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PAGE 10
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, APRIL 20, 1984
never achieve a political victory in the United States. When the
guerrillas have been defeated, the great share of the killings
will end automatically, and the government will be able to turn
all its efforts to suppressing the small forces of the extreme
right that have been able to operate under the cover of the war
against the guerrillas.
A letter to the editor of the LOS ANGELES TIMES, also on April 6, challenged
popular notions about the nature of revolutions.
A Times editorial on the voting in El Salvador (March 29),
"'Democracy' and Killing," stated: "•.• The killing will stop only
when negotiations start."
The Times' belief in negotiations
flies in the face of history. The killing will stop only when one
side forces the other to give in
.£Y
force of arms. The American
Revolution and the Civil War are apt examples. Even to Salva
dorans..••
The ivory tower of Times editorial writers may be peaceful, but
••.the great body of everyday Americans know in their hearts that
what The Times urges us to accept as the only way to settle other
peoples' civil wars will not work. Someone has to win. And when
it affects America, we have to decide which sid�we want to win,
tough as that may be.
If the American
II
side" loses, then loses again and again in one country
after another, Marxist insurgents could be, as the former president of
Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza, predicted, "on the Rio Grande" in a few years
time.
A recent CIA report predicted that if the Mexican government were to
collapse, 20 million Mexicans would try'""to flee northwards within the first
six months!
Should that ever occur, Washington would be so compelled to
defend the southern border of the U.S. that it would have little choice but
to pull the scores of thousands of American troops out of Europe--forcing
the Europeans to much more quickly develop a united military structure.
America will not win another war. Woody Hayes, the former head football
coach at Ohio State, reportedly told one of his university classes in 1974:
"The U.S. has been in 10 wars. We won the first eight, we tied one, then we
lost one. Now, 8-1-1 is not a bad record, but I don't like the trend."
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau