DO NOT YIELD TO TERRORISTS

On Saturday, two Japanese diplomats were killed in Iraq. One of them, 45-year-old Katsuhiko Oku, had earlier lost a friend in the bombing of the UN compound. Rather than being shaken by that experience, his diary shows that he understood why the mission in Iraq is so important:

By chance, amid the rubble of the building, Mr Oku found the name card of his friend, the Unicef worker Christopher Klein-Beekman.

He wrote in his diary: "It was as though the card was telling me: 'My Japanese friend, go straight ahead. Don't hesitate. There are things that must be done'."

In November, after visiting the site of a suicide bombing in Nassiriya, he wrote: "What we should learn from this tragedy is to have stronger determination not to yield to terrorists. Terrorist attacks could happen anywhere in the world. The elimination of terrorism is therefore a goal to be sought by all of us."

Indeed.