Tuesday, August 11, 1998

U.S. must be patient dealing with terrorism

The United States' best tool in countering terrorism, like the bombings of the two U.S. embassies in Africa, may be the hardest in a nation that regularly demands quick results: patience.

The search for the terrorists and their sponsors may be arduous and frustrating, but we should never give up. The 1996 bombing of the apartment block in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American airmen still has not been solved, but that's not to say it never will. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has refused to hand over two suspects in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner, but he remains -- and will remain -- bottled up by economic sanctions and no longer a significant terrorist threat.

However, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal who killed with impunity, now molders in a French prison where he is serving a life sentence.

Terrorism is fundamentally irrational. No American policies will be changed by the African bombings. The United States is not about to scale back its overseas presence. An argument could be made that terrorism is counter-productive. In the Mideast, where the United States has been victimized the most, our presence has only grown. And any terrorist organization large enough to be a serious, continuing menace to American interests would be large enough to be visible and thus invite certain retaliation.

Terrorists tend to be reassured, as they pursue their muddled goals, that as martyrs they will be welcomed in paradise and that, if they survive, they will be honored in their old age as freedom fighters and patriots.

We can't do much about their treatment in the hereafter, but by a policy of neither forgiving nor forgetting, we can try to assure that any honors terrorists receive in their old age are only from their fellow inmates.