Not a Precedent

IN THE AFTERMATH of Monday night's bombing of the Libyan capital, President Reagan told the nation that as long as he is in office he will not tolerate terrorism anywhere. Attacking Libya in response to what was a Libyan war waged through terrorism was justified, though the resulting civilian casualities are tragic. But it would be wrong to see Monday night's raid as the successful initiation of a new American policy for responding to terrorism in general.

First of all, America did not respond to terrorism, but to aggressive acts of war--under the guise of terrorism--sponsored by the state of Libya. The distinction is important. If reports are correct, Khadafy, with the help of Libyan diplomats working out of Libyan People's Bureaus in West Berlin, engineered an attack on a West German discotheque. Although terrorism was Khadafy's tool, his action was akin to a military attack. Seen in this light, the American military response is, at the very least, a justifiable move.

In recent years terrorism has been the means by which groups with no political outlet for their grievances make their cause known to the world. But Libya was using terrorism in an entirely different way. For the Libyan dictator terrorism has become the means of waging an unconventional war against the United States.

When a representative from the Arab League condemned the raid for its failure to deal with the root of terrorism, he misunderstood the character of Libya's actions. He argued that the frustration of attempts to bring about the formation of a Palestinian homeland has left Arabs so outraged that they have resorted to terrorism. But in the case of Libya, the Palestinian question had precious little to do with terrorism. The bombing of a West German disco or the proposal to buy U.S. hostages from Lebanon were state-ordered acts, not expressions of violence by angry Palestinian youths.

Nevertheless, the bombing of Tripoli should not be the first page in a new chapter of Western responses to terrorism. On the night of the raid, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations missed the point when he argued that America should adopt Israel's policy and respond to each terrorist act militarily. First, Israel's policy has not ended terrorism; and second, such a policy would require a level of resolve and military intrusion into daily life that the people of this country are unlikely to tolerate.

Palestinian terrorism will not stop until Palestinian grievances are answered, whatever that answer may be. Only an effective peace plan will put an end to Middle East terrorism. And while Israel may have its own reasons for choosing to respond to all terrorists militarily, the U.S. should not

The U.S. attack on Libya should be supported just as any response to military action against our country should be supported. Acts of war against us must be answered. But Monday night's air raid should not be supported as the first step in the long march to end terrorism. We blind ourselves to the causes of terrorism if we seek to end it by answering it in kind. Libya was not practicing terrorism, it was making war. If we fail to understand this distinction, the legacy of Monday night's bombing raid could be a tragic one.