The recent attack on a predominantly African-American church by a murderous racist has provoked a passionate debate about who is – and is not – a “terrorist.” According to FBI director James Comey, the perpetrator of the Charleston massacre – in which nine people were killed – doesn’t qualify:
“Terrorism is act of violence done or threatens to in order to try to influence a public body or citizenry, so it’s more of a political act and again based on what I know so more I don’t see it as a political act.”
Many are baffled by this, and point to what appears to be a curious double standard: after all, if a Muslim commits violence the media and the authorities are unanimous in their verdict that it was a “terrorist” act, and should be treated as such. And this is not just a matter of terminology: it is legally significant, since the post-9/11 era has given us a whole body of “terrorism”-related law that mandates severe punishment for crimes so designated. A piece in Newsweek avers:
“For many, [Dylann] Roof does not evoke the cultural norm of a terrorist. ‘We often have things labeled as hate crimes but there’s a big leap from the label ‘hate crime’ to ‘terrorism,” explains Ibrahim Hooper, the communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. ‘We always wait when these incidents are first reported to hear if it was carried out by a Muslim to find out if it will be labeled terrorism.’”
Hooper’s complaint, echoed in some quarters of the media, is seemingly well-justified: after all, Roof is quite explicit about the essentially political-ideological motive behind his heinous act. Before opening fire he told his victims he “had to do it” because blacks are “taking over the county.” An online manifesto discovered after the Charleston attack explicates his racist views at some length. So why isn’t Dylann Roof a terrorist?
Glenn Greenwald has taken a stab at the who-is-a-terrorist issue in a recent article for The Intercept. He points to one Joseph Stack, whom he describes as “an anti-tax, anti-government fanatic” with “largely libertarian views”: Stack, you’ll recall, drove a plane into an IRS building, and – like most ideologicaly-motivated killers – wrote a manifesto justifying his actions. “The attack,” writes Greenwald, “had all of the elements of iconic terrorism, a model for how it’s most commonly understood: down to flying a plane into the side of a building. But Stack was white and non-Muslim. As a result, not only was the word ‘terrorism’ not applied to Stack, but it was explicitly declared inapplicable by media outlets and government officials alike.”
Greenwald goes on to list a number of incidents that seem to fit this “iconic” pattern, and yet were labeled mere “criminal” acts, as opposed to acts committed by Muslims, which seemingly qualify the perpetrator as a “terrorist.” This issue, he avers, is “about the identity of those committing the violence and the identity of the targets. It manifestly has nothing to do with some neutral, objective assessment of the acts being labeled.”
Yet Greenwald is too smart to fall into the same error as virtually all of the politically correct pundits waxing indignant over this question. He writes:
“The point here is not, as some very confused commentators suggested, to seek an expansion of the term “terrorism” beyond its current application. As someone who has spent the last decade more or less exclusively devoted to documenting the abuses and manipulations that term enables, the last thing I want is an expansion of its application.”
This is important, because several on the left have bemoaned the fact that the Department of Homeland Security was forced to back off of their “report” on “right-wing extremism” as a result of protests by conservatives in Congress and the media: according to the PC crowd’s logic, the Charleston incident shows they should be investigating “right-wing extremism” more seriously and strenuously. Which just goes to show that the left can be more of a threat to our civil liberties than even the right at its worst. Greenwald continues:
“But what I also don’t want is for non-Muslims to rest in their privileged nest, satisfied that the term and its accompanying abuses is only for that marginalized group. And what I especially don’t want is to have this glaring, damaging mythology persist that the term ‘terrorism’ is some sort of objectively discernible, consistently applied designation of a particularly hideous kind of violence. I’m eager to have the term recognized for what it is: a completely malleable, manipulated, vapid term of propaganda that has no consistent application whatsoever. Recognition of that reality is vital to draining the term of its potency.”
Seen from the government’s perspective, the issue has nothing fundamentally to do with Muslims. They are merely the latest group to get in Washington’s sights as a credible threat to its power and objectives. Back in the 1990s, you’ll recall, the terrorist threat had a different face: that of Timothy McVeigh, the mastermind behind the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. Like Stack, he was what Greenwald would characterize as an “anti-government fanatic,” but unlike Stack he was apparently part of an organized “extremist” underworld, with affiliations with the “militia” and “patriot” movements. Unlike Stack, he acted in concert with others: and, also unlike Stack, he was linked by federal officials – notably President Bill Clinton – with a much larger movement which included “mainstream” conservative figures.
