A.D. 980-1016
IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: –
"We invaded you last night – we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: –
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
One of the the problems with combating terror is that although it is very easy to say we don't deal with terrorists, it is nearly impossible to not deal with them--though that would be the best thing. So the difficult thing to do--in fact I have never seen it done--is to establish a clear albiet closely held threshold of pain which you are willing to endure before you will take any action. Germany has shown that their threshold is one human life----the situation they have created is one in which they will now have to endure more casualties to prove that they can----or they will have to disengage.