These are Our Enemies

Last week Hezbullah handed over to the Israelis a letter written by downed pilot Ron Arad to his wife, shortly after his plane was shot down in 1986. Sometime thereafter he got lost in the chaos that is Lebanon, or the hell that is Iran, or somewhere, and I suppose he's been dead for many years, though we'll never know. His mother died of cancer many years later, still hoping against hope for some news of him; his daughter is now almost as old as his wife was when he wrote the letter.

And all those years someone had the letter, along with the last photo of him, and never told. This is not carelessness, nor momentary fury, or an act of despair, nor any of the idiotic excuses the apologists such as Juan Cole routinely trot out. This is cold, calculating, vicious sadism, sustained over decades.