Harold's Left: It's Only Terrorism When It's "Them"

Harold's Left:

A man walks into a public building, he blows away the guard at the front door and inflicts violence on others. In his car and his home he has paraphernalia from various other radical "true believers" in the causes that this man believes are just. He has frequented several meetings, online and in person, where he discusses his willingness to inflict violence on as many of the people that he hates as possible, believing that it would be God's bidding. Is he a terrorist? Not according to conservatives.

A very depressed and disheveled man loses his job and becomes broke. He starts to blame his problems on all sorts of people, but he eventually focuses his hate on just one group. In his home, there is a massive amount of literature from his radical heroes on television who have told him to "rise up" against the groups that are seeking to "hurt" people like him. So he decides to walk into a place of worship and kill several people, to show that this place was wrong from condoning the sort of lifestyles it did. Is he a terrorist? O'Reilly, Beck, Coulter, Hannity, and Malkin never called him that once (hint: he was reading their stuff).

Both of these instances describe events, true events, that have happened over the last 24 months. Scary thing is; this is only the tip of the iceberg. The Southern Poverty Law Center, tracks this sort of violence and has seen a sharp uptick in these sorts of instances in the last 18 months.

Terrorism can be defined as the use of violence with the intent to coerce or intimidate, especially for political purposes. Under that definition, these acts above, and several others under the umbrella of right-wing extremism qualify as terrorism. So why is it that Fox News and others in the right wing media are not just reluctant to claim it, but downright refuse to? Oh... I know why, because many of the folks who commit these acts of violence are citing these people at Fox as part of the motivation behind their ideology.

The agents at Fox News, namely Hannity and O'Reilly, have been scrambling to claim that the massacre at Ft. hood was indeed an act of terrorism. I agree that Major Hasan's motivation was political in some way, whether it be his apparent religious motivation or his belief that soldiers should not be deploying to war, it's hard to argue that he didn't have some motivation other than just one of a deranged individual who just wanted to murder people. That being said, if this is in fact an act of terrorism, then why not the numerous acts committed by right wing extremists? The major difference? Hasan is a Muslim, and his shooting spree gives the right-wing an easy out to do their favorite things. Be intolerant. Be indiscriminate in their distrust of everyone different from them, and generally be compulsive in their two-facededness. As usual, conservatives cannot see into details or differentiate anything. It's either 'us' or 'them'. Anyone who says "Allah Akbar" must be a terrorist right? Here's an exchange between O'Reilly and Sally Quinn on his show:

O'Reilly: But you have a hard time saying the words "Muslim terrorist," and so does Obama. He has a hard time saying it. I don't know why you guys aren't saying it. You know, why, why?

Quinn: Well, I think, first of all, there are different kinds of terrorists. As I said, Timothy McVeigh --

O'Reilly: He's a Muslim terrorist! What do you mean, different kinds of terrorist? He killed people under the banner of jihad! That's who he is! What do you -- look, what do you want, him to come to your house with a strap-on bomb? The guy did it for jihadist reasons! "Allah Akbar!" That's the slogan! He mails Al Qaeda! Miss Quinn, you're a brilliant woman, and I'm not saying that facetiously. You are. A third-grader gets this, and you're resisting it! I wanna know why!

Quinn: Bill, you're making a very good case. I mean, he's Muslim, and he may well end up being a terrorist. We don't know for sure --

O'Reilly: I know for sure! Ninety percent of the people watching me know for sure! I don't know why you don't know for sure! What else do you need?

Quinn: I mean, you can call the guy who blew up -- you know, who shot up the Holocaust Museum a terrorist --

O'Reilly: Did he yell "Allah Akbar?" If he yelled "Allah Akbar," and he e-mailed Al Qaeda in Yemen, I'd call him that, Miss Quinn!

Quinn: OK, he's a Muslim terrorist.

O'Reilly: Thank you.

He said "Allah Akbar" so he must be a terrorist right? As I eluded to earlier, whether he is a terrorist is still not clear, although I lean towards the evidence that he was doing this for a higher reason than just indiscriminate killing, so he probably could be labeled that way. However, what's more interesting is O'Reilly's implication that he must be simply over the use of a term. In 2007, my unit brought in a platoon of Egyptian Special Forces soldiers to shadow us and show them how we train. Their platoon leader, a young bright Muslim, was even a graduate of the US Army Pathfinder School, which I can attest to as a graduate of the course myself, is easily one of the most difficult courses in the military, and consequently one of the most coveted. They were devoted soldiers. Our time with the Egyptian platoon culminated with us doing a parachute jump from 1500 feet with them. I was the first jumper in the door, with an Egyptian soldier behind me. As we got over the target and the jumpmaster alerted us "1 minute", the 25 or so Egyptians began to chant "Allah Akbar" as they prepped to exit the door. Which in literal translation means "God is Great". Does this mean that because they chanted "Allah Akbar" they were getting ready to commit a terrorist act? No, it was just their way of praising their God. Granted, yes many terrorists use this term before they kill people, but just because someone uses it does not mean they are a terrorist. It's a classic case in logic of 'mistaken reversal'. "If you are a terrorist, then you may scream "Allah Akbar" before you commit violence", is not the logical equivalent of; "If you scream "Allah Akbar" then you are a terrorist". But, who cares about those details right? Let's just hog tie all of them and find ways to ship them out of the country.

By the way. Great Job O'Reilly for basically muscling Quinn into admitting something she didn't want to in order to prove your point. I sometimes wish I could go on his show, because I guarantee it would not end that way.

And the cause of conservative intolerance just keeps 'a rollin along.