REAGAN'S SELECTIVE AVERSION TO TERRORISTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403470003-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: March 28, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403470003-4
WALL STREET JOURNAL
28 March 1985
Reagan's Selective Aversion to Terrorists
The poor, naive Carter administration
thought you could build a foreign policy
around human rights. The Reaganites
laughed that one out of town. But the Rea-
gan administration has a sentimental ob-
session of its own: terrorism. Alexander
Haig said in his first week as secretary of
state: "International terrorism will take
the place of human rights in our concern
because ( terrorism I is the ultimate abuse
of human rights."
This is fatuous nonsense, reminiscent of
those doctors who analyze nuclear war as
Viewpoint
by Michael Kinsley
a public-health problem. But human rights
and terrorism are actually quite similar as
foreign-policy obsessions. Both are at-
tempts to assert universal standards of
conduct that override the usual considera-
tions of geopolitics. "Terrorist acts .. .
can never be legitimate," said the current
secretary of state, George Shultz, last Oc-
tober. "And legitimate causes can never
justify or excuse terrorism."
The State Department defines terrorism
as "premeditated, politically motivated vi-
olence perpetrated against noncombatant
targets by subnational groups or clandes-
tine state agents." The kind of terrorism
that most excites the Reagan administra-
tion is so-called "state-sponsored" ter-
rorism through "intelligence services" and
the use of "surrogates." This refers to
such matters as the alleged KGB hiring of
Bulgarians to kill the pope and Iranian
support for the Shiite lunatics in Leba-
non.
But there's another obvious example:
the contras in Nicaragua. Two recent arti-
cles in The Wall Street Journal by re-
porters David Ignatius and David Rogers
Make clear that the contras are a virtual
creation of the Central Intelligence
Agency. It assembled their leaders from
among alumni of Anastasio Somoza's Na-
tional Guard, hired professional thugs
from Ar entina's military dictatorship to
train them. and "repackaged" the leader-
ship (as the authors nicely put it) with
some democratic elements when criticism
began to mount.
The articles also make clear that the
U.S.'s purpose in this is the classic terror-
ist one of social and economic subversion.
To bring down the regime, we are attempt-
ing to derange and impoverish the country
by destroying its infrastructure and scar-
ing off trade. Compare this to the adminis-
tration's mock horror over the effects on
South African blacks of a mere American
investment ban.
We already have spent $80 million
"sponsoring" the contras, and President
Reagan wants $14 million more because
they are "the moral equivalent of our
Founding Fathers." Obviously our goal of
a democratic Nicaragua is more admira-
ble than goals of other sponsors of terror
such as the Soviets and Iranians. But the
premise of all the fuss about "terrorism"
is that the goal doesn't matter. "Terrorist
means discredit their ends," as Secretary
Shultz says. So what makes the contras dif-
ferent?
Secretary Shultz likes to quote the late
Sen. Henry Jackson on the difference be-
tween terrorists and freedom fighters.
Freedom fighters, Jackson said, "don't
blow up buses containing noncombatants"
or "set out to capture and slaughter
schoolchildren" or "assassinate innocent
businessmen, or hijack and hold hostage
innocent men, women and children...."
According to Americas Watch. a nonparti-
san human-rights group, the contras have
kidnapped, tortured, raped, mutilated and
murdered many unarmed civilians includ-
ing women and children "who were flee-
ing." No doubt there are nastier groups
around, but this is an impressive record.
Yet an unnamed State Department official
told the New York Times, "It seems to be
what you would expect to have in a war."
Another administration official conceded,
"The contras . . . have a tendency to kid-
11 11
h
summary of terrorist activities? Ter-
rorism, of course, makes democracy
harder. "Where the terrorist cannot bring
about anarchy," says Secretary Shultz,
"he may try to force the government to
... impose tyrannical measures of con-
trol, and hence lose the allegiance of the
people." Mr. Shultz explained the "disap-
pearances" (i.e. murder by the military)
of thousands in Argentina during the 1970s
as "a deliberately provoked response to a
massive campaign of terrorism." The San-
dinistas explain their own increasing re-
pression (though nothing on the Argentine
scale) the same way. But in this case the
U.S. is not so understanding. "I don't think
the Sandinistas have a decent leg to stand
on." says President Reagan. "What they
have done is totalitarian. It is brutal,
cruel." And so on.
"It is in the objective interest of the So-
viets to see the destabilization of regimes
not friendly to them," wrote the editors of
this newspaper in April 1981. ". . . More-
over, the Soviets . . . don't have hanging
about them any silly Western liberal doc-
trines about the will of the majority, the
unacceptability of violence, or the differ-
ence between military agents of the state
and presumptively innocent civilians." I
took this at the time as a criticism. But ap-
parently not. More recently the Journal
has said: "The objective of the Reagan ad-
ministration's policy toward Nicaragua is
to bring about a democratic government.
. If [critics] are against the Nicaraguan
democrats and in favor of the Sandinistas,
we hope they will tell us that as forth-
rightly as the administration has now pro-
claimed its purposes." The end justifies
the means, unless (as another Journal edi-
torial put it) you're some kind of "Com-
mon Cause lawyer" hung up on "interna-
nap young girls. O
we . tional law."
It's sometimes said that these freedom Obviously it's hard to be good in a
lovers are hard to control and that world where others are bad. When Mr.
"abuses," while deplorable, are not offi- Reagan brings up the French Resistance,
cially sanctioned. Sure. But any terror ex- he makes the best possible case against his
pert will tell you that random, out-of-con- own conceit that terrorism is indefensible
trol violence is part of the method. It cre- in all circumstances. But the Sandinistas
ates a desirable sense of anarchy. What's are not Nazis. They are not so monstrous a
more, the U.S. does not accept the "hard regime that we have to abandon all hope of
to control" excuse from rival sponsors. maintaining our own civilized standards in
Only last week, National Security Adviser i dealing with them. We are not so power-
Robert McFarlane declared that we will less that we must resort to mayhem and
feel free to retaliate against states that the murder of innocents. International law
sponsor terrorism without troubling to does not leave us with the choice of doing
tprove beyond all reasonable doubt" l that nothing or doing anything. Or does ter-
the object of our wrath is responsible for rorism just mean "what the other side
any particular terrorist act. does"?
The regime the contras are attacking is
not a democracy. Is that the crucial dis-
tinction? If so, why does the State Depart-
ment highlight episodes in Kuwait, South
Korea and South Africa in its most recent
Mr. Kinsley is editor of the New Repub-
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403470003-4