TruthNews Commentary, September 5, 2004

The horrific death toll from Friday's terrorist murders in Russia by Chechen Muslim separatists ought to wake people up to the malignant nature of terrorism. But it probably won't. Already, the news media are busy blaming the Russians for the deaths of over 300 people, many of them children, in the city of Beslan in southern Russia.

A series of articles in the New York Times covering the Chechen attacks mentioned Chechnya only once, focusing instead on the actions by the Russian military. Reading the articles, it seemed almost as if they were describing a natural disaster, rather than deliberate mass murders by evil doers.

Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot issued a statement demanding that Russian authorities explain how "this tragedy could have happened." The Netherlands holds the EU's revolving presidency, so Bot in effect was speaking for the EU.

Well, since Mr. Bot wants an explanation, I will provide him one. Evil people committed an act of unspeakable brutality in order to further their political aims. The Russians were not particularly adept in responding to the terrorists, opting for the Janet Reno strategy of giving the hostage takers time to rig the building with explosives. But the responsibility for the slaughter of the innocents lies with the Chechen terrorists who blew the kids up, not with the Russian soldiers who tried to rescue them.

The Chechen terrorist murders of the Russian children are a reminder that the world has coddled terrorists far too long. Too many governments have excused terrorism as a legitimate form of resistance. Too many governments have tried to appease terrorists. Here’s a rogue’s gallery of some of the more infamous incidents:

• In 1972, members of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) kidnapped and murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. German police killed five of the terrorists and captured three. Less than two months later, the three surviving murderers were set free. Why? The Palestinians hijacked an airliner and demanded the release of their cohorts. The Germans decided to appease the terrorists, and the murderers went scot free. The Germans had provided proof that terrorist threats work.

• In 1985, Palestinian terrorists hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro. They killed the wheel-chair bound American passenger Leon Klinghoffer and threw his body overboard. The hijackers then sailed the ship to Egypt. The Egyptians set the terrorists free and put them on a plane for Tunis (where the PLO had been based since being driven out of Lebanon in 1982). U.S. president Ronald Reagan ordered U.S. Navy planes to intercept the terrorists' plane. After the plane landed in Italy, the Italians promptly released ringleader Abu Abbas. He remained free until captured by U.S. forces in Baghdad in 2003.

• In 1986, Libyan dictator Moammar Khaddafy ordered the bombing of a West Berlin nightclub that killed two U.S. servicemen and a Turkish woman and injured about 230 others. In response, President Reagan ordered the U.S. Air Force to bomb Tripoli. French authorities, hoping to suck up to Khaddafy, refused to allow the U.S. aircraft to overfly France. The attack proceeded anyway, going the long way through the Strait of Gibraltar. In August of this year, Libya agreed to pay $35 million to the German victims of the disco bombing.

• In 1993, Yasser Arafat, the perpetrator of hundreds of terrorist attacks resulting in thousands of deaths, was awarded a Nobel Peace prize.

• In March of this year, Arab terrorists blew up several commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people and wounding more than 1800. Spain was a member of the "coalition of the willing" in the war to liberate Iraq. The Spanish opposition Socialist Party placed the blame for the attack not on the Arab terrorists, but on the Spanish government. The Spanish people then voted the socialists into office, who promptly tried to appease the terrorists by withdrawing their troops from Iraq.

• In July, Islamic terrorists in Iraq kidnapped a Filipino truck driver and threatened to kill him unless the Philippines withdrew their 51 troops from Iraq. The Filipino government promptly crumbled as Deputy Foreign Minister Rafael Seguis told the Arab terrorists on al-Jazeera television that "in response to your request" the Philippines "will withdraw its humanitarian forces as soon as possible."

That such notorious appeasers as France opposed the invasion is not surprising. That Russia, itself a victim of numerous terrorist attacks, also tried to stop the invasion, may appear somewhat surprising but reveals an ambiguity about how many countries treat terrorism. They oppose it when it happens to them but condone it when it happens to others. For example, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, both victims of Al Qaeda terrorism, regard Palestinian terrorists as freedom fighters. Europe was the victim of numerous terrorist attacks from communists, Libyans, and Palestinians during the 1980s, but has no sympathy for the Israeli fight against Arab terrorists. Both Spain and the Philippines are fighting home-grown terrorists but backed down to Al Qaeda. Russia, in addition to trying to keep Saddam Hussein in power, is also helping Iran to build a nuclear reactor, which Iran can then use to build nuclear weapons that they can supply to terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

From the news coverage of the Chechen terrorist murders in Russia, it seems that the media is surprised that Muslim terrorists shoot children. It's no surprise to those of us who have been following the events in Israel, but then the news media doesn't consider the Arabs who shoot and blow up Jewish children to be terrorists -- rather they're "militants," "gunmen," "rebels," or "separatists." Many third world countries have also obfuscated the issue by calling occupation and economic sanctions terrorism. This is sort of like the Germans’ tactic of comparing Bush to Hitler -- it takes an absolute evil, like terrorism or genocide, and compares it to something innocuous, thus making the absolute evil appear less evil.

Terrorism will only end when the world community recognizes that the end does not justify the end -- that terrorism, the deliberate killing of civilians in order to achieve political goals, is unacceptable no matter how laudable the goal is (not that most terrorists have laudable goals -- they just want to set up their own dictatorships). Since it's likely that much of the world will continue to apply situational ethics to terrorism, the only alternative is the George W. Bush approach of kicking the snot out of countries that support terrorism. States like France and Russia who disapprove of this approach should step back and stop coddling the dictators who sponsor terrorism.