Googs!
<gasp!>Terrorists can be white!
This country really needs a fundamental shift in what a “terrorist” is. The post-9/11 paranoia of Muslims/brown people has created a false idea of what is “terrorism.” And law enforcement/media are not helping, as the opening paragraphs of the Washington Post story demonstrate:
The California man who calmly opened fire on two police officers at an entrance to the Pentagon Thursday appears to have acted alone and was not connected to any terrorist plot, Pentagon police chief Richard S. Keevill said.
the story then continues:
36-year-old John Patrick Bedell, was dressed in a business suit and carried two semiautomatic weapons and “many magazines” of ammunition, Keevill said. “He walked very directly to the officers and engaged,” Keevill said.
and:
Police are looking at possible anti-government Internet postings by Bedell, Keevill said, and still trying to establish his motive for the attack at a doorway to the nation’s defense headquarters — one of the busiest, most prominent and closely guarded buildings in the Washington area.
In a story specifically about Bedell’s writings, we learn:
Bedell harbored ill feelings toward the government and the armed forces, and had questioned the circumstances behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/05/AR2010030500510.html?hpid=topnews
“There are no indications at this point that there are any international or domestic connections to this incident at all,” Keevill said. “At this time it appears to be a single individual that had issues.”
What the investigators mean, is that there is no connection to any Muslim groups. But that would be profiling. A man who appears to have written anti-government statements who then attacks representatives of that government is either a terrorist, an enemy of the state, a traitor, or possibly all three. Just because he was white and a native-born American doesn’t mean he’s not a terrorist.
But the media, and some law enforcement, seem to be too gutless to call a spade a spade (see aftermath of Austin/IRS) crash and call angry,white Americans who purposely inflict harm on citizens or people representing the government in order to make a political point, terrorists.
What is it going to take to decouple the idea of terrorism from Muslim?
