See the motivation? This is why "Kill 'em all" is not a good strategy for the eventual goal of security and prosperity for the Western hemisphere:
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On Terrorism and its Causes
One of the Lebanese Shiites who hijacked TWA Flight 847 in June 1985 ran up the aisle of the aircraft shouting "New Jersey," a point not immediately understood by the passengers. Later, he told one of them that his wife and daughter had been killed in the indiscriminate shelling of Lebanese villages by the USS New Jersey in September 1983.
Our Iranian captors told us repeatedly that they were "paying America back for its great crimes." They were especially resentful of the contrast between the Carter Administration's proclamation of human rights as the centerpiece of its foreign policy, and its support of the Shah, whose regime was declared by Amnesty International to be at the top of its list of human right abusers.
One can argue that the indiscriminate killing of innocent people by a state in pursuit of its national interests, while regrettable, is at least tolerable, whereas indiscriminate killing by irregular groups, like the Palestinians in pursuit of their national interest, is not. But that, surely, is a "Catch 22" argument to Palestinians who want nothing more than a state of their own, The injustice they complain of is the denial to them by the world community, led by the United States, of the rights of self determination accorded to Israel and to other formerly colonized peoples, along with recognized boundaries, a flag and the rest of the substance and forms of nationhood.
If the United States has become a principal target of Middle Eastern terrorism, it is not merely because of its alliance with Israel. That alliance by itself would not explain the reactions of my Iranian captors, so very parallel with those of the Palestinians. For Middle Eastern terrorists of all descriptions, we Americans, who traditionally have upheld high standards of freedom, self determination and human rights, in our actual conduct have proved a great disappointment. Disillusionment turns to bitterness, and bitterness to hatred, and hatred to revenge.
When Victim Becomes Victimizer
Worst of all, those who feel that they have been victimized in turn feel justified in doing to others what was done to them. The terrorist's callous disregard for human life owes much to victimization. The original postwar terrorist, Menachem Begin, who perpetrated the massacre of Arab villagers at Deir Yassin in April 1948, had, of all present day Israeli leaders, the most direct experience of the Holocaust. (He was in Europe during most of World War II.) If we Americans are to be of any avail in breaking the cycle of Middle Eastern violence, to which American citizens are beginning to fall victim, then we must learn to understand the feelings both of a Menachem Begin and a Yassir Arafat.
In December 1984, I participated in a conference in England on the subject of terrorism. Among a blue ribbon international group, including senior officials from Scotland Yard, the FBI, politicians, luminaries from the media and academic experts, I was the token hostage. We wasted a whole morning unsuccessfully trying to hammer out an acceptable definition of terrorism, only to take refuge in Lord Clement Attlee's "An elephant is hard to define, but if one comes into the room, you know damn well what it is."
Perhaps a better definition of terrorism would be: "political action by violent means of which we happen to disapprove." Those whose ends and means we do approve are excused because they are "freedom fighters." I am reminded in this of World War II, in which German U boats were "bad" because they "attacked unarmed merchant ships," whereas U.S. submarines were “good" because they "swept the sea of Jap shipping."
American judges repeatedly have turned down British requests for the extradition of gunmen from the IRA, whose terrorist actions have been no less noxious than those perpetrated by Middle Easterners. Our judges rely on a clause in the extradition treaty exempting from extradition crimes such as murder if they can be classified as "political offenses." Such a treaty, along with the U.S. Constitution, is the highest law of the land. In effect, it says that we protect all murderers, arsonists and burglars, provided that their motives are those of politics, rather than of rage, greed or lust. Criminal action, justified by political motive, is one definition of terrorism.
A political offenses clause would cover Abu Nidal, and others responsible for the recent airport massacres, terrorists whom the Reagan Administration would like to bring to justice. It would also cover the Nicaraguan contras, freedom fighters to whose support the Reagan Administration is committed. The distinction becomes which of our national interests are served by which irregular groups and which groups work against our national interest.
[Do take a time to read the rest of the article as well. I find it especially interesting that it was written in 1986. Not much changes under the sun...]
(Moorhead Kennedy, acting economic counselor when the US Embassy in Tehran was seized in 1979, is executive director of The Council for International Understanding in New York and author of the forthcoming The Ayatollah in the Cathedral: Reflections of a Hostage.)
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