World champion tough guy Chuck Norris knows a good soldier never leaves a man behind.
So despite near silence from America’s commander in chief, America’s “commando in chief” is rising up to call for the rescue of two American Christians held in prisons behind enemy lines.
In his newest WND column, Norris announces he is “join[ing] the appeal to Iran and North Korea for the release of American hostages like imprisoned American pastor Saeed Abedini and missionary Kenneth Bae.
“I’m also calling upon President Obama and Congress to step up their action,” Norris continues, “stand for religious freedom and fight for the release of these godly men whose crimes were nothing more than exercising their faith.”
Read Chuck Norris’ column, “Hostages, my granddaughters and hope of the world,” now!
Pastor Abedini was sentenced in January to eight years in prison by an Iranian court for starting house churches in the 2000s, and Bae was sentenced in April to 15 years hard labor in a North Korean prison camp for conducting missionary activity. Both remain today in brutal prison conditions that threaten their lives.
Yet despite public pressure for the Americans’ release and a flurry of diplomatic activity with Iran, the Obama administration has repeatedly refused to make freeing the Americans a diplomatic priority.
Naghmeh Abedini, wife of pastor Abedini, recently appealed to Congress after Obama completed a nuclear energy negotiation with Iran without seeking release of her husband.
The pastor’s wife explained on Capitol Hill, “My husband is suffering because he is a Christian. He’s suffering because he’s an American. … Yet his own government did not fight for him when his captors were across the table.”
Norris is now challenging Obama, Congress and – if America’s elected leaders won’t stand up for the task – the American people to take action.
“If our present government won’t fight for ours and others’ imprisoned freedom, then America must call up its most mighty reserves and real power: We, the people,” Norris writes.
“What value or use is it if America embodies freedom and liberty and yet its government does nothing to fight for its imprisoned freedom fighters around the world?” Norris asks. “And how ludicrous is it that we give other countries billions of dollars, nuclear energy and buy nearly all of their manufactured products, and in return they imprison our citizens with harsh sentences for their petty ‘crimes’ that happened to be cherished freedoms to us?”
