I understand why the friends and relatives of people gunned down by cold-blooded murderers would want to forgive the criminals who stole their loved one’s life. It’s Stockholm Syndrome. The survivors spend so much time thinking about the murderers that they develop an intimate relationship with them, which turns to sympathy. After all, love is the flip side of hate. Hate someone enough and it turns to a kind of love. You might say it’s perverted. And I would agree. But there it is. Well, here it is [via cnn.com]: “Ronnie Smith, 33, was a chemistry teacher from Austin, Texas, who was working for more than a year in the International School Benghazi when four unidentified assailants in a black Jeep fatally shot him December 5 . . .
“I just envision the black Jeep driving up to him and I don’t know their faces. I just want them to know that God loves them and can forgive them for this,” Anita Smith tells CNN’s Anderson Cooper in an interview.
Emotion broke her voice as she spoke.
“I don’t know them. That’s how I honestly feel. It may sound crazy. It’s God’s spirit that’s putting this inside me,” she added.
I’m no Biblical scholar, but I reckon that depends on whether you’re into the Old or New Testament. Speaking of which, judge not lest ye be judged. More to the point, the whole post-mortem misegos could have been avoided if Mr. Smith had not gone jogging in a Libyan city famous for . . . wait for it . . . murdering Americans.
Alternatively, Mr. Smith may—I repeat may—have emerged from his encounter alive had he been packing heat. Perhaps not the mouse gun that jogger and Texas Governor Rick Perry used to dispatch a coyote. Something a little more effective. Can you jog with a full-auto M4?
Anyway, if you can’t or won’t avoid doing stupid things in stupid places with stupid people, bring as much gun as you can. That is all. Other than R.I.P. Mr. Smith, and our condolences to his family. And best of luck to the Libyan security forces in tracking down his killers and executing them.