reflectivepundit

1976 Croatian Hijacker Busic: Terrorist or Freedom Fighter?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Whether you consider the perpetuator of violence for political reasons a terrorist or a freedom fighter matters: terrorists are loathed; freedom fighters are admired. Zvenko Busic, the mastermind of a 1976 hijacking and bomb explosion, is a case in point: For the family and friends of New York City police officer Brian J. Murray who was killed by an exploding bomb that Busic and his comrades had planted in a locker at Grand Central Terminal, he is a ruthless terrorist; for many fellow-Croatians he is a heroic freedom fighter. Given the different connotations here, it is particularly important what terms news organizations choose, when they report or comment on those who carry out political violence.

The other day, Busic was paroled and deported to Croatia.

This is the lead in the story that The New York Daily News published yesterday: “A Croatian terrorist has been freed from a life sentence and shipped to his homeland - to the disgust of relatives of the city cop he murdered more than 30 years ago.”

In today’s New York Times, the lead is quite different: “After more than three decades in United States prisons — a term punctuated by a brief escape and recapture — a 62-year-old Croatian independence fighter returned to his native country on Thursday, having served his time for a 1976 hijacking and a bombing that killed a police officer. The fighter, Zvonko Busic, led a group that planted a bomb at Grand Central Terminal that later exploded, killing a city police officer, Brian J. Murray.”

I underlined three words in the above leads to contrast the different descriptions of Busic in the two newspapers—for the Daily News he is a terrorist, for the Times an “independence fighter” and a “fighter.” As far as I am concerned, a terrorist commits or threatens violence for political ends—precisely what Busic, his wife Julienne, and three other Croatians did in September 1976, when they hijacked a TWA airliner en route from New York to Chicago with 92 persons abroad. They threatened to blow up the plane unless their conditions were met: prominent publicity for the plight of Croatian independence from then communist Yugoslavia.

The Next Terrorist Attack: We are Not Prepared

By Brigitte L. Nacos
The 9/11 Commission Report, published in 2004, contains the following advice and indeed warning: “The lesson of 9/11 for civilians and first responders can be stated simply: in the new age of terror, they—we—are the primary targets. The losses America suffered that day demonstrated both the gravity of the terrorist threat and the commensurate need to prepare ourselves to meet it.” 

About a year later, Hurricane Katrina’s landfall along the Gulf coast laid bare the soft underbelly of America’s emergency preparedness and response. The chair and vice-chair of the 9/11 Commission. Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, observed in an op-ed article, “Katrina raises the question of how prepared we are to respond to another massive terrorist attack that would surely occur without warning. The answer is: not nearly as prepared as we should have been.” Jamie Gorelick, a member of the 9/11 Commission, said during a TV, “You know, we have short memories. And the interest has faded. We've gone on to other issues. And when, and when American citizens don't pressure their government, frankly, the government isn't as responsive as it needs to be.”
 

Nearly 7 years after 9/11 and 3 years after Katrina, the American public’s fear of another terror attack is way down. When asked in a CBS News/New York Times poll earlier this month to name “the most important problem facing the country today,” none of the respondents mentioned terrorism. The economy, the war in Iraq, the high cost of energy, the environment, health care, immigration and several other perceived problems led the priority list. Given this mindset, the public is not pressing the Bush administration and congress to improve preparedness for the next terrorist attack or the presidential candidates to reveal their positions on terrorism readiness.

 

What, then, is the state of personal and collective preparedness for the worst case terror scenario and, actually, natural catastrophes as well? According to preparedness experts Irwin Redlener and David Berman, “In the United States, public opinion survey data revealed “a national state of unpreparedness for emergency events” in the post-9/11 years. And in an assessment of professional responders, Sang Ok Choi concluded recently that “[o]verall, the existing government response system is more accurately described as disarrayed, disconnected, uncoordinated, underfunded, and discredited.”

Bush’s Final Push to Get bin Laden and the “Pakistan Problem”

By Brigitte L. Nacos
A month ago, during George W. Bush’s farewell visit to the United Kingdom, American and British intelligence sources revealed that the president had enlisted British Special Forces to join their American counterparts in a final push to hunt down al-Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden. After 9/11 Bush declared that he wanted the terrorist-in-chief “dead or alive.” But nearly seven years later, bin Laden continues to hide out somewhere in the tribal region of Pakistan. According to the British Sunday Times, one U.S.intelligence source remarked, “If he [Bush] can say he has killed Saddam Hussein and captured Bin Laden, he can claim to have left the world a safer place.” I have no doubt that this is the White House rationale behind this last effort to get bin Laden during the Bush presidency. As of now, however, the Taliban and al-Qaeda wield ever more influence and power in Pakistan’s tribal zone near the Afghan border, recruit successfully in Pakistan and Arab countries, and launch more deadly attacks against their opponents among Afghans and against U.S. and other NATO troops in Afghanistan. Indeed, last weekend, a month after the “final push to get bin Laden” revelation, “insurgents” launched a deadly attack on the American base in Kunar Province killing 9 U.S. soldiers and wounding 19 NATO and Afghan troops in one of the most intensive and lethal action by Taliban/al-Qaeda fighters since the 2001 American-led invasion of Afghanistan that drove both the Taliban and al-Qaeda into Pakistan. It seems that the unholy Taliban-al-Qaeda alliance is right now more successful in hunting down U.S. and other NATO soldiers than U.S.and British Special Forces in their hunt for bin Laden.

Even if bin Laden is still captured or killed on George Bush’s watch, this coup would not erase the Bush administration’s fundamental failure to finish the justified objectives of the widely supported Afghanistan invasion, most of all, to capture the al-Qaeda and Taliban leadership and prevent once and for all the unholy alliance’s ability to threaten this neighborhood and the rest of the world. Instead, military and financial resources were shifted to the controversial invasion of Iraq to accomplish iffy objectives there.

Today, Pakistan is one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest obstacle in the fight against the founding fathers of contemporary Islamist global terrorism because of the government’s and the military’s inability and unwillingness to stop the growing strength and power of the Taliban and of al-Qaeda in the country’s tribal area.