The Munich Olympics, Syria and Vengeance

A man, so clearly filled with evil, was standing in a hunched, guarded posture on the balcony of a high rise apartment.  He had a woolen ski mask pulled over his face.  Earlier he had gunned down two Israeli Olympic athletes.  Nine more were being held hostage in the interior of Building 31 of the Munich Olympic Village.  The date was September 5, 1972—41 years ago, today.  His photo is instantly recognizable. 

            If you are my age, you know how this ends.  Barely 24 hours later, in a criminally botched transfer of the hostages and terrorists at a NATO airbase, all nine Israeli hostages and five of the eight Arab terrorists died amid gun fire, explosion and fire.  Three of the terrorists were captured alive but, incredibly (!!!!), were released by the German government when Lufthansa Flight 615 was high jacked on October 29.   The man who engineered this massacre died of kidney failure at the age of 73, an unapologetic murderer to the end.  I hope he suffered intensely. 

            No end of mistakes, misinterpretations, failures, naïveté and garden variety stupidity contributed to how these Arab terrorists were able to kill decent human beings while holding the Olympic Games hostage.  The only group that actually seemed to have an intelligent and effective strategy in all of this was Israel and their Mossad.  Unfortunately, they were not allowed to take an active part in any of the ham handed rescue attempts. 

            Mossad eventually hunted down and brought justice to many, though not all, of the terrorists.  In doing this, they were following the orders of their governmental leader, Golda Meir.  [Now there, by the way, is what a chief executive looks like—ovaries the size of church bells!] 

            Since any serious historian knows that past is truly prologue, I am weaving these lessons into the present situation in Syria.  First, the Muslims haven’t changed.  They are far too tolerant of leaders who are cowardly, vicious, narrow-minded and totally indifferent to human suffering.  If they really practiced a peaceful religion they wouldn’t subjugate and behead their women, shelter Bin Laden, fly planes into buildings, bomb non combatants in Boston or kill Olympic athletes.  I know most of the practitioners of this religion are decent people, but decent is as decent does.  If they practiced what they preach, Assad would be dead and Benazir Bhutto would be alive.  

            The second thing we know is that President Obama is no friend of Israel.  There is a good chance that if we bomb Assad that Assad will bomb Israel.  He knows he can’t hurt us, so he will hurt our ally.  Assad is a small, spoiled, pusillanimous excuse for a leader to whom vengeance comes easy.  Even Obama should be able to connect those dots.  But I’m not sure he sees this as necessarily bad.  The President sees Israel as a problem instead of an ally.  They didn’t fawn over him when he got the nomination and, instead, expected him to earn their respect by DOING something instead of just BEING something.  Accountability has turned out to be a real bitch for the Little Prince. 

            I want Assad and his minions to be punished for what they have done.  They have lost the right to continue sucking up oxygen on this planet.  I think we should take a tip from the Israeli’s and quietly, stealthily, relentlessly, wait for the right moment to put a bullet between their eyes and then feign surprise—though not regret. 

            The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine while you keep the faith.