Pure Stupidity? Something Else? Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 20:52:44 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com>
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First off, let me say I entirely agree with your position on Hezbollah. I think the best present foreign policy course for the US is to treat it as a legitimate political institution rather than as an outlaw group.
That said, there are a couple explanations why the US still considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization quite aside from timing (more recent, and less fully morphed -- i.e, it still has an armed wing with the same name) and politics (enemy of our ally). To repeat, those are probably most important. But there is also an institutional memory in the US military and intelligence services that absolutely hates Hezbollah for its purported connection to what are, for them personally, the worst acts of terrorism that ever took place against the US in the Middle East: the suicide bombing of the Marine compound in Beirut in 1983, killing 241; and the kidnapping of a dozen or so civilians that took place thereafter -- but especially the kidnapping and torture murder of CIA station chief William Buckley in 1984, which the CIA credits to Imad Mugniyeh, who was at that time Hezbollah security chief.
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CB: How is killing Marines and CIA agents "terrorism" ? Isn't killing military personnel, by definition , not terrorism ?