Insults to America

In the past few weeks there have been two incidents of deadly violence projected onto American citizens by radicals from other countries.  It is alarming in that it seems they can be done at will and are not attended with serious consequence and all too often with little response at all.

The first was the killing, in February, of this year of the  Four Americans captured by Somali pirates while sailing in the Indian Ocean.  

The two couples, Phyllis Macay, 59, and Robert Riggle, 67, of Seattle, and the yacht's owners, Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey, California were on an around the world sailing trip when they were captured by pirates.

Plastic flowers are laid down on March 3,
in front of Terminal 2
at the airport in Frankfurt/M.

The second incident, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, "was a lone gunman that killed two American servicemen and wounded at least two others on a U.S. military bus outside Frankfurt Airport in what officials described as a possible terrorist attack."


What are we to do to prevent such affronts and what should be our response?   Interestingly enough founding father, Thomas Jefferson, experienced the same situation.  In his correspondence to John Jay, regarding attacks on American commerce overseas and especially by the Barbary Coast pirates, he wrote:

That next to last sentence is worth repeating as it seems to hold true today, he said, 

"I think it to our intrest to punish the first insult: because an insult unpunished is the parent to many others."

There is so much to be gained from history if we would just learn it, and more importantly if to our youth it were taught.  Truths span the distance of time and by some good fortune our founders were able to latch on to so many.