Munich Olympics Massacre 1972

Eight young Palestinian men calling themselves “The Black September” managed to avoid security and get inside the 1972 Olympic Village. Their intent was to expose weaknesses in government laws and the helplessness of governments in crisis. These young Palestinian men held nine Israeli athletes as hostages ultimately killing all. Their goal was to create maximum outrage. Because this incident was on the heels of the close of the Vietnam War, most people had watched Walter Cronkite and other news reporters on the front lines and thought they had been exposed to the worst of humanity against humanity. But they were wrong. The entire Olympic Village shoot out was shown on live TV. The slaughter of these young athletes was likened to Nazi Germany's extermination of the Jews during WW2. The demands of the terrorists were to have a plane fly them and their hostages back to any Arab country willing to accept them and the release of 200 Arab prisoners being held in Israeli prisons.
Golda Meir as prime minister of Israel chose not to negotiate at all with the terrorist and gave the German Chancellor Willy Brandt permission to handle the crisis as he saw fit. This put a lot of pressure on Germany to do what they thought was the right thing.

Chancellor Brandt thought that they best way to protect the hostages was not to let the terrorist leave the country as they had requested. Many of the Arab countries did not want to get involved, but Cairo agreed to accept the landing of the plane the terrorists requested. They possibly could have gotten many of the hostages back safely, but instead the hard line taken by the Chancellor forced the terrorists hand, and all the hostages were killed. This was the fatal mistake. I think the terrorists felt they had many supporters as they made their stance. But when the Middle Eastern countries did not act favorably to their actions by not getting involved, it showed them that they were on their own. After it was all over, Libya offered to send a plane to retrieve the bodies of the Palestinian dead and stated that the terrorists never intended to kill anyone. The tragedy was partly caused by the Germans trapping the terrorists and the Israelis not releasing prisoners that were requested in the “Black September’s” demands.

This incident caused the world to pay attention to the Palestinian cause which most people didn’t know existed. But on the other hand the backlash was severe. Israeli intelligence discovered that the “Black Septembers” plan was begun in Syria. So Israel retaliated by bombing Lebanon and Syria in the heaviest strikes since the 1967 war. During the Olympics the American Government warned American interests in Germany to be on the look out as they expected trouble all along. Also Germany insisted that the Olympics continue as planned. Because of that and their inability to negotiate the release of the hostages, Germany lost its hope to repair their reputation following the exposure of the WW2 war crimes. The security at the Olympic Village was much too lax and this may have been prevented if they had been more alert as to who was coming and going in the Village. The Palestinian cause for what they felt was injustice in their country received a huge black mark in the eyes of the world because civilians were killed and yet “the Black September” were honored as Martyrs to their cause. I think that most European and American people do not understand the Arab countries issues and because of their inability to see things from a different cultural perspective, there will never be a settlement of their issues that still stand in today’s times.

In the aftermath of all this, the question remains on hostage negotiation. When do you meet their demands in the hope of saving lives, and when do you stick to policy which terrorists may use to achieve their goals.

U.S. Mafia Alliance

How do we decide when we can sacrifice the morals and ethics of our legal system and social structure? One good study would be that of Lucky Luciano,a gangland thug who committed about every crime imaginable, only to work out a deal with the U.S. government to allow him to continue his criminal ways while in jail in exchange for favors to help with the war efforts during World War II.

Salvatore Lucania also known as Lucky Luciano was born November 24, 1897. He was one of the most famous Italian gangsters of the 20th century. He earned the name lucky during an incident in 1929 which left him with his throat slit, and he miraculously survived it. Luciano grew up in Lercara Friddi, Sicily and in 1906 at the age of ten immigrated with his family to New York.

As Luciano grew up he became involved in organized crime. He became associated and worked for some of the most famous mafia thugs of the time. He also was a member of the Five Points gang lead by John Torrio. Later Luciano became chairman of the board of an organized crime group called “the commission”. The commission was a group of professional hit men. Soon after the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, an attorney named Thomas E. Dewey who had been investigating Luciano, took him to court for suspicion of running an extremely large prostitution ring in New York City. Luciano was found guilty and sent to prison for 30 to 50 years. While in prison Luciano was allowed by the authorities to remain active in the everyday running of his mafia business from his prison cell as a reward for his help during WWII.

During WWII, the Germans took advantage of their use of submarines. They ended up sinking more than 200 American ships off the East Coast of the United States. After the ship “Normandie” was destroyed in New York harbor, the U.S. Navy was suspicious that the Germans were involved and asked Luciano for his help. America moved him from the Clinton Prison in Dannemora, New York to the Great Meadows prison in New York. Lucky was able to convince a few of his associates to help with security at the New York Docks. This made it harder for the Germans to sink and sabotage American ships and easier for America’s allies to ship supplies back and forth. Later in time it was discovered that the Normandie’s destruction was caused by a fire which was started by accident. Shortly after the U.S. Navy asked Luciano to help with the protection of New York’s docks, they asked him for another favor. Knowing that Luciano still had good connections with the Italian and Sicilian mafias, America needed help with their allies’ quest to invade Sicily, this was called Operation Husky. Operation Husky took Benito Mussolini out of power. During this time the man that had put Luciano in jail, Thomas E. Dewey, had become governor of New York. Dewey decided that as a reward for all of his help he would let Luciano go free. Though Luciano was no longer held behind bars he still had one price to pay. He was deported and required to move back to Sicily forever. It was said that Luciano enjoyed giving back to his Country and during the time that he was still in United States he was approached and admired by many U.S. military men like he was a movie star.

What lengths will society go to achieve success in pursuit for what it believes is right and moral, and in some cases self serving. These days we hear about water boarding as a means of getting information from our enemies. We read terrorists their so called Miranda Rights, and we put them on trial in New York City for the entire world to see, rather than using a simple military procedure.

This is quite a change from the days of the Italian Mafia, and it's far reaching power over so much of our society.