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From: tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Terrorist bashing
Message-ID: <947@ihlpg.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Jul-85 05:34:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpg.947
Posted: Thu Jul 25 05:34:56 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Jul-85 23:36:41 EDT
References: <174@pyuxh.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 30

> [Steve Daniels] 
> Roughly paraphrasing from several discussions:
> 
> >>> How many Shiites were killed in US naval bombardment of Beirut?
> >> Not enough.
> >This is terrorism, too.  Haven't we learned anything?
> -----
> After WW II, we should have learned that letting despots and terrorists
> have their way without penalty is not the road to peace.  Some folks on
> this net suffer from latent Neville Chamberlainism: they'd rather give
> away the Louisiana purchase than see one innocent person killed.
> [Several lines omitted for brevity]
> If we have to chose between being humanitarians and protecting our best
> interests, we protect our best interests. We do the best we can walking
> the tightrope, and, if someone bloodies our nose, we bust their backside.
> If we finally make someone pay dearly enough for taking a punch at us,
> this nonsense will stop.
-------------------------------------
Mr. Daniels misunderstands the meaning of my posting.  I was not speaking
against retaliation against terrorists.  Sometimes it is the best thing to
do (even if some innocent people are killed), sometimes not, depending on
circumstances.  It is not as simple as Daniels thinks, however, as Reagan
has found out (at least, before he saw Rambo -) ).  I was speaking out
against the lumping of all Shiites into an undifferentiated mass, all of
whom are fair game.  This is odious in the extreme.  I have noticed a
tendency to do this, not only on the net, but in the rhetoric of some
politicians.  Maybe the poster of the "not enough" comment did not mean
to do this, but others have.
-- 
Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL  ihnp4!ihlpg!tan