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Monday--August 5, 2002—Ground Zero Plus 327
 

Greeks Obliterate Terrorism For Olympics--Maybe...Maybe!

by
Cliff McKenzie
Editor, New York City Combat Correspondent News

       GROUND ZERO, New York City, August 5--Greece is regarded as the birthplace of democracy.   It is also the home of the Olympics.   And, it claims to have expunged its Terrorist forces, the assassins of 17N.

       Terror trackers are doubtful the arrest of a cell of 17N Terrorists, as a result of an aborted bomb explosion, is really the "end of Greek Terrorism."    The Greek government, on the other hand, is touting the arrest as an example of how "safe" Greece is now.  Some terrorist experts think the government is cleansing its reputation in preparation for the Olympic Games slated to be held in the summer of 2004.  They aren't hallmarking the arrests as the "end of Greek Terrorism," but only the "beginning of the end."
      As we here in America refer to September 11 as Nine Eleven, the Greeks employ 17N to designate when a 1973 student protest was violently crushed by American-backed forces supporting a junta government.   The November 17 Terrorist group denounces capitalism and imperialistic atrocities. 

       The 17N Terrorists target people for assassination who represent ideological differences with them.    In June of 2000 they killed British military attaché, Brig. General Stephen Saunders.
         The alleged ideological leader of 17N, 58-year-old Alexandros Yiotopoulous, Greece's Osama bin Laden, was arrested.   He is accused of  killing the station chief for the Central Intelligence Agency, Richard Welch,  in December 1973.
     Yiotopoulous' father, Dimitris, was a close associate of Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary.  
      Over the years, 17N has systematically slain nearly a score of people they believe stood symbolically against the best interests of Greece.    Like Osama bin Laden, the justification was the oppression of the Western World on Greece, and the puppet governments that forced the population to live under repressive rules and regulations imposed by "outsiders."

       Mary Bossis, a Greek Terrorism expert, is not so quick to agree that the arrest of the Terrorists means an end to Terrorism in her country.   She once ran a 17N task force in the Ministry of Public Order, but is puzzled by how quickly those arrested informed on each other.  "Revolutionaries don't confess and they don't give up their colleagues," she said.   Her opinion is November 17 decided to give up a cell to convince the government there was nothing more to find--a strategy that would turn Vigilance into Complacency.
     What I found important about the story was that the original seat of democracy--Greece--was fighting a struggle to be more socialistic than democratic.   In the capital of democracy, the population backed the idea of fighting and killing those who tried to impose democracy in their state.     A recent poll of the Greek population showed that over 30 percent of the people didn't consider 17N a Terrorist group.  They likened them to "freedom fighters."   The Greek Orthodox Church is alleged to be supportive of the "socialist tack."

     Greek politics have historically been noted for victimhood.   It has a reputation of being "hanged on the cross" by larger nation forces, such as America and the European Community.   Takis Michas, a Greek journalist, recently published a book, "Unholy Alliance," detailing Greece's financial and paramilitary ties to Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia.  In it he points to the continuing sense of isolation felt by many Greeks whose world views "revolve around conspiracy theories, feelings of victimization and a strong sense of marginalization."

      Now, however, Greece  is shedding an old skin for a new one.   It seeks to be embraced as an "open-arms" nation toward its past enemies--capitalism and Westernization.  Some believe it is only a ploy to bring thousands to the Olympics where 17N will have the "pick of the litter."
     Again, the issue of Greek Terrorism is no more or less a looming issue than our hunt for bin Laden, or the abduction, rape and killing of our children.  
     The idea we can "kill" Terrorism, or "arrest it," or "end it," is a course of thinking which plays directly into the jaws of Terrorism's strongest weapon--Complacency.
      In America, we are "waging war on Terrorism" with guns and bullets, and trying to develop an "internal-state" spy network where one citizen "rats" on another, often at the expense of our Constitution and the original democratic rights we matured from the Greeks thousands of years ago.
      Our leaders here want to "win the war," and pronounce an "end to Terrorism," in the same fashion we did VE and VJ day after the defeat of Germany and Japan in World War II.   But Terrorism is not about territory, it's about ideology.   It's all about instilling Fear, Intimidation and Complacency in people.  
       A Terrorist assumes power through threat, not action.   It is the threat of its existence that feeds on people, that makes them paranoid, that drives them to retaliate with sword to sword.
      Vigilance, on the other hand, is not about retaliation.   It is about evolution.   It is about rising above the bloodshed, the horror, the Fear, the Intimidation and the Complacency.
      It asks people to band together as Parents of Vigilance, Citizens of Vigilance, Loved Ones of Vigilance to collectively oppose threats upon the children, and their children's children's children.
      Originally, the Olympic Games were about stopping Terrorism.

       The law was in the beginning of the Games, that all would stop warring during the Games.   Enemies would put down their swords and spears and bows, and instead of killing one another, compete head-to-head through athletic non-violent challenges to show themselves and the world that "peace" could exist, that harmony between nations, despite politics and ideologies, could leap over the barbarism of one person toward another, one nation toward its neighbor.
      The Olympics were the first Acts of Vigilance.   Children watched enemies compete in peaceful ways, instilling the hope that one day the world could resolve its differences as a unified whole, not as fractional elements trying to conquer the other through Terrorism.
       I would like to think that 17N is dead.   I would like to think Osama bin Laden, and all his duplicated genes around the world, are dead.    But that would be Complacent.
      But I can believe that Vigilance will overpower Terrorism when, and only when, the parents, loved ones and citizens of the world unite in behalf of their children and their children's children.

     I can believe Greece can be the source of its original beliefs--that only through unification of all can we fight the few.  

     Terrorism is all about the few--the twisted who seek to take the law into their hands.   Governments are also the few.   They do not hold the power to direct the future of our children, for they are motivated by all the human defects of character--pride, anger, greed, lust, envy, gluttony and sloth.  

      But parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, cousins, loved ones of the children and their children's children can.   When there is a uniting of purpose among all Parents of Vigilance, Citizens of Vigilance, and Loved Ones of Vigilance, the Olympic ideals will return to the world.

      Instead of ending Terrorism, the unification will smother it, constrain it so it will not have the ability to inflict Fear, Intimidation and Complacency.   The Shields Of Vigilance, Courage, Conviction and Right Action will blind Terrorism.
     And then, and only then, will our children be just a little safer.    

Go Aug. 4--Eating The Eggs Of Vigilance

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