So Arab terrorism against the US goes back to 1968 ?
Or would the Democrats consider Sirhan a freedom fighter ?
"Or would the Democrats consider Sirhan a freedom fighter ?"
Many liberals do consider those who are fighting for the cause of the "oppressed people of Palestine" as freedom fighters or liberators. I'm on two other bi-partisan forums and it's amazing how much sympathy the Palestinians get from liberals that compare them to the "Native Americans" and the Israelis to the the Europeans that settled America.
Here's part of another article from the History News Network regarding Sirhan Sirhan:
http://hnn.us/articles/10781.html
(excerpts:
The record indicates that Sirhan was indeed motivated by political considerations but he was an "unaffiliated terrorist" rather than someone who had plotted with a terrorist group.
Sirhan may have been mentally unstable and angry at a society that had relegated him to the bottom of the heap but there is sufficient evidence, originating years before the shooting, that Sirhan clearly saw himself, like today’s suicide bombers, as an Arab hero. The PLO and most Palestinians certainly judged him this way. And Sirhan’s lack of remorse is entirely in keeping with the terrorist way of rationalizing political murder.
Many "exiled" Palestinians, like Sirhan, sought retribution and began to formulate plans to kill innocent civilians and hijack planes. Sirhan’s answer to these problems took the form of killing a major American politician who advocated support for Israel. Sirhan said, “…this momentum just took hold of me and by June 5th 1968 [the first anniversary of the Six day War] I couldn’t control it [anger] anymore.”
He was depressed that society had relegated him to the bottom of the heap. He felt an allegiance and empathy with assassins of the past. And he dreamed of infamy. But without his sense of Arabness and without his hatred towards Jews that had their roots in his childhood indoctrination, it is unlikely Sirhan would have assassinated Robert Kennedy. All the hatred that spewed forth from Sirhan’s gun can ultimately be traced back to three sources – Anti-Americanism, Palestinian nationalism and anti-Semitism. And this may have been the first act in an international political drama that culminated in 9/11.