The train station of Volgograd is bombed twice in two consecutive days, killing 34 and injuring 85. An explosion kills 6 near Sochi in multiple cars. President Obama announces he will not be attending the Olympics. Both Congress Intelligence Committees recommend not sending athletes to Sochi. America dispatches warships to Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin announces he will utilize the archaic, dreaded Cossacks as security. American athletes are advised to be careful when wearing their uniforms outside the athletic facilities and the Olympic Village. Two female members of the Austrian delegation receive death threats. A terror alert is announced for three women, dubbed “black widows,” who plan to bomb the torch relay in Dagestan. America issues a bomb threat on planes via toothpaste tubes. A Pegasus Airlines jet in Turkey is almost hijacked by a Ukrainian, who intended to fly to Sochi.

These events form a timeline of terror. Protests in Ukraine are stirring up anti-Russian feelings. Jihadists in the Northern Caucasus, south of Russia, are issuing fatwas calling to attack the Games. The signs are all there. Something is going to go wrong. The hijacking is the last straw. It is time to do the unprecedented. Stop the Games.

It can be argued that stopping the Games would achieve nothing because that would only bring terrorists satisfaction. However, it is idiotic to gamble with athletes’ lives just to hide fear in the face of evil. It can also be argued that these threats should not matter, as the Olympics are supposed to be non-political, bipartisan, surviving any conflict. However, the security risks are unprecedented, which require an unheard-of move.

The Games still continue currently as per the orders of President Putin and the International Olympic Committee, the IOC. These Games have been called “Putin’s baby.” Putin sees the Games as his chance to show Russia off to the world and attempt to be seen as a civilized country run by an exemplary president. The IOC is merely following its own agenda, which comprises of two principles: make the Games look as good as possible and keep the Games going at all costs. The IOC does not want to stop the Games because they would be seen as a failure, as incompetent. Therefore, the authorities let the Games roll.

In 1996, the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta were marred when four pipe bombs were set off in Centennial Olympic Park, the town square of the Games. Two were killed and 111 injured. The bomber was found to be Eric Robert Rudolph, who later bombed an abortion clinic and a lesbian nightclub. He confessed bombing the Games in protest of new abortion laws.

In 1972, the Summer Olympic Games were set in Munich in the west, democratic part of then-split Germany. West Germany wished to show the world that they had changed, from the atrocities of Hitler and the Nazis three decades previously. Security in the Olympic Village was intentionally lax and athletes could come and go as they pleased. The head of the Israeli delegation, Shmuel Lalkin, complained about a lack of security, but West German officials assured him they would provide extra security. The IOC asked West German forensic psychologist Georg Sieber to create 26 terrorism scenarios to aid the organizers in planning security. Situation 21 described the following events almost perfectly. However, the IOC decided not to prepare for any of the 26 scenarios because guarding the Olympic Games would have gone against their first principle of making the Games look as good as possible. A week before the Games, authorities had a tip-off from a Palestinian informant in Beirut, Lebanon’s capital. The informant said that Palestinians were planning an incident at the Games, and the Foreign Ministry passed this on to the secret service. However, the tip was never acted on.

On September 4, 1972, the Israeli delegation watched a production of “Fiddler on the Roof” and dined with the leading actor. On the bus home, Shmuel Lalkin denied his 13-year-old son, who had befriended the weightlifters, permission to stay that night with them. This saved the boy’s life.

At 4:30 AM on September 5^th, eight members of Black September, a Palestinian terrorist organization aiming to take control of Israel, entered the Olympic Village with the help of unsuspecting athletes. They carried duffel bags with assault rifles, pistols, and grenades. They used stolen keys to enter the Israeli apartments. Yossef Gutfreund, a wrestling referee, heard scratching at the door of his room, where the Israeli coaches and referees were staying. When he investigated, he saw the masked men enter. He shouted a warning to his teammates and threw his giant body at the door in a failed attempt to block the terrorists from coming in. This gave his roommate, wrestling coach Tuvia Sokolovsky, time to smash the window and jump out. They then shot the third occupant of the room in the cheek, Sokolovsky’s fellow coach Moshe Weinberg, and forced him to lead them to the other Israelis. Weinberg told them there were only six athletes, wrestlers and weightlifters, and led him to their apartment. He hoped that the strong athletes could overpower the terrorists, but they were surprised in their sleep.

The athletes were marched back to the coaches’ apartment, but Weinberg attacked the terrorists, sacrificing his life, so that wrestler Gad Tsobari could escape. Weightlifter Yossef Romano, a Six-Day War veteran, also sacrificed his life for Tsobari. In the end, there were nine hostages. They were all bound with Romano’s corpse placed in front of them as a warning. The other Israelis heard screaming, so every other Israeli athlete was able to safely escape.

Black September demanded the release of over 200 Palestinian prisoners from Israel. Israel refused and wanted to send military units to Munich, but they were stopped by West Germany. Instead, West German units attempted to attack by climbing the side of the building. However, camera crews were filming them doing this, so the terrorists simply watched on TV as they prepared to be attacked, guns pointed to the hostages. The units retreated. After further intense negotiations, it was agreed that they would be given a helicopter to transfer the hostages to Cairo.

The West Germans planned an ambush. The first attempt failed, when walking to the airport because they were heard by the terrorists. Five sharpshooters were planted, picked because they shot competitively on weekends. They planned to put units inside the helicopter to capture the terrorists. However, they needed one sharpshooter for every terrorist and found that they were three short.

The team inside the helicopter voted to abandon the mission without notifying anyone else. Therefore, the terrorists reached the helicopter and realized it was a trap, and were caught in a gun battle. The battle concluded when one terrorist shot three hostages point-blank and another threw a hand grenade into the cockpit, burning alive the remaining six.

The Games continued immediately, suspended during the hours of the hostage crisis. Five of the terrorists were killed in the gunfight, and the remaining three were arrested. However, on October 29, a Lufthansa jet was hijacked in exchange for the remaining three. It was later revealed that this was done in accordance with West German orders. They, therefore, went home to Libya with the dead five to give them heroes’ funerals. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir later launched Operation Wrath of God to track down the terrorists. They succeeded on killing only one. Abu Daoud died of kidney failure at the age of 73 on July 3, 2010 in Damascus, Syria. Jamal al-Gashey remains alive, last sighted in North Africa and Syria in 2012.

This was the biggest disaster in the history of the Olympic Games. They only received one warning. These Games have received many. If we don’t stop the Games, I feel as though there will inevitably be a terrorist attack that will completely eclipse the massacre of Munich. We cannot put our athletes in jeopardy, must send them home, and stop these Games for the sake of international safety.