The Fateful Gamble in Moscow
The New York Times, October 29, 2002
To the Editor:
It is a truism that we live in a global communications village. As the
recent terrorist attacks in Israel, Indonesia, the United States
and now Russia (front page, Oct. 26) indicate, the success of terrorists
to strike under the pretext of moral equivalency in one part of the
world encourages indigenous terrorists to murder self-righteously
in other parts of the world.
Validating or legitimizing terrorist-chosen grievances as ''root causes''
or equating the deaths of those murdered by terrorists with casualties
incurred during selfdefense efforts encourages copycat terrorists
internationally.
Policy differences aside, what all who are committed to civilization
need to recognize is that international terrorism today is part of
a cycle of terrorism rather than the morally misleading equivalency
of a "cycle of violence."
HAROLD J. BURSZTAJN
Cambridge, Mass., Oct. 26, 2002
