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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, DECEMBER 23, 1983
PAGE 7
the way, I'm 11 years old. Well, I better not take up any more of
your time, so see ya in the Kingdom.
Angie--age 11 (Loveland, CO)
--Richard Rice, Mail Processing Center
ON THE WORLD SCENE
TERRORISM'S NEW FACE: IRAN'S HOLY WAR STEPS UP:
DEJECTED LEBANESE LOSE HOPE IN AMERICA
President Reagan has once again expressed his determination to keep U.S.
"peacekeeping" forces in Lebanon, albeit with greater protection. At the
same time, the "Islamic Holy War" extremist group, which claimed respon
sibility for the latest bombing at the French regimental headquarters, has
given a "last warning" to U.S. and French peacekeeping forces to leave
Lebanon within 10 days.
"This is the last warning for the American and French forces. We shall give
them 10 days to leave Lebanon. Otherwise, we shall make the earth shake
underneath their feet," an anonymous caller told the Agence France Presse
news agency in Beirut. The pro-Iranian Shiite Moslem group also has claim
ed responsibility for the October 23 suicide bombings of a U
.s.
Marine
barracks and a French headquarters in Beirut that killed 241 American ser
vicemen and 58 French paratroopers.
It also claimed responsibility for
April's U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut in which 63 people died.
The lead editorial in the December 14, 1983 WALL STREET JOURNAL took ex
ception to the manner in which the U.S. military has acted--or not acted-
in Lebanon. The Pentagon furthermore, seems to have come up with no policy
to counteract the new phenomenon of "state-supported terrorism."
After the truck bombing of the Arnerican Embassy in Beirut in
April, the U.s. did nothing.
After the truck bombing of the
Marine force at Beirut airport, the government dithered about
retaliating until it thought the French and Israeli air raids had
taken it off the hook. Now that a truck bomb has just gone off at
the U.S. Embassy and five other locations in Kuwait, Secretary of
State George Shultz says the U.S. will consider retaliation if an
investigation can prove who was responsible.
The absence of an effective military response from April on makes
the U.s. contemptible in the eyes of the Middle East and en
courages further attacks. But that damage is slight compared
with the spectacle of our senior officials refusing to face
reality, hiding behind ever more stringent rules of evidence in
the apparent hope that their calls for investigation can delay
and perhaps postpone indefinitely the need for action. By this
time, the rest of the world has a pretty good idea who was respon
sible. Before the U.S. can even start to defend itself against
this hostile campaign, it is going to have to face up to the new
phenomenon of state-supported terrorism.
Secretary Shultz himself suggested Monday that this sort of ter
rorism was backed by "organized and systematic governmental
efforts to achieve some object." Washington has to admit that
the latest series of truck bombings was almost certainly directed