were cutting his head off – or, rather, feverishly hacking it off while raving âGod is great!â The difference between the participants in this war is that on one side robust formulations about âblood on his handsâ and âcalls for the Defence Secretaryâs headâ are clichéd metaphors, and on the other they mean it.
Steyn also offers some rather cold advice:
If the FCO wants to issue advice in this area, thatâs the way to go: If youâre kidnapped, accept youâre unlikely to survive, say âIâll show you how an Englishman diesâ, and wreck the video. If they want you to confess youâre a spy, make a little mischief: there are jihadi from Britain, Italy, France, Canada and other western nations all over Iraq â so say yes, youâre 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 Bigleyâs word, âenoughâ. A war cannot be subordinate to the fate of any individual caught up in it.
And, if you donât want to wind up in that situation, you need to pack heat and be prepared to resist at the point of abduction. I didnât 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 youâre not, you shouldnât be there.
It’s a rather heartless position but almost certainly correct. Given that the risk of kidnapping and beheading now seems a growing one, being taken alive is a grimmer prospect than going down fighting while taking a couple of the bastards with you.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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And isn't that rather the point of the whole deal?
This IS a war... and not a law enforcement matter, as Mr. Kerry would like to deal with it.
I've always told my niece that she should never get into a strange man's car. Never, never.
Once you're in the car, they have you.
I keep thinking about how the lions take down a zebra and all of a sudden the zebra stops trying to survive. Predators (of all varieties) prefer the soft target -- how long would zebras stay on the menu if, once running away is no longer an option, they started kicking lions in the throat?
There's a reason the food chain works the way it does, and terrorists are merely predators in human form.
I've often wondered why more of these civilians aren't packing heat. Are civilians permitted firearms in Iraq? It just seems crazy not to have the means to defend yourself in such a lawless place.
If they aren't allowed, I'm sure it doesn't matter, practically speaking. But I doubt that the embryonic government has de-clawed the average citizen: that would simply be too crazy. (It's crazy enough in some American cities, where it's actually occurred.)
I didnât 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 youâre not, you shouldnât be there.
This was when Steyn was having a time that was "just jolly," right?
I understand that Iraqi law permits one AK-47 per adult male per household. From the descriptions of Kenneth Bigley I've read I doubt that would have helped much: he sounded like the type who wouldn't have known which end of an AK the bullets come out of. May God rest his soul.
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