NO ONE outside hostage Douglas Wood's immediate family can possibly imagine the level of despair which has led them to seek the intervention of the repulsive Sheik Taj el-Dene Elhilaly in a bid to free the Australian from his brutal Iraqi kidnappers.
Only desperation could have driven them to ask this notorious force for division in the Australian community to attempt to contact the Sunni extremists who have been exhibiting their battered captive on videos presented to the terrorist channel of choice, al-Jazeera television.
The Egyptian-born spiritual leader of Australia's Muslim community, who is also a Sunni, has sent a message to those torturing Mr Wood telling them "we value your jihad and your efforts and we call upon you to do something for the sake of our community and all Australian society, which does not support John Howard's pro-American policies".
The sheik told The Australian newspaper he had explained to the kidnappers that local Muslims understood their desire to "liberate" their country and make it independent but such kidnappings reflected badly on the Australian Islamic community and "we should not bear the burden of political mistakes".
Sheik Elhilaly's presence in Australia is one of the worst political mistakes that we have been forced to bear.
He is here because of the Keating government's grotesque political manipulation of the Immigration Department.
The wretched process was so blatant that then-immigration minister Chris Hurford courageously resigned as a matter of principle from the portfolio and left the granting of the sheik's tawdry residency permit to a successor with fewer qualms.
Now the sheik, whose gross insults to our society and members of the Jewish community in particular are a matter of public record, has claimed that his followers in Australia have some regard for the murderers who are struggling to prevent Iraqis from restoring their economy and establishing a stable democracy.
He has also questioned the wisdom of the Australian Government's policy of not negotiating with kidnappers.
Sheik Elhilaly may live in the West but he doesn't understand and doesn't appear to appreciate our society's virtues.
The Government does not play footsy with terrorists because to do so would only give such killers the legitimacy they crave. Paying ransoms would only enable them to purchase more weapons and explosives to carry out further attacks upon those who want to see genuine liberation of men and, importantly, women in the truly repressive Islamic societies of the Middle East.
Some Australians may be unhappy with the decision to send troops to assist in protecting those who are engaged in rebuilding Iraq, but few would deny the right of Iraqis to live in a society free of the scourge of terrorist insurgents determined to install an Islamo-fascist regime in that country.
The Western nations at the forefront of the Coalition of the Willing have a proud history of liberating enslaved nations.
Think the defeat of fascism in Germany and Japan and the Marshall Plan, which restored the German economy, and the occupation government in Tokyo which saw the replacement of Japan's feudal government with a modern democracy.
Think, too, of the collapse of the Soviet empire and the liberation of the Baltic nations from the grip of the Russian bear.
It is popular for the post-modernists who rule in our schools and universities to remove historical references to the liberation of Europe and Asia from the curricula and to speak wistfully of the failed Soviet socialist experiment, but there are still millions old enough to recall Europe's darkest hours and the horrors of the Japanese prisoner-of-war camps.
Many of our older immigrants, those who have contributed enormously to the social and economic wellbeing of modern Australia well know what genuine liberation is, and what it isn't.
They would disagree with Sheik Elhilaly's assessment of the "liberation" of Iraq and his support for "jihad".
All Australians pray that Douglas Wood's captors release him safely and understand the desperation that has forced his family to enlist the assistance of the dubious sheik, but few would subscribe to the sheik's outrageous views.
Sheik Elhilaly has criticised the Government for refusing to negotiate and for its refusal to withdraw forces from Iraq, asking: "What is the wisdom, the logic and diplomacy in all this?"
The wisdom is plain – Australians do not wish to encourage further acts of terror by making concessions to murderous kidnappers.
The logic is simple, and the diplomacy straightforward. Tell no lies and expect to be told the truth in return.
The kidnappers are without honour in Iraq, they are without honour anywhere in the world beyond that small void hidden in the folds of cloth they wear to disguise and dehumanise their features.
To stoop to their level, even in an effort to wrest the freedom of one of our own, would degrade the value we place on truth and honesty as the foundations of our society.
