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The people we must now prepare for are religious zealots, brain-washed automatons, whose very indoctrination training and seething hatred for us, and for their hostages, will render them impervious to the best-intentioned psychological pandering. In many cases the terrorists have been raised from birth to accept and even yearn to see human death and suffering – particularly the death and suffering of non-believers. Of infidels. They are cult-created psychotics, artificially constructed sociopaths for whom hostages serve their very purpose and whom they do want to kill. Only they want to kill them at the time and manner of their choosing for maximum effect. They have already chosen the place.
I remember that when I first heard about the terrorist siege at Beslan, Russia, it felt like a cold vise clamped down on my heart. My mind immediately zoomed in on the suffering of the children and the incomprehensible anguish of the parents who could only wait, listen, and watch as their children were being brutalized. My imagination skittered away from imagining lifeless bodies of boys my own son’s age being tossed out of second-story windows like broken rag dolls on a garbage heap. I could not wrap my brain around the horror of a mother forced to watch terrorists take turns raping tiny girls and boys and killing anyone who tried to help.
Now, two years later, such horrified aversion to reality is no longer an option. In reading this book, I have looked squarely into the face of our enemy, and my heart has hardened. In an email dialogue with a family member recently, I wrote of the Beslan siege itself: “Toddlers were beaten for sadistic fun and little girls were raped nearly unto death. Nursing mothers and middle aged teachers were raped repeatedly on the floors in the midst of hundreds of terrified and sobbing children. The summer heat created an oven of the gym they were suffocating in, yet they were allowed no water and no food. The terrorists placed bottles of water in front of pitifully dehydrated little ones with orders not to touch, and then shot them when their little hands reached for the life-saving water anyway. The hostages resorted to drinking their urine for hydration and pouring urine over their skin for moisture. On day three, several bombs prematurely exploded amidst the hostages and forced the Russian Special Forces to assault the school as the terrorists went berserk. It took more than 10 hours of heavy sustained combat to defeat the terrorists. In the end, 338 people were dead (including 172 children) and over 700 were wounded. A handful escaped unscathed but for the crippling psychological scars they’ll never recover from. It was the most depraved cruelty our generation has ever seen.”
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