REACT: Fox Death Both Tragic and Ironic

It is right for every American to mourn the death of Tom Fox, the man kidnapped and executed by Muslim terrorists. It is wrong for those who cannot know his heart to disparage his motives, sincerity and faith. I am willing to believe he was a well meaning good man. It is appropriate, however, to point out the tragic irony of his death and the fundamental wrongness of his cause. The news reports say much about the captors. Fox was “executed,” “shot in the head,” and there were “signs of torture.” He was “dumped on a roadside” to amplify the horror – for the world to see the contempt of the executioners.

Fox is dead and his fellow captives remain imperiled because they joined in unholy communion with terrorist elements who have declared “holy” war on the world’s “infidels”, with the United States as the most publicized enemy. The Christian Peacemaker Teams has parroted the terrorist language to cast America as the international villain. Perhaps they expected some protection from the terrorists for they willingness to promote anti-American propaganda. In this, they were terribly and tragically misguided.

In a previous blog, I hoped and prayed for their safe return – reformed of their misaligned views, to be sure. After serving the terrorist cause, they found themselves brutally kidnapped and mistreated by the very people with whom the declared common cause. Rather than receiving the hospitality of their “friends,” they were treated like no less an infidel than our soldiers in Baghdad.

The death of Fox at the hands of his Iraqi captors makes three very important statements. First: The Christian Peacemaker Teams is wrong. For whatever their beliefs, they are on the side of evil in opposition to good. Dupes, at best.

Also, it should be clear to the world that the infractions of jailer/prisoner etiquette that had produced such international outrage against the United States pales in comparison to the atrocities against captives committed by the murderous enemies we face in Iraq and around the world. Naked pics and cartoons should not horrify the world as much as the ubiquitous torture and curbside executions that are carried out on a daily basis by the international terrorist network.

Finally, we should understand that the righteous are not always right. Belief and zeal do not automatically confer morality and justification. In fact, it is misguided belief and maniacal zeal that are at the very root of what can be oxymoronically referred to as “religious terrorism.”

It is most ironic that the kidnapping, torture and now death has come from a common cause between “terrorists” and “peacemakers.” Both the terrorist and the Christian Peacemaker Teams have produced this tragedy by their respective zealous belief in their own mistaken and unworthy causes.