Terrorists--domestic and otherwise

Just before heading to work this morning, I happened to flip over to IFC (I think it was IFC) on the televisor and caught some of "Bud Greenspan remembers the 1972 Olympics" or something like that. It was a documentary about the '72 Games in Munich which were dominated by the murder of 9 Israeli athletes. I remember it only vaguely from my childhood. Most of what I remember about those Games has to do with Mark Spitz, the US champion swimmer, who took home 7 gold medals that year. The slaughter of the Israeli athletes was a horrible, disgusting crime perpetrated by some pondscum wearing the mantle of Palestinian statehood. One athlete was murdered at the start of the crisis, as the killers (who were referred to in the press at the time as "commandos") forced their way into the Israeli sleeping quarters; the others were slaughtered during a rescue attempt at the airport (4 by a hand grenade tossed into the helicopter in which they were tied up, the other 4 machine-gunned by one of the "commandos" also while they were tied). I knew that the deaths were horrific, but I was not aware of the grisly details. I was also not aware that Spitz had to leave the Games under precipitous circumstances, due to the fact that he was Jewish and the fears for his life were considerable.

It was a sobering moment--this was only 35 years ago, and yet it has become almost a distant memory, almost as distant as the events of 9/11, which now lives on only as a phrase in the minds of most of us, and not as the truly terrible event that it actually was. What else struck me about the show was an almost total lack of international revulsion at the event. Yes, there was some outcry and expressions of regret and sorrow for the slain athletes, but the tactics and the ideas of the terrorists should have been placed beside those of the Nazis and the Klan. Instead, the descendants of these terrorists strut on the world stage today as Hamas, deserving of our respect (at least according to Jimmy Carter).

It is truly interesting that the Palestinians decided at some point that slaughter and murder were THE way to foster and advance their aims--and they receive the sympathies of many here in the West, esp. those on the Left. Contrast this to the plight of Tibet--overrun by China, their spiritual leader in exile, monks killed by the thousands or left to rot in the Chinese gulag--yet not once have I read of Buddhists flying planes into skyscrapers, or Tibetans blowing up Chinese pizza parlors, or firing on school buses full of children in Shanghai. And yet, other than recently in relation to the Olympics coming up this summer in Beijing, there really isn't a lot of sympathetic news coverage on Tibet; you don't see Carter, or Jesse Jackson, or Rev. Wright traveling to Lhasa, or denouncing the Chinese Communist government for their sadistic tactics.

Which brings me to Mr. Ayers, the unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist, who apparently takes great pride in his destructive acts in the '60's and '70's. James Lileks has a great piece today at his website (lileks.com)--you should check it out. It links to a review of Mr. Ayers autobiography, which is also required reading here (the review, not the book). Here's Lileks speaking about how the turbulence of Mr. Ayer's heyday was a "difficult time:"

>>It was a difficult time. What a wonderful absolution. Oh, we all went a little mad. Some of us listened to Steppenwolf, some of us bombed government buildings and plotted robberies that killed people, some of us were rotting in Vietnamese prisons having our teeth bashed out by torture experts. Those days are behind us now, best forgotten. (Unlike the McCarthy era, which will be the subject of 163 movies about the blacklist next year, bringing the total to 45,203.)

You know, it may be hard to find a candidate who doesn’t belong to a church whose leader delivers eyebrow-singing speeches on the evils of America and also built a house Jim Bakker would approve, and it may be hard to find a candidate who doesn’t move with ease in the same social circles as some people who bombed the Pentagon, but it can’t be that hard to find one who doesn’t do both.<<

I couldn't agree more.

As a decent member of the human race, you should find the actions of the Palestinians who murdered those athletes morally repugnant. And although Mr. Ayers' actions did not (to our knowledge) result in the loss of life, it his mindset, and most of all, his lack of remorse, that should make all of us step back and take a close look at just how far removed (or not) he is from the "heroes" of September '72, or the "martyrs" of 9/11.

I don't think Obama gave it much thought, do you?