LTTE to the Philly Inquirer

[rogerashton]

To the editor:

It seems that American media are determined to find excuses for the recent Chechen attack in Ossetia, as Trudy Rubin does ("Condemn terrorists, but examine causes.") This is unfortunate. When terrorists succeed, they succeed by dividing legitimate states and provoking conflicts among them, so that the conflicts weaken the legitimate states and create a space in which the terrorists can impose their will. (This is why the invasion of Iraq was such a consummate blunder!) So long as we make excuses for terrorists of whose causes we approve – whether in Ireland against British government or Catholic presence, against Russian government of Chechnya or the Christian presence in Ossetia, against Jew or Arab in Palestine, against any legitimate order however much we may privately dislike it – so long as we make excuses for any terrorist anywhere, we are doing the terrorists' work for them.