Over the last several years there has been a consistent tendency for various authorities to announce, immediately after a terrorist attack, that there is no evidence that the atrocity was terrorism. Yesterday's incident fit the template:
Man Crashes Plane Into Texas I.R.S. Office
Leaving behind a rant against the government, big business and particularly the tax system, a computer engineer smashed a small aircraft into an office building where nearly 200 employees of the Internal Revenue Service were starting their workday Thursday morning, the authorities said.
...
Within hours of the crash, before the death or even the identity of the pilot had been confirmed, officials ruled out any connection to terrorist groups or causes.
Following the incident, once the perpetrator has been identified and his "reasons" for attacking have been elucidated, there is a follow-up announcement that the attacker was a lone, unstable individual. This is the template applied to everyone* from Theodore Kaczynski to Major Hasan. Occasionally the template is accurate but more often it obfuscates the key distinction between the lone lunatic who terrorizes and terrorism.
* When there is a clear connection to Right wing hate groups (see McVeigh, Timothy) the MSM and authorities make the connection with alacrity. This is the exception to the rule. Note as well that if the perpetrate is a White male efforts to connect him to the Right occur immediately, as the various commentators alleging the airplane crasher was part of the Tea Party Movement.
I'm hearing things from reliable sources that suggest that what we're seeing is more the fallout from the collapse of a life - a broken marriage, failed businesses - than a passionate blow by some antigovernment ideologue. I'd carefully watch the news tomorrow on this before taking a position...
...and this ties into David Niewert, who is anxious to tie this into his "big truth" about Angry White People.
Because we have a problem; we are growing muckers, who individually may just decide to go shoot someone, or a cop or four, or people in an airport. Or they may get together with a few others - in a kind of crazy underground cell - and blow up a building.
Or fly their small plane into one.
And some of these muckers are bound by ideology...white nationalist, black nationalist, salafist...and they tend to find each other (the Internet is very good for that.
White nationalist and black nationalist ideology have been to a large extent marginalized in our country and in the world. Despite the ongoing efforts of the liberal establishment to make the Tea Party movement a frightening "right wing extremist movement" most people are quite cognizant of the fact that it fits well within the mainstream. The greater problem is with radical Islam, not just Salafi radicalism but Shia radicalism, as well. In the case of radical Islam, there is a large transnational, state supported structure that supports a supremacist ideology that expressly advocates the use of terror to destroy and intimidate the infidel. Major Hasan may have been a failed human being (despite his academic success) and a lone actor (though he was in close contact with a radical Yemeni Imam) but he was acting out his murderous rage within a structure that condoned and celebrated his terror.
We will never be fully free from the Ted Kaczynski's of the world. There will always be the rare disturbed individuals who fail at life and blame the external world for their failures. Some tiny percentage of life's losers will enact their rage at others and murder and kill in a vain attempt to alleviate their internal distress. Perhaps some day we will find ways to identify and help these people before they explode.
Sadly, we will also never free ourselves of the Major Hasan's of the world if we continue to misdiagnose the problem as residing primarily within the individual. Major Hasan can successfully achieve status in his community, changing from a loser to a hero, by murdering innocents in a socially approved manner which civilized people consider terrorism but which his chosen community considers holy war, Jihad.
As noted many times, Politically Correct thinking that prevents us from accurately identifying the problems we are facing will continue to cost lives until we cure ourselves of the thought disorder.
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