Bill Ayers Rehabilitated

I realize that it is déclassé to think of Professor William Ayers as a "terrorist." He denies it himself, noting that the Weathermen were not terrorists in that they were not trying to kill anyone. But, he is taking advantage of his re-found notoriety to issuing an updated version of his book, Fugitive Days, with a new afterword, talking about President Elect Obama.

With friends like these, our incoming President doesn't need enemies.

The fact is, the larger Weather Underground franchise killed and injured people and not just their own. You notice that I talked to the Weather Underground franchise. One of the things we are learning from Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda is that it is not a monolithic organization, but more of a franchise, with other groups modeling themselves on the mother organization. It was the same way in the late 1960s and the early 1970s with the Weather Underground. There were a number of groups and they related to one another and fed off one another.

In a way, I understand how Professor Ayers feels about wishing he had done more. When I got my hair cut two weeks ago I apologized to the barber (she is originally from Cambodia) that I had not done more when I was flying Close Air Support missions into Cambodia in 1973. Maybe, if I had done more, it would have prevented the killing of several million Cambodians by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge. Maybe Viet-nam would not have felt the need to invade Cambodia in November 1978, to stop border incursions and internal genocide.

We need to not forget that while Professor Ayers did not personally kill anyone, his terrorist franchise bands did kill people. I knew one of them, Bob Fassnacht. He was someone I had met and talked to (I met him through my wife, who was a cousin of his). He was a real person to me and not a statistic. But, Bob Fassnacht was not the only one in Sterling Hall that early morning. Physics researcher Paul Quin was injured by the same bomb. (As an aside, the Wikipedia entry linked to above neglects to mention that Bob Fassnacht's wife, Stephanie, after the bombing left the country for several years and lived in Europe.

If Professor Ayers moved to Lowell and moved into my neighborhood I would not sell my house and leave. But, I am pretty sure I would not be part of the welcoming committee. As I would have little good to say to him, I would say nothing and allow him to enjoy his time here in peace. Perhaps a good test on how we should feel about Professor Ayers is to ask ourselves if, had the Government not executed Timothy McVeigh, would we have been accepting of him in our neighborhood twenty years from now? Lets assume that, unlike Professor Ayers, he was repentant for his bombing action. Timothy McVeigh was the person convicted of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, in Oklahoma City and the ensuing deaths.

Professor Ayers still says he wishes he had done more. What more could he have done? A few more bombings, with the inherent risk of injuries and deaths? A lot more bombings and bank robberies with a probability approaching one of deaths? Given that he is opposed to our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in this video links them to Viet-nam, should we understand him to believe that young people should today be engaged in his kind of activities from the period of the late 1960s and early 1970s?

General Curtis LeMay is reputed to have said: "I can not distinguish between the incompetent and the unfortunate and therefore will not try." I feel sort of like that about Professor Ayers.

Regards -- Cliff