This is almost beyond belief – a suicide bomber douses himself in gasoline, smashes his car into a building on US soil and tries to demolish it. And yet there’s nary a peep from the media. Where’s Michelle? Where’s Charles Johnson? See this great post to understand why all we’re getting is radio silence. Yes, terrorism is a real issue and we all need to be concerned about it. But it’s funny how if the terrorist isn’t a swarthy Muslim, those who claim to be so concerned about it turn a hypocritical blind eye.
October 20, 2006
The Discussion: 17 Comments
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1
By pfelelep
thanks for the info, kinda scary indeed how no newspaper or TV nor radio get this story related.
October 20, 2006 @ 12:26 pm | Comment
2
By Don
What are you talking about. These guys are just religous fanatics who are trying to impose their conservative beliefs on everyone else regardless of whether or not they agree with it by using violence because they believe that they have devine justification. Tell me what that has in common with Islamist terroism?
October 20, 2006 @ 1:01 pm | Comment
3
By richard
It is an act of terrorism to plow a car into a building to kill innoncet people, just like Timothy McVeigh’s and and the 911 terrorists’ acts. Maybe different motives and different scale – nothing compares to 911 in terms of scale and scope. But terrorism is terrorism, whether it’s against abortion clinics or NYC skyscrapers. Who ever said only Muslims commit terrorism? People like you, I suspect. Needless to say, if the terrorist had been a Muslim Michelle and Charles would have been all over this one. And I mean that. That’s the only factor they consider, and you seem to see it the same way. Muslims do not have a monopoly on terrorism.
October 20, 2006 @ 1:20 pm | Comment
4
By Bukko in Australia
Thanks for the heads-up. A terrorist attack oin the anniversary of 9/1 that gets no notice outside the local police blotter… Sure, this guy was mentally ill, but no doubt many of the Islamic suicide bombers are too. Still, terrorism is terrorism. Coming soon to a town near you!
Working at a crisis stabilisation unit (“freak-out ward” in the vernacular) in Florida converted me to thinking that extreme religious belief is a form of mental illness. So often the angry paranoid schizophrenics would express their rage in terms of “God wants me to kill so-and-so.” I’m always curious to see if this dynamic plays out with other cultures. Had a nice chat to a Nigerian psychiatrist hospitalised here for TB and he confirmed that in his home country, anger directed by the Christian diety, Allah and animist spirits is how paranoia is expressed. I hope to find a Chinese psych specialist to see if the pattern repeats in a non-deistic culture like China.
October 20, 2006 @ 1:27 pm | Comment
5
By Ivan
In China the parnoid psychotics are recruited by the Central Propaganda Department.
October 20, 2006 @ 1:49 pm | Comment
6
By richard
The Chinese don’t have time for terrorism. It goes counter to everything they believe in. (A generalization, I know, but one I tend to believe in; it’s simply not profitable to be a terrorist.) Sadly, there is a reason why Islam breeds so many terrorists, and that’s the notion of martyrdom, specifically idealized in the Koran as something to aspire to, at least in certain circumstances, with a promise of 72 virginis, etc. All (or at least most) societies at some time or another breed some terrorists. It’s not at all surprising that fundamentalist Islam, the white supremacist movement, extreme anti-abortionists , etc., all of which call for violence against “enemies,” breed an out-of-proportion number of terrorists.
October 20, 2006 @ 2:05 pm | Comment
7
By Ivan
You might be right that the cynical and opportunistic nature of China (especially the PRC) tends not to cultivate terrorists. On the other hand, for the same reasons it tends not to produce many altruistic heroes either.
October 20, 2006 @ 2:37 pm | Comment
8
By kevin
When I was in college I did some research on the Army of God. Scary people… and some of the preachers associated with them still operate in public, praising people like Paul Hill and others who kill doctors. They sent anthrax threats to numerous abortion clinics and women’s rights organizations in november of 2001. While they of course look different from what you’d consider the “average terrorist,” I see no other way to differentiate them.
I think Don’s comment must have been sarcastic?
For anyone interested in some freaky stuff, they have a website: armyofgod dot com
October 20, 2006 @ 2:37 pm | Comment
9
By Ivan
Alright, here’s some serious food for thought, on the parallels between so-called “Christian” fundamentalism and so-called “Muslim” fundamentalism. This is from Hilaire Belloc’s “Cruise of the Nona”, 1924:
“Well, what will come out of that welter, that corruption into which the decomposition of the Christian culture is now dissolving? What I think will spring out of this new filth is a new religion. I think there will arise in whatever parts of Christendom remain, say, 200 years hence….some simplified, odd, strong code of a new habit, comparable to the sudden code of habit which Arabia constructed on the ruins of Christian doctrine in the East….”
(ie, he’s referring to Islam there, which filled a vacuum left by the corruption of Christianity in the Eastern Roman Empire circa 600 AD, and was a peculiar new interpretation of the legacies of Judaism and Christianity…)
October 20, 2006 @ 3:10 pm | Comment
10
By OtherLisa
Don, you’re joking, right? I mean, the Muslim terrorists have other motivations as well, but I think they have a lot in common with their Christian nutcase brethren. What’s that oft-repeated right-wing meme? “They want to establish the Caliphate and make us all convert or be put to the sword!”
How different is this, really?
October 20, 2006 @ 3:24 pm | Comment
11
By Chip
I think Don was being sarcastic, that was my impression almost immediately.
October 20, 2006 @ 4:34 pm | Comment
12
By richard
If Don was being sarcastic, I apologize for my not-too-delighted response.
Kevin, I’ve seen some of that Army of God stuff, and it’s not pretty.
October 20, 2006 @ 6:55 pm | Comment
13
By gresh
I’d say Don’s remark was ironical rather than sarcastic. He was ironically claiming the were different in order to demonstrate they were the same.
October 21, 2006 @ 4:14 am | Comment
14
By outside thought
the difference is easy – and be advised beforehand that I adhere to none if the two following religions:
* if it is a christian fundamentalist turns into a suicide bomber, he perverts his religion.
* if a muslim does it, he lives his religion to the fullest
draw your own conclusions on the implications…
October 21, 2006 @ 5:56 am | Comment
15
By richard
Outside, I actually agree with your point, and it’s this fact that make the threat of radical Muslin terrorism so frightening. That doesn’t change the fact, however, that whenever non-Muslim terrists strike, the fear mongers on the right are totally silent. They want us all to be believe the only threat is from Miuslims, and that simply isn’t true. As people in Oklahoma City.
October 21, 2006 @ 11:48 am | Comment
16
By Fat Cat
It’s easy to just gloss over some fundamental problems in society by making a small group of people bear the blame. Wasn’t that precisely what the Nazi had done? The down side of this is that society will never face up to its real challenges until it too late. The cost of perpetuating fear and hatred far exceeds that of finding a workable solution in the first place. Haven’t we learnt the lesson yet? When is it going to stop?
October 21, 2006 @ 12:09 pm | Comment
17
By Don
My comment was dripping with sarcasm.
October 21, 2006 @ 7:28 pm | Comment