Silence After Crash of Flight 800

Re “A New Kind of Terrorism: Silence Is Deadlier,” Opinion, Aug. 18: I agree with Bruce Hoffman’s analysis of the TWA Flight 800 scenarios, in relationship to terror and terrorists. The strongest argument was how we have applied economic sanctions against international terrorists like Libya, Iran and Cuba. With Congress passing legislation to further tighten existing sanctions on trade to these countries, it seems highly likely that they would find a way to put “fear in our hearts” and make us “fearful” of their subversive actions. By our own measures, we have further driven the terrorists to a kind of subculture and made them silent.

Hoffman didn’t mention the role that the TV media have played in the ongoing investigation. It’s really strange to me that after a one-month search of the crash site the National Transportation Safety Board and the FBI do not have more conclusive information about the TWA flight. The American public needs to know the truth--not have a cover-up of the facts. The longer we wait for the mystery answer to the problem, I believe that the American psyche will suffer from either “fear from within” our own borders or that terrorism has reached “ground zero” in our country.

CYNTHIA L. LOWRY

Buena Park

*

Hoffman correctly notes the trend toward anonymous “terrorist” attacks, but his analysis fails. Terrorist acts derive from the terrorist’s intent and desire to cause some action. The Irish Republican Army, Palestinian Liberation Organization, Red Army Faction and Sendero Luminoso are among the terrorist organizations with a history of atrocities justified by political goals. Where terror serves no political purpose, as is the case where the perpetrators remain anonymous, there can be no political gain, merely terror for its own sake.

Combating such an enemy, especially when considering the potential for cyber-terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, requires new approaches, including new profiling methods. Political science does not provide the tools for such work, but the tools do exist within the criminal justice system and its allied resources, including psychologists and scientists.

MARC STEVEN COLEN

Woodland Hills