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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JUNE 21, 1985
Lack of reliable intelligence also continues to hinder the
U.S•.•• The administration has tried in recent months to push
wary CIA and military officials into tougher anti-terrorism pro
grams, including closer links with other nations' spy serv
ices.••• The CIA, for example, resisted for months the arguments
.QY some administration hard-liners that the U.S. should mount
preemptive operations.
The agency viewed such tactics as
perilously close to assassination, a tactic that helped bring the
CIA into disrepute in the 1970s.•••
Administration officials believe that developing a sound anti
terrorism policy has been difficult because elements of such a
policy .9.2 against the American character.
"Our virtues are
frequently our vulnerabilities," contends Noel Koch, a deputy
assistant secretary of defense who helps supervise counter
terrorism planning. "The value we place on an open society is
exploitable. Our respect for human life is exploitable. And so
there is question of how to maintain these values and yet defend
ourselves. There are no happy choices available."
In one way, it is incredible that one of the Shiite warlords, Nabih Berri,
should be acting as guarantor of the passengers taken off the TWA plane and
performing a role as some sort of interloculator between the hijackers and
the U.S.
His Amal Shiite gunmen, shortly before the hijacking, had
launched a bloody foray into the same Palestinian camps that the Christian
Phalangists did in 1982 when the Israelis weren't looking.
At least
another 600 Palestinians were brutally murdere�. But where was the Western
press this time? asked the NATIONAL REVIEW in its June 28 issue:
September 1982:
Christian Phalangist militiamen massacre hun
dreds of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila
in Beirut. The Israeli army, charged with guarding the camps,
intervenes only after the slaughter is well under way.
An
international uproar ensues during which Israel is compared with
Nazi Germany, and many American journalists (Anthony Lewis
springs to mind) accuse the Begin government--Defense Minister
Sharon, in particular--of complicity in the killings. Indigna
tion flourishes. Some.•.link America, by implication, to the
massacre. An Israeli commission investigates the whole matter.
May 1985:
Shiite militiamen, aided by Shiite elements of the
Lebanese army and also by the Syrian government, massacre
hundreds of Palestinians at Sabra and Shatila. But this time
there is no outrage. The Syrian government will not appoint a
commission to investigate its role in the atrocities. There is
no international clamor. Not a word has been heard from Anthony
Lewis or for that matter from Jesse Jackson, who never fails to
bring up the 1982 killings during any discussion of Israel. Why
not? Because they have no way of linking Israel or the U.S. to
the camps today, and no way of blaming us for the slaughter.
Flight 847 Hijacking Only a Symptom
In a broader sense, more than the United States is held hostage in the
Middle East. So are moderate Arab leaders, such as Jordan's King Hussein.
The radicals are determined to shoot down any pretensions at peace with
•