An Eye For An Eye

On April 14 the United I States finally "did something" about terrorism by unleashing a massive bombing raid against Libya. It was certainly the popular thing to do--at least initially. Polls showed as much as 77 percent of the U.S. public approving the attack, and the applause was universal from the mass media. In the early hours after the raid, network news anchors even downplayed and undercut reports by their own correspondents who happened, inconveniently, to actually be in Tripoli and actually see U.S.-inflicted civilian damage and casualties.

Everybody wanted to feel good about this one. But one of the very few prominent voices of dissent, Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.), rose the next day on the floor of the Senate and said, "Take another look at those bleeding children before you delight over the precision of the rockets, my colleagues. Tell them you're not sure the policy will work, but it sure did feel good."

Strangely enough, the rest of the world didn't see things America's way. Of all the world's governments, only Britain, Canada, and Israel approved of the attack. And across Europe, including in Britain, the peace movement took to the streets for several days of massive protest demonstrations. European politicians noted that U.S. attacks against Qaddafi would only shore up his popularity and lead to more violence. And their constituents in the streets made the point that an assault by a superpower against a tiny Third World country was a violation of international law, a dangerous provocation of the Soviet Union, and simply a moral outrage. Foreigners seemed more able to notice the inevitable "collateral damage" to homes and families in Tripoli and Benghazi.

The truth, inconvenient and unpopular as it may be, is that the rest of the world is right. The U.S. attack on Libya, and the new policy of military retaliation it heralds, is politically counterproductive and morally indefensible. As Rev. Jesse Jackson noted a few days after the raid, "A policy of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth will leave the whole world blind and toothless."

Asked what he would do in the face of an incident like the Berlin disco bombing, Jackson proposed that if the United States in fact had "irrefutable evidence," it should be publicly taken before the United Nations for consideration by the world community. That is exactly the sort of thing for which institutions like the United Nations and the World Court were designed. And if the United States and other nations honored their commitments to those institutions, they could still work. But such a reasonable approach could never deliver the domestic catharsis and international show of machismo that was the real purpose of Reagan's April bombings.

POLITICAL TERRORISM, as it has been practiced in recent years, is a cruel game of symbols. For the Arab extremists who take their lead (and their money) from Muammar Qaddafi, innocent airline passengers or nightclub patrons become the symbolic stand-ins for the unreachable and unchallengeable power of the United States and Israel. For the United States in Central America and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, peasant villagers are targets of convenience in wars against the more elusive enemy of Third World nationalism. In every case the result of the "symbolic" violence is the same: Real blood is shed, and real families suffer.

Our war against Libya won't stop terrorism because it is in fact only an extension of the terrorist logic, with Qaddafi and the Libyans serving as a convenient symbol for a complex and multi-faceted political phenomenon. Top Reagan administration officials admitted as much when they told the Washington Post that their intelligence reports have both Syria and Iran bearing more responsibility than Libya for extremist violence in the Middle East.

Libya has become the symbolic target because it is geopolitically insignificant and because Qaddafi's strange personality and widespread unpopularity enable the United States to dramatically personalize the conflict. The war with Libya is designed to placate public concern about terrorism while simultaneously demonstrating to the world that the United States is willing, and in fact eager, to use its overwhelming military power. Like Grenada before it, Libya gives the administration an opportunity to play Rambo with minimal military and political costs.

THE RECENT SERIES of terrorist incidents for which Qaddafi is being blamed are, in large part, the predictable result of Israel and America's decimation of Lebanon and of the Palestinian nation and its political institutions. As long ago as the fall of 1982, it was widely predicted that the Israeli invasion of Lebanon would eventually come back to haunt us all in a new round of terrorist activity. That is exactly what has happened. Qaddafi is assisting and manipulating Palestinian fringe groups, as he has done for years.

It is no accident that the young men who carried out the horrendous raids on the Rome and Vienna airports were among the survivors of the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps by Israeli-sponsored Phalangists. As long as there are growing numbers of such homeless and brutalized young people with nothing to live for, there will be someone around to exploit their desperation.

There is also no evidence to indicate that military action of the sort taken against Libya will have any success in deterring extremist violence. For almost 20 years, Israel has pursued a policy of responding to every act of violence against it with bombing raids against supposed terrorist bases. The Israelis have also waged covert wars of assassination against their enemies in the PLO and other groups and commando raids against their headquarters. They've invaded Lebanon twice and most recently occupied that country for three years. Yet the current level of anti-Israeli violence in the Middle East is as high as it has ever been.

For some bizarre reason, the Israeli example is the one to which U.S. "terrorism experts," including Secretary of State George Shultz, always point with such admiration. It would be much wiser for the United States to note that the only slackening of attacks against Israel in recent years was during the period from the late 1970s to 1982, when it appeared that Palestinian national aims might be achieved through political negotiation.

U.S. policies, and lack thereof, have contributed a great deal to creating the chaos in which a violent demagogue like Qaddafi can flourish. Rather than returning violence for violence and demagoguery for demagoguery, we could try to help establish justice and peace.

Danny Duncan Collum is a Sojourners contributing editor.