Jon Christian Ryter

When al Qadea or its Iraqi ally, Jamaat al-Tawhid Jihad grabs a hostage and threatens to behead him if we don't pull our troops out of Iraq, Bush needs to respond by sending 10,000 more troops to the Mideast for each incident.

If George W. Bush and other world leaders followed that practice—adding 10,000 new troops each time a terrorist group killed a hostage from their country, hostage taking and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi threats of beheading kidnapped hostages would stop overnight. The new al-Qadea linked Iraqi terrorist group Jamaat al-Tawhid Jihad has become the most fearful terrorist group in the Arab world since

it videotaped the decapitations of telecommunications tower rigger Nicholas Berg and Lockheed Martin employee Paul M. Johnson, Jr. by Jordanian born Zarqawi's al Qaeda-linked Iraqi terrorists.

Johnson was decapitated on June 18 as Zarqawi videotaped the execution that was then sent to Al-Jazerra TV. Saudi paramilitary police shot to death three Jamaat al Tawhid Jihad members when they tried to dump Johnson's body. In the gunfight that ensured, media reports suggest that other group members escaped with Johnson's corpse which had not been recovered.

The day before Johnson—who had previously indicated to friends and family members that he was seriously considering converting to Islam—was brutally executed, Zarqawi kidnapped a 33-year old South Korean translator, Kim Sun-Il. Kim who worked for Gana Trading Company, which supplies heavy machinery for civil engineering projects. Gana was one of a group of global corporations involved in the rebuilding of Iraq's infrastructure.

Kim Sun-IL was kidnapped on June 17—a day before the government of South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun announced that South Korea was sending 3,000 non-combat troops to Iraq. Pressured to do so by the Bush Administration, South Korea's decision was not popular with the populace which opposes deployment by a margin of 57.5% to 40%. Gana Trading Company attempted, on June 18, to negotiate Kim Sun-Il's release by offering a ransom. Gana Trading did not notify the South Korean government that one of their employees had been taken hostage. Officials in South Korea did not know the kidnapping had taken place until Kim appeared on Al Jazeera begging for his life.

Terrorists gain as much from their victims prior to their grisly executions if they can force them to beg their nations for their live as they do the actual executions. Johnson refused to cooperate. So did the one Italian contractor who was executed, when he asked his captors to take the hood off his head so the world could see how bravely Italian's die.

In the case of Kim Sun-IL, the translator, in what was very likely a scripted message to his nation's leadership, he said: "Please get out of here...I do not want to die. I want to live. My life is important." Zarqawi added: "Our message to you, the government of [South] Korea and the Korean people—we call on you to withdraw your forces from our land and not send new additional troops to this land." The "troops" Zarqawi referred to consist of 660 army engineers and medical personnel that are involved in only one Iraqi city—Nasiriya, in southern Iraq, where they are involved in humanitarian and economic rehabilitation projects.

Tragically, Kim's fate is already decided. Zarqawi knows that no nation in the world will negotiate with him, nor will they negotiate with any al Qaeda operatives. Interestingly, when Zarqawi seized Kim on June 17, the terrorist had no knowledge that President Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea would announce, the following day, that his government was sending 3,000 troops to Iraq unless the al Qaeda network has operatives working inside the South Korean government—or someone in the United States, high enough in the Congressional hierarchy to be privy to that information—who might also be interested in seeing Bush's policy in Iraq fail—is leaking information to interested parties in the Mideast. Roh is in a catch-22 quandary. If Kim is executed, his popularity at home—such as it is—will plummet. If he snubs Bush's demand, Roh risks having the Bush Administration pull a large contingent of the 37,000 American troops stationed in South Korea, thereby jeopardizing the security of South Korea—and his own presidency.

When Zarqawi's demands were made public, Ban Ki-moon, the South Korean Foreign Minister responded by saying: "The Korean government is trying to help the Iraqi people, so they should immediately and unconditionally release the Korean national. My government's decision to dispatch our troops for the purpose of helping the Iraqi people to rehabilitate their economy remains unchanged."

Our biggest problem is that we are playing a chess game with terrorists like its a game of checkers. We need to see a little more of the "Reagan cowboy" in Bush and a little less of the "Clintonian diplomacy." Bush treats the liberals in Congress like they are intelligent people that he should fear rather than treating them like the political thugs and socialist hacks they are. Bush needs to respond to the Middle East terrorists in a more Reaganesque fashion. When Zarqawi demanded that America pull of out Iraq or he would execute Nicholas Berg, Bush should have told him that for every American civilian that is killed anywhere in the Mideast, 10,000 more American soldiers would be dispatched to Iraq. AND THEN DO IT. We are the strongest nation in the world. It's about time our enemies felt it. WHEN THEY ARE MORE AFRAID OF US THAN WE ARE OF THEM, TERRORISM WILL STOP. And, not until. So, to our president I say: "Round 'em up, move 'em out...let's get them thair critters into the corral...or bury them where they fall on the prarie...Ya-hah!"