Politically Correct Response

[Donald McElfresh <a0019874@airmail.net>]

For quite some time on our "chat line," I've read indignation about
Korean War "atrocities," where civilians have been included in the
casualties.  Now we have an act of war that has decimated an important
section of our major city and our military headquarters.  If flights
hadn't been immediately grounded, there would have been more (Atlanta
was on the list).  My question is this: What is a politically correct
form of response? Are the civilians who trained, fed or financed the
terrorists in various countries fair targets, or are they "protected
civilians?"  What about the wives who came to this country with their
husbands and assisted in the deceptions to allow them to receive flight
training, in preparation for their aerial assaults?  Are they "protected
civilians?"  In Korea civilians were also infiltrators and the enemy.  I
f you read Mao you will read that the guerrillas, to survive, have to be
supported by the populace. As I wrote one of the members of this group,
after my discharge in 1953 I went to college with a Chinese student who
at the age of 12 rolled grenades into restaurants filled with Japanese
soldiers.

The point I would like to make is that war creates many situations that,
under normal conditions, we would abhor and not consider.  However, in
war, things and people do change.  Let's drop the guilt trips on the
Korean War.  What many people have forgotten is than many of us thought
that we were on the eve of World War III and deadly serious about what
was going on.

Regards,

Don.