Basic HTML Version
PAGE 8
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JUNE 21, 1985
hands will be dirtied" if innocent lives are lost. Even President Reagan
seemed to reflect this attitude in his June 18 news conference when he said
that unless we could "pinpoint the enemy" any retaliatory attack could mean
"you're a terrorist, too."
The U.S. may try to take the "high moral ground" in the Lebanon quagmire,
but Americans fail to realize there are few innocents in the more radi
calized communities. The women in the towns and slums harbor their gun
toting husbands and sons; the children are inspired and trained to be
future terrorists. Perhaps the U.S. government should have learned a les
son from the recent NBA basketball finals: The Los Angeles Lakers were fi
nally able to defeat their old nemesis, the Boston Celtics, by abandoning
their "finesse" game and playing Boston's "physical" style of basketball.
Not pretty, but it worked.
As it stands now, the U.S. has no reputation for protecting its interests
and citizens--a first and foremost responsibility of any government. Amer
ica is a soft touch. Since the Shiites demanded the return of 700 of their
captives in Israel, why didn't they hijack an El Al plane? Here is what
Barnard L. Collier had to say in an article "U.S. Criticized for Failure to
Hit Back at Terrorists" in the June 19 WASHINGTON TIMES:
It is already established administration policy under National
Security Decision Directive 138, signed by President Reagan on
April 13, 1984, to take a series of measures to combat terrorism
throughout the world.
These include pre-emptive strikes,
punitive retaliation, and going to the source of the terrorism if
it is sponsored by a particular state. Jeffrey Record, a senior
fellow of the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and a former
legislative assistant for national security affairs for Sen. Sam
Nunn, D-Ga., said that "punitive action� be very easy. It's·
all � matter of the will to take the action."•••
Edward Luttwak, senior fellow at Georgetown University's Center
for Strategic Studies and a severe critic of the Defense Depart
ment, said:
"In a strategic response, one can never deal with
problems on a case-by-case basis. The question is how to begin
to create the idea that you don't want to attack United States
planes. The dog that didn't bark in this whole affair is the El
Al airliner that didn't get hijacked.
!!
the hijackers wanted
the Israelis to release prisoners, why didn't they hijack an El
Al plane? The answer is that they didn't hijack El Al because the
Israelis have built a reputation of the sort the United States
must build up. They know you can out-terrorize terrorism."
Mr. Luttwak said hijackers who might contemplate piracy against
Israeli planes must consider the following: "They will probably
have to face a prompt rescue of the hostages the first place the
plane sits long on the ground. There won't be several days of
diddling around. The planes are secure with some sort of sky
marshals, and the Israelis do not allow third parties, like the
Greeks, to take care of their airport security. There will be
some form of rather swift retaliation, against the hijackers or
their protectors. There is individual pursuit of individual hi
jackers. An Identa-kit picture is made of them and is kept on
file for as long as 10 years. The terrorist must worry that one
day while he is on the beach on the Riviera he will be murdered."