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From: myers@uwmacc.UUCP (Latitudinarian Lobster)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: American Hostages
Message-ID: <1402@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-Aug-85 17:00:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.1402
Posted: Thu Aug 15 17:00:21 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Aug-85 08:07:08 EDT
References: <1042@ihlpg.UUCP> <185@pyuxii.UUCP> <11045@rochester.UUCP> <1399@uwmacc.UUCP> <11075@rochester.UUCP>
Organization: Ken Kopp's Fresh Seafood Tank
Lines: 31

> > 
> > Does this also hold true for US citizens
> > (nee ``Americans'') ``purposely traveling'' to Lebanon?
> > Did the US Marines there get their just deserts?  Do medical personel going
> > into a combat zone deserve death because of their ``arrogance''?  Think
> > about what you are saying, man.  My guess is that you're yet another
> > Amurcan using double standards based on who your government says are the
> > good guys and the bad.
> > 
> I said anybody going into a combat zone can be considered a combatant, even
> doctors.  Remember the hostages?  They were hijacked from Greece and taken to
> a war zone.  They did not travel there of their own free will.  
> Who said anything about anyone deserving death because they were in a combat
> zone?  You did that's who.  I'm simply making a comparison between innocent
> hostages in a war zone and those who of their own free will put themselves in
> danger by traveling to a war zone.  

In referring to US citizens traveling to Lebanon, I was not referring to
those who were hijacked there.  There have been a number of hostages who
did travel there as obvious US citizens.  In the words of the Sex Pistols,
``No One is Innocent''.  However, non-combatant civilians (as distinguished
from secret police, informants, &c.) do not deserve to be in a hostage
situation regardless of their location or country of origin.  Witness for
Peace folks are mostly members of the religious community interested in
stopping the murder of Nicaraguan civilians by protecting them with their
physical presence as non-combatant US citizens (this is of most importance
in the North, where the contras are most rabid and the border less
defensible).  They are NOT the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (which, incidently,
has been sending ambulances to Nicaragua recently).

LL