Manhattan Mid-Afternoon

[Trei, Peter]

> Bill Stewart[SMTP:bill.stewart at pobox.com] wrote
> 
> At 02:59 PM 09/12/2001 -0400, Trei, Peter wrote:
> >I sincerely hope that the remaining perpetrators of this atrocity are
> >found and punished, but entertain no illusions that doing so will
> >prevent future attacks. That can only come from a shift of US
> >government attitude from "I've got the biggest stick", to one of
> >non-interference. Sweden and Switzerland come to mind as
> >prosperous, modern, western nations which don't have problems with
> >terrorism. Our country should look to such successful terrorism
> >prevention policies as examples.
> 
> And even then, Swedish president Palme was assassinated some years ago.
> 
Palme was proof that folks who interefere in other people's business get
burned. He was far from merely a Swedish president. He lost that position
in 1976, regaining it in 1982 (he was murdered in 1986). In the interim, 
he was an international do-gooder, meddling in the affairs of many 
countries. The list of possible enemies is long, including Croatian 
nationalists, Kurds, West German terrorist factions, and South African
secret police (he was killed a week after speaking at an anti-apartheid
rally). There is also a possibility that it was an internal assassination.

Whoever killed him, this was an attack aimed at Palme personally,
not at Swedes in general.  So my point stands - very, very few
people consider the Swedes or Sweden as a 'Great Satan'. The US
could do worse than take a leaf from their book.

Peter Trei