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From: renner@uiucdcs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Myths destroyed
Message-ID: <29200174@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Dec-84 23:42:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.29200174
Posted: Tue Dec 11 23:42:00 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Dec-84 02:11:57 EST
References: <646@ihopb.UUCP>
Lines: 36
Nf-ID: #R:ihopb:-64600:uiucdcs:29200174:000:1636
Nf-From: uiucdcs!renner    Dec 11 22:42:00 1984

>  Gee, wouldn't the world be great if things and events fit into the
>  popular myths. Alas, the world is not black and white. What happened
>  this week?
>   1) A Kuwaiti jet was hijacked to Iran
>   2) Passengers on board were terrorized.
>   3) Two Americans on board were murdered.
>   4) The big-talk fast-shooting Reagan regime sat by totally impotent.
>   5) Brave men of the rather nasty Khomeni regime risked their
>      own lives by storming the plane and freeing the hostages.
>  
>  I'm sorry. It doesn't fit the Reaganite views of the world.
>  Cowboy Reagan who got elected by portraying an image of an impotent
>  Jimmy Carter was even more impotent. The rotten Khomeni regime
>  saved the lives of Americans and others. The world is not so
>  black and white. Sorry.
>  
>  Maybe it's time to re-think the myths.
>                        		-Andy Berman (berman@ihopb)

An attack against an embassy is an act of war.  Retaliation against Iran
would have been in order under the circumstances.  Carter sat on his hands
and did nothing.  This can correctly be called impotence.

The hijacking of a Kuwaiti airplane to Iran does not involve the United
States even if there are American citizens on board.  No military action
was called for, and none was taken.  This is not impotence by any useful
definition of the word.

It's definitely time to rethink the myths, particularly the myth that
Reagan is some sort of a macho gunslinger just itching to get the US into
one war after another.  The facts -- stubborn things that they are --
simply won't support that point of view.

Scott Renner
{ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!renner