Disinformation Campaign

It has been reported that the President of the United States approved a secret deception plan in hopes of provoking Kadafi into acts of terrorism, so we might react against him and take appropriate action. The plan was to feed false information to the news media to upset and confuse Kadafi, and hopefully to nail him in acts of terrorism.

Is this the same Administration that decries terrorism? Is this the President who wants to keep the peace? Isn’t Reagan the one who wants to make the world safe from terrorism? Does the White House have nothing better to do in August but to cook up crazy schemes hoping to provoke Libya into confrontation?

But Kadafi didn’t cooperate, thank God. Try as we might, it didn’t work.

We are told by senior officials, that the “potential benefits of the operation would outweigh the risk.” Were they hoping that Kadafi would go off the deep end and go back into the terrorist business? However, acts of terrorism result in death and destruction of innocents. What is the benefit of this? Are we now willing to sacrifice innocents in order for the President and his men to “look good”? I’m sure we would use Kadafi’s reaction to once more bomb Libya in retaliation. It is one thing to react to acts of terrorism, it is quite another to orchestrate and instigate the same acts we are trying to stop in the first place.

Worst of all, it is the President of the United States who approved this plan. The person who is supposed to protect, defend, and uphold our Constitution. Reagan has referred to Kadafi as a “mad dog,” but what should he call the malicious, war-mongering acts of his own advisers? If their actions aren’t bordering on madness, what is?

CURTIS D. BENNETT

Long Beach