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From: orb@whuts.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: re: Death to baby killers, NOW!
Message-ID: <499@whuts.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 22-Jan-86 10:13:15 EST
Article-I.D.: whuts.499
Posted: Wed Jan 22 10:13:15 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 24-Jan-86 22:35:19 EST
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Here is a response to another of Bill Tannenbaums replies
to my article on terrorism:
> ---
> > 4)While Reagan and the American media wail against terrorism conducted
> >   by the "enemy" they *never even mention* our own support for
> >   terrorist campaigns against innocent civilians in Nicaragua and now
> >   (thanks to Jerry Falwell, Jack Kemp and friends) in Angola.
> >   Yet there was an interesting letter in the NYTimes (Jan. 9) from
> >   Edgar Chamorro, a former leader of the contras who quit in disgust.
> >   Here is an interesting statement he made in his letter:
> >   [Long anti-Contra stuff omitted]
> ---
> There are civil wars going on in Nicaragua and Angola.  Innocent civilians
> always suffer in civil wars.  One cannot fault the U.S. for the one in Angola.
> The U. S. is a major instigator of the one in Nicaragua.  All this is totally
> irrelevent to Kaddafi.  Terrorism in Nicaragua is a byproduct of civil war.
 
By this argument, Bill, the Soviets planting of booby-trapped toys
to kill children in Afghanistan, is perfectly alright since it is
simply a matter of "civil war" in Afghanistan.
I do not buy this argument.  Afghanistan has been blatantly invaded
by the Soviet Union and Nicaragua's "civil war" is an invasion by
proxy by the United States.  Innocent civilians are killed by these
"civil wars" subsidized by both superpowers just as much as they are
killed by random acts of terrorism subsidized by other governments.  
 
The reason however that most Americans don't care if innocent civilians
are killed in these random acts of violence in other countries paid for
by their government is that they see little likelihood that *they* will
be killed.  So long as the killings can be kept to other countries not
much frequented by Americans then it is somehow less noteworthy.
However when *Americans* become the victims of nations' striving
for power then suddenly it becomes "terrorism" and  something which
the rest of the world "must stop".  The major distinction which I see
in the killing of innocent civilians occurring in Nicaragua and
Afghanistan and the killing of innocent civilians in Rome and Vienna
is that the latter case happened to involve some Americans.
 
We can see how blatantly "terrorism" has been defined by Reagan and the
media as "killing of Americans" in the shooting of four American 
military advisers in El Salvador by the guerillas.  This killing of
Americans who are advising the Salvadorans on how to bomb and
terrorize that segment of the population opposed to the government
was labelled as another "terrorist" act which required "reprisals" by
Ronald Reagan and George Schultz.  The media simply picked up their
charges and dutifully repeated them as it parrots every other piece
of nonsense coming from the government.  Were these American *military*
advisers even close to being any sort of "innocent civilians"?
Of course not.  Yet they were Americans who were killed by those defined
as our "enemy" so therefore they were more "victims of terrorism".
I never heard a question raised by the mainstream media about whether
it made any sense whatsoever to consider these American military
advisers "innocent civilians" and victims of "terrorism".

For this reason I refuse to accept the equation being foisted upon us
by the media that "killing of Americans by enemies" == terrorism
           while  "killing of Third World civilians" == civil war
 
That distinction is sheer hypocrisy and doublethink.
         tim sevener  whuxn!orb