In a New York Times op-ed, Bill Ayers denies he’s an unrepentant terrorist – not the unrepentant part, the terrorist part.
The Weather Underground crossed lines of legality, of propriety and perhaps even of common sense. Our effectiveness can be — and still is being — debated. We did carry out symbolic acts of extreme vandalism directed at monuments to war and racism, and the attacks on property, never on people, were meant to respect human life and convey outrage and determination to end the Vietnam war.
Peaceful protests had failed to stop the war. So we issued a screaming response. But it was not terrorism; we were not engaged in a campaign to kill and injure people indiscriminately, spreading fear and suffering for political ends.
So finely parsed isn’t it? He plays the victim just like he did the night I heard him speak a few weeks back in DC. Then, as in this editorial, he claimed to be a victim of a media frenzy. The casual victim of the right-wing hate machine. You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet;
I have regrets, of course — including mistakes of excess and failures of imagination, posturing and posing, inflated and heated rhetoric, blind sectarianism and a lot else.
[…]
The antiwar movement in all its commitment, all its sacrifice and determination, could not stop the violence unleashed against Vietnam. And therein lies cause for real regret.
We — the broad “we” — wrote letters, marched, talked to young men at induction centers, surrounded the Pentagon and lay down in front of troop trains. Yet we were inadequate to end the killing of three million Vietnamese and almost 60,000 Americans during a 10-year war.
The real regret isn’t about the people who died because of the Weatherground’s action – the real regret is in the realization that they really couldn’t do anything to stop the war. I wonder if the dipshits in the modern anti-war movement understand that?
Regardless, let’s look at some of WU’s projects, shall we? On March 6, 1970 a bomb went off in Greenwich Village accidentally. The bomb was an antipersonnel type bomb – they’d added roofing nails to the package of explosives, and it’s intended purpose was to kill NCOs and their dates at the Fort Dix NCO Club that night. Theodore Gold, Diana Oughton, and Terry Robbins were killed in the explosion. Cathy Wilkerson and Kathy Boudin survived the blast (because they were several floors above it).
Kathy Boudin was arrested a decade later for the 1981 Weatherman Nyack, New York Brinks armored truck robbery which resulted in the murders of two policemen and an armored truck security guard. At that point, Boudin was a member of the May 19 Communist Organization, along with several other former members of WU including David Gilbert, Samuel Brown, Judith Alice Clark, and Marilyn Buck.
The fact that the Weather Underground, as an intact organization, didn’t kill anyone was purely accidental – they were bumbling Keystone terrorists, but terrorists, nonetheless. The intent was there – and of course, Ayers justifies that intent by waving the bloody shirt of US troops killed and Vietnamese killed. But, the truth is; Ayers and his merry band of dipshits planned to kill MORE American troops on our own shores – and he’s unrepentant about that.
They bombed the Pentagon, the US Capitol and the State Department – they didn’t kill anyone purely by accident – only because they were incompetent boobs. Remind you of anyone?
ADDED: Don Surber writes that Ayers is a liberal’s dream;
Thus we see the perfect liberal.
He never takes personal responsibility for his actions.
He is always the victim.
And he hides his true identity.
In his case, he hates America, and he hates capitalism.
Ziggy send a link to Michelle Malkin about a community organizing group’s auction which offers a dinner with Bill and Bernadine house. Ziggy would like to see one of ya’all win the auction and spend the evening sticking your finger in Ayers’ eye.
More from Jules Crittenden.
