The Nation: Image of Impotence

After dozens of skyjackings, after the letter bombs, after the Munich massacre, the proposal before the United Nations seemed modest enough: to organize an international conference that would draw up a convention aimed at curbing such atrocities.

Last week, however, a coalition of Communist, Arab and African countries scuttled the proposal. The Arab states feared that such a convention would be directed against them. The Africans worried that antiterrorist sanctions would impede black guerrilla movements battling for independence. The Soviet Union knee-jerked its support of the Third World. The result was a resolution stating that the General Assembly is “deeply perturbed” by the wave of terrorism.

U.S. Ambassador George Bush said that the vote enhanced the U.N.’s “image of impotence.” The organization’s action—or inaction—did something even worse. It was a kind of ratification for the anarchic notion that even the most despicable crime can be rationalized as a “political act” simply by fiat of the perpetrator.