AMERICA NEEDS TO GET DOWN AND FIGHT DIRTY WITH TERRORISTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100060001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 24, 2011
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: September 18, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100060001-6
LOS ANGELES TIMES
18 September 1986
America Needs to Get Down and Fight
Dirty With Terrorists
By MIKE ACKERMAN
We are reluctant to acknowledge it,
we who have made such comfortable lives
for ourselves, but America is in the midst
of a prolonged struggle with Palestinian
terrorism.
The terrorists for the most part are
focusing on commercial aviation, which
they have identified correctly as a vulner-
able pressure point of the Western eco-
nomic system. They also strike at U.S.
government targets, American businesses
overseas and random groups of our citizens.
The Abu Nidal apparatus, the same group
that carried out the recent Pam Am
hijacking in Karachi, staged a September,
1985, grenade attack on Rome's Cafe de
Paris that injured 39, including nine Ameri-
cans. The attackers proclaimed preposter-
ously that the famous tourist spot was a
"den of U.S. intelligence."
For the moment the Palestinian extrem-
ists are operating mainly in Western
Europe, the Middle East and Southwestern
Asia, but eventually they will expand into
the Far East, Africa and Latin America,
and perhaps into the United States. They
have taken their toll not only in lives but
also in altered travel plans, canceled
overseas projects and lost marketing op-
portunities. Terrorism's effect on our woe-
ful trade balance has yet to be measured,
but it plainly is substantial and is certain
to grow. The Palestinians' strategy is
remarkably simple: to test the depth of
American support for Israel, the willing-
ness of the United States to shed the blood
of its citizens "for Israel's sake."
Their indiscriminate slaughter has gen-
erated a revulsion among Americans that
appears, at first blush, to have hurt their
cause. But it is far too soon to assess the
underlying soundness of their doctrine.
Just how many casualties and how much
economic hardship is the United States
willing to bear in support of Israel? Just
how long will it be before we begin chafing
under the pressure and feel forced to
acknowledge the "reasonableness" of
Yasser Arafat if not Abu Nidal? We had
best look deep within ourselves in ponder-
ing a reply.
What is to be done? The route networks
of American carriers are too vast and their
resources, both human and financial, too
thin to fully protect their aircraft. The
terrorists' technology and their increasing
operational competence and inherent abil-
ity to dictate the time and place of their
attacks combine to give them tremendous
advantage.
Clearly we must carry the struggle to the
terrorists, but how? Militarily? Repeated
Israeli bombings of suspected terrorists'
strongholds hale accomplished little.
April's bombing raid against Libya, a
notorious supporter of Palestinian terror-
ism, made us feel good but was equally
ineffective. Such aerial attacks are akin to
firing a mortar at widely dispersed and well
camouflaged swarms of insects.
Insects are suppressed by disrupting
their breeding cycle; so, too, with terror-
ists. We should focus not on dispersed hit
men but on their trainers, suppliers and
commanders. We should descend into their
nether world, get as close as we can, then
neutralize them through capture or elimi-
nation. We should fight covert operatives
with covert operatives.
Our problem, and it is a serious one, is
that a dozen years ago, with astounding
absence of foresight, we largely did away
with the covert arm of our government, the
Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine
services. While the Reagan Administration
has done its best to revitalize the service,
it unwisely has chosen to expend a good
deal of its effort and credibility in a most
uncovert manner in Nicaragua. The agency
has suffered as much from its supporters
as it has from its critics.
It isn't too late to develop a response to
terrorism, but we had best do it quickly.
We should rationalize a tangle of laws and
regulations that allow the President to
order bombing runs against urban centers,
with numerous civilian casualties, b%t
forbid the surgical elimination of an iden=
tifled terrorist known to have murdered
American citizens. We should instruct
congressmen, now spoiling for action, on
the meaning of discreet supervision of ap
intelligence service, and advise the Admin.
istration on the fine distinction between t f*
words overt and covert.
Many people warn that unleashing the
clandestine services against terrorists
would undermine our legal system, ii.. ..
peril our rights, erode our moral fibet
Nonsense! Our political system has sur-
vived the strains of full-scale war. SureW
it can withstand covert engagement.
There will in fact be no more crucial test
of our political system in the remaining
years of this century than our response
to terrorism. If we fail to meet the chal-
lenge, we have but two alternatives: We
can forfeit to barbarians the determination
of our foreign policy-which, incidentally,
won't do much for our moral fiber. Or
we can oblige our citizens to travel and
conduct business within an ever-shrinking
cocoon.
Mike Ackerman, a p in the Miami-
based security firm c n F@umTo,
Inc.. spent 11 years in the CIA's
services. He resigned in 1975 to protest the
congressional investigation of the agency.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100060001-6