Editor’s CommentnWe write these words on the 60th day of the calamity andnhumiliation known as the Iranian crisis. This crisis seems tonus to be more an hour of trial whose magnitude and complexityntranscend the dilemmas of Korea and Vietnam. Thenrudiments of a livable planet are involved; the world ordernwhich may emerge from our lack of resolve, or inconsistency,nin defense of the fundamentals could prove lethal to all wenare and all we wish to be. If we do not learn that lesson now,nthe ultimate fight for survival may follow, one whose outcomenis hard to predict. Thus, let us review what these events havenalready taught us, here in Rockford, Illinois, and how we seenand interpret them.nI, .ran has shown clearly who America’s most bloodthirsty,nimplacable, fanatical, cruel, and dangerous enemy really is.nIt is the relatively new Fifth International of cosmopolitannterrorism, allied with the Soviet Union. In spite of the circumstancenthat it has been in the news for nearly thirty years,nwe know little about it. To understand it better, we mustnclarify who the people of this faith and movement are, whatnthey want, and why America is both their prime target andnthe kingpin of their success.nThere’s a bizarre irony in the fact that cosmopolitan terrorismnhas, in a sense, gained a good deal of its impetus fromnthe American culture, or rather from its degenerative symptoms.nThe cosmopolitan terrorist, whatever his ideologicalnvehicle—nationalism, Marxism, or any modern version ofnanarchism—draws his dialectics and rhetoric from the leftliberaln”wisdom” so deeply entrenched in the Americannacademia since the 60’s, from the radical “alternative” publicationsnwhich have proliferated during the last decade, fromnthe centers and outlets of the American procommunist andn”liberationist” intellectuality. Like the pathetic Americann”revolutionist” of the 60’s, the cosmopolitan terrorist is almostnnever a son of the working classes; he is almost always fromnan affluent background—be it in Italy, West Germany, thenMiddle East, Japan. He routinely speaks excellent English,nwhich has been polished at American universities, often onngrants financed by American taxpayers. His martial music isnWoodstock rock. He sports Levis, Army-Navy surplusnfatigues, sneakers, printed T-shirts, beards, and hairdos as prescribednby Village Voice, Mother Jones, and the Young SetnBoutique at Bloomingdale’s. All this makes him look andnsound like the phony American nonconformist of the lastndecade, whom Time and CBS so frantically promoted in ordernto endear him to the average American mind. However, asnthe supreme token of fashion, he flaunts the Kalashnikovnautomatic rifle—and both the symbolism and the reality of thisngesture are the point at which some heinous, even deadly,npolitical consequences begin.nIt’s also at this point that the American civilization begins tonfacilitate cosmopolitan terrorism with a perverse, spookynChronicles of Cttlturcnnnefficiency. The American media, with their fraudulent motto,n”the people’s right to know,” their insatiable sensationalism,nand their inherent morbid liberalism, implement the terrorist’snprosperity— just like the vociferous subculture of the 60’snwas realizable only through the American press’s support of itsnalleged “moral superiority.” The cosmopolitan terroristnlearned early that guerrilla action has strategic and tacticalnworth only when it is amplified with the help of NBC or ABCnnews crews. Since the American media programmatically refusento promote any value judgment other than the liberal one,nover the years they have presented the cosmopolitan terroristnto the confused American public as a “student-rebel,”n”freedom fighter,” “ideological militant”—often with warmnsympathy, bogus “understanding,” with an “objectivity” thatnobviously amounts to benign approbation. Why the Americannmedia—for so long and with such ruthless stupidity—havenforged the image of the cosmopolitan terrorist as the mostncolorful occurrence of our time, remains murky. WatchingnCBS’s Mike Wallace reverently address Khomeini as “Imam”n—which means “divinely inspired” according to Shiite tradition—makesnthe price we pay for the American media’s cynicismnpainfully visible.nXhat a superior culture nourishes its fiercest violatorsnand destroyers is nothing new: Algerian theorists of murdernandMau-Mau tacticians acquired their political savvy, credos,nand emotionalities from the Sorbonne and Oxford. Onlynafter it was eliminated was colonialism revealed to be annagent of progress, whose demise without prior reform maynhave been a mistake. The anti-Americanism of the currentncosmopolitan terrorism is another matter. It is an enigmaticnaffair, rooted more in neuroses and self-hatred than in anynsociopolitical conception. The modern cosmopolitan terrorist,nalienated from the values and aspirations of the workingnand middle classes of Italy, Germany, even Ireland, seesnAmerica as the strongest and freest bulwark of practicalnhumanity, one which can most effectively defend itself fromnhis assaults, and support societies against him. The Americannsystemic order remains authentic, stable, solidly embracednby the citizens, and it is constantly evolving toward greaternjustice, equality, and respect for the common man; Americannsocial fairness is still unintimidated, robust, uncorrupted,nan object of envy to the rest of the world. Countless simplenpeople in the terrorist’s own country still look up to Americanas an Eden where everyone wants to live. Liberty and people’snpower are still genuine features of life here, democracy is anreality, the free-enterprise system has a veritable supportnby the general consensus. To assert himself, the cosmopolitannterrorist must strike out at America, the most formidablenopponent of his totalitarian, elitist, dastardly principle ofnmurdering innocents in order to superimpose his politicalnwill on those who do not want it.n