Terrorists

* Anna Geifman (“Finding Who Is Responsible When No Group Takes Credit,” Opinion, July 28) surprisingly misses the mark in her search as to why terrorists have been reluctant to take credit for the TWA Flight 800 explosion, the detonation of the U.S. military housing in Saudi Arabia and explosions in the Moscow mass-transit system.

After driving home the point that modern terrorism began with Russian extremist socialists who orchestrated the Bolshevik Revolution and infected latter-day counterparts, she fails to make the obvious connection between the lapse of the Soviet Union and the silence of the most recent perpetrators of terrorism. It is simply this: The late, great, communist state, mother of modern terrorism, nurturer of terrorists worldwide, no longer exists to shield them from the wrath of the Western nations. Without the protection of the benevolent superpower that lent weight to their political ideologies, terrorists are seen for what they really are: self-disenfranchised cowards lashing out at the innocent as they vent their frustrations against a world out of their control.

TERRY McCARTHY

Tujunga