Alex, Sascha and the Toll of Islamist Terror Our son-in-law and his sister were among the dead in Brussels. Will the West take the fight to ISIS and will the U.S. lead the way? By James P. Cain
Two Saturdays ago, just outside Maastricht, the Netherlands, I visited the 65-acre American Cemetery in Margraten. A sea of marble white crosses and Stars of David is arrayed in a gentle arc marking the final resting place of 8,301 American soldiers who fell nearby while ensuring the liberty and security of a Europe brutalized by World War II.
My wife, Helen, our daughters Cameron and Laura, and a few friends and I were there to view the magnificent array of flowers brought to the cemetery the day before. The flowers came from the funerals of Alexander and Sascha Pinczowski, Dutch siblings who lived in New York and were murdered on March 22 in the Brussels airport by Islamist terrorists Ibrahim el-Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui.
Alex was married to our daughter Cameron.
He was an exceptionally clever student of international relations, and possessed a keen curiosity about the world. Alex and I talked about the deliverance of Europe from the evils of Nazism, including his family’s hometown of Maastricht. We didn’t always see eye to eye on politics, but Alex and I agreed that the Allies’ success in 1944 had some essential requisites. Those included: the ability to coordinate an effort against a poisonous ideology; the willpower of free people from noncaptive nations to commit to fighting a common enemy; and the presence of resolute leadership—which could only come, at that point, from America.
As I stood before the dozens of bouquets at the cemetery, I pondered whether, with an enemy of a type different in this century, America today was still willing to fulfill the leadership role that once brought peace and freedom to the world. And are the countries affected by this modern war, which includes many of the same nations ravaged by World War II, willing to take this fight seriously?
Our own experience in Brussels, while frantically searching for Alex and Sascha, gives reason for doubt. CONTINUE AT SITE
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