stro@ur-univax.UUCP (06/19/85)
What do other people out there think about the latest act of terrorism - the hijacking (and kidnapping of the passengers) of TWA 847? What should be done? What can be done? This is my personal view: Terrorism seems to have two goals, the first is, of course, to accomplish their goals ( in this case, the freeing of the 700 or so Shi'ite prisoners in Israel. The second is to atract the wworlds attention to their plight. Commiting ANY crime for these reasons ( or any reason) should not be tolerated - especially when people's lives have been threatened. Terrorists have come to know that if they threaten people's lives they can bargain with governments to get what they want. This only leads to more and more terrorism. I believe Turkey is one of the countries that has adopted one of the best policies of anti-terrorism. They just refuse to even talk to terrorists. If such situation ever happened there they would ignore them. And if inocent people were killed, that's the price one has to pay -- but at least it ould not happen again. Another idea would be to automatically go in there and kill the terrorists right away, at the very begining. Again, a fe inocents might get killed, but isn't that better than having our orld constantly threatened by terrorists. I know what everybody's next question is: hat would I say if one of my friend or relatives ( or me ) was on board. And my answer is the same, beacuse this is a matter of society and groups of people - countries, cultures, the whole world. You can't just look at the individual - I know this sounds cruel, and inhuman, but in this kind of situation ( one of a world wide problem that's getting worse - terrorists acts are up 30% over last year) it is the only view one can have. The best solution would be, of course, to stop it at its root. Insted of spending all this money on the army's Delta Force, and the FBI's HRT, why not look into why these people are protesting. Now I don't really know what the shi'ites really want. It seems one of their main problems is America - and american intervention in Lebanon. I think its clear: they blew up an American embassy, a marine camp, and now a plane full of Americans they want us out of there. And why do we stay? what's so special about Lebanon? Why can't America just leave some countries alone? It's in our national interest Reagan says. So, its our national interest to get 500 inocent Americans killed? Is it going to be in our national ineterest when some fanatical group has a nuclear bomb and threatens to blow up New York unless withdraw all our ships from the mediteranian? Terrorism has gone on to long and too far - the world must be shown that terrorism doesn't work, that nothing can be accomplished by it.