Defending the U.S. Embassy
January 14, 2007 (I Kathimerini )
On January 12, 2007 a rocket missed the decorative U.S. Embassy seal
and punched an ugly hole in the ceiling of the ambassador's private
bathroom. The ambassador reacted calmly and appropriately. Greek police
crime scene investigators were invited into the embassy to collect the
evidence needed for investigation and future prosecution. The embassy
opened normally for business soon after.
The talking heads on Greek television wondered how terrorists could
have struck so easily the most expensively defended building in Athens.
This was a naive and counterproductive question. The U.S. embassy, built
during the Kennedy administration to symbolize the openness of American
society, is impossible to protect against weapons readily available on the
criminal black market. The window has been broken before, by anti-war
protesters armed with rocks.
For two decades Greeks (along with many American officials) harmed
their national interests by mythologizing the 17 November terror group. It
would be foolish to repeat that mistake by exaggerating the difficulty of
this new exploit. They came, they fired, they missed, they fled.
Greeks are asking what the implacable U.S. response to this rocket
attack will be. Fortunately, there is no particular need of one. This was
not the first time American sanitary fixtures had been the victim of Greek
revolutionary violence. In August 1972 a bomb destroyed a sink in the
women's lavatory of the U.S. embassy. It had been planted by future 17N
ideologist Alexandros Giotopoulos. The sink was replaced and life
continued. Thirty years later, systematic Greek police work and luck led
to Giotopoulos's arrest.
Friday's attack was symbolic, not meant to kill, but someone could
easily have been killed. For U.S. diplomats, terrorism is a real and
deadly threat around the world. When I was a diplomat I lived with the
idea that a motorcycle with two helmeted riders, an unfamiliar car parked
alongside mine, could leave my daughter an orphan. Giotopoulos or his
co-defendants killed four of my colleagues. And so it is tempting for a
superpower to take such attacks personally.
The Greek police, whose responsibility it is to protect foreign
embassies, have an unimpressive record. Greece's democratic sensitivities
do not permit Greek police to use the more aggressive counterterrorism
methods of their U.S. counterparts. But when the U.S. government acted
unilaterally against 17N, the results were disappointing. It is better to
let the local authorities do their work.
Governments have a duty to respect their society's sense of justice.
Dying for freedom is virtuous and politically powerful, but it is
impossible to kill for freedom. Each innocent victim makes the killer less
legitimate in the eyes of the society he aspires to influence. Terrorism
is inherently self-limiting unless we lose faith in our institutions.
Friday's pinprick will have been a terrorist victory only if Greek
society makes it one. Some day the Greek police will catch the culprits.
Meanwhile, American diplomats cannot rely on guards, fences and
surveillance cameras. Their real defense remains the commitment of
ordinary Greeks to their sacred tradition of hospitality to foreigners.
