A Time to Die

Title: Hijack

“Is it really time for me to die now?” I am sure this question floats through the mind of any innocent victim of terrorism. You never want to be the deciding factor as to whether some one lives or dies but in the situation of terrorism losing a smaller amount of life is better than risking the life of billions. Would I personally, if the decision was left to me, decide to give our United States criminals in exchange for that of terror victims, I would not. In the greater scheme of things to give into terrorist, even one time, would likely cause more destruction to United States property, more wars, and more loss of American life.

Looking at the where the Twin Towers once stood would only confirm my decision not to give in to terrorist. The amount of destruction caused to the heart of the United States on that faithful day is inconceivable. There are reasons that we have policies such as that of counterterrorism and that’s because policies such as these keeps us a country just a little safer. I can only imagine the amount of damage that could be caused on United Stated soil if we were to give in to terrorist every time they took a hostage and demanded something in return. In my opinion it all goes back to a saying we have all heard before, “If you let them get away with it once, they will do it again”.

As for the wars that we have overseas, can you imagine them being here? We will always have war just hopefully not in the United States. I believe this would be one of the thoughts of mine in making the decision not to save a plane full of human lives in exchange for criminals. Not only would I be allowing the terrorist to get away with such nonsense but I would be handing over bad guys to the bad guys! That just does not make sense in a world where we strive on our countries laws.

In any term that you choose to look at this particular situation lives would be lost. Even if I was to give into my beliefs and give into terrorism eventually it would come back around to haunt me. I would have to take into account that if I did trade our criminals for the hostages on the plane the terrorist would likely come back with even greater demands. Who’s to say that they would not kill the hostage no matter what I chose to do. I would however have heartfelt sorrow for the victims and even for the terrorist who, for some reason, have chosen to do something so horrible.

To let the United States become vulnerable to terrorism is something I could not allow myself to do. We as citizens of the U.S. tend to say this is a free country but people loose their lives everyday so that we can have the freedom to live out lives the way that we choose. In order for this to remain a free country there are tough decisions to be made daily. My decision would be based upon saving as many lives as possible and I can not see how giving into terrorist would save lives in the long run.