Friday, October 28, 2005

Let's stop building terrorist martyr shrines

Simple Christian charity motivates the Americans and British to populate terrorist martyr shrines in Pakistan, but no charity is needed if the act would inspire more terrorists.

The issue here is how the US and UK send dead terrorists to Pakistan for burial. What bureaucrats and others see as the normal, charitable act of sending human remains to the families, the terrorist supporters see as opportunities to create monuments for "martyrs."

This week it was the pieces of one of the July 7 London transit bombers that was brought "back" to the family village of Chhotian Kota (the 22 year-old terrorist was born in Bradford, England) and "buried at an Islamic saint's shrine."

Earlier, the US sent the body of an executed terrorist to Pakistan for burial, allowing radicals to create a media event that sparked anti-American protests.

This must stop.

Bodies of executed prisoners should be buried quietly on prison grounds.

Terrorists who choose to blow themselves up are choosing to turn themselves into garbage on public streets. The act of discarding rubbish is an act of discarding claim to the property, and like all trash left on the ground, a suicide bomber's self-shredded remains become public domain. By choice the suicide bombers blast themselves into bits of sewage fit to be swept down storm drains and devoured by rats and other vermin.

Dead terrorists should be provided the minimum Christian charity of cremation. And if human decency and good form don't prevent authorities from casting the ashes across an Iowa hog farm, officials should at least spread the dirt discreetly and anonymously in a field or at sea, where they will never become a shrine to inspire others.

1 Comments:

Blogger Charles said...

Isn't the issue of terrorists' remains something of a public diplomacy Catch-22: if we do the Christian thing and sent them back to the Middle East we incite more anti-American fervor, but if we cremate the remains don't we stand the risk of radical Islamists raging against "barbaric, cruel, infidel-like treatment of holy men's bodies"?

1:39 PM  

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