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Thom's blog
Let’s Call All Terrorists “Terrorists”
Earlier today, three gunmen stormed the Paris offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people, including two policemen. Although we still don’t know the motive behind the attack, it seems like it was in response to Charlie Hebdo publishing cartoons that mocked the Prophet Muhammad.
In the hours since the shooting, politicians and the media have universally condemned the gunmen as “terrorists” and called their actions “terrorism.” And for good reason, too: the killing of unarmed civilians for apparently political or religious reasons is the classic definition of terrorism. But would people be as willing to call the Paris attack “terrorism” if the suspects involved were white or members of a right-wing hate group? I don’t think so
In one really telling quote form earlier today, former deputy director of the CIA Michael Morrell called the storming of the Charlie Hebdo headquarters “the worst terrorist attack in Europe since the attacks in London in July of 2005." Mike Morrell apparently can’t remember the actual worst terrorist attack in Europe between the 2005 London bombings and today’s Paris shootings.
I’m talking, of course, about the 2011 Norway attacks, where a white right-wing extremist and racist named Anders Breivik killed 77 people during a rampage through Oslo and a nearby summer camp.
If Breivik’s name were “Omar” and he said that he acted in the name of Islam as opposed to “Europe” and Christianity, I doubt people like Michael Morell would forget who he is or what he did. But like other white perpetrators of mass political violence, from the guy who shot up a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin a few years ago to the guy who attacked a Kansas JCC this past April, Breivik gets a free pass from the media. He’s a “mass shooter” or “mass murderer, not a “terrorist.”
These are other examples, too. Are the guys who aimed loaded guns at federal officers at the Bundy ranch called "terrorists"? They are. Or the people who bombed the NAACP building yesterday in Colorado? Absolutely.
-Thom
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Bible: " Matthew 19:12" For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others--and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it..
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