By Peter Oliver
Words matter, so I find it curious that the FBI announced it was investigating the San Bernardino, California, shooting as “an act of terrorism.” When the word “terrorism” is brought into the investigative scenario, various laws apparently afford the FBI extra latitude in their probe (although I admit that, after some research of my own, I can’t find the specific legislation that applies in this case).
Regardless, I have to wonder why this most recent shooting gets the terrorism label while some other recent mass shootings don’t and the word “Muslim” comes immediately to mind.
The FBI officially defines an act of terror as an offense that “is calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion or to retaliate against government conduct.” So make your own judgment about Robert Dear, a self-avowed “evangelical” with a penchant for anti-abortion rhetoric and with a history of abortion-clinic vandalism, who murdered three people at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic. Or Dylan Roof, a well-documented white supremacist whose declared motive was to start a civil war that would lead to a new, racially segregated country, who killed nine black people in a Charleston, South Carolina, church.
In my judgment, the actions of both men seem to fit the official description of terrorism. Both, however, were instead charged with multiple counts of murder, not terrorism. A couple with Middle Eastern surnames, however, was quickly tagged with the terrorist label.
Yes, I know – the Middle East these days is awash with bad actors who espouse hatred for the West in general and the U.S. in particular. Their despicable ideology, often under the banner of ISIS, is defined as “radical Islam” – an attempt to justify their inhuman atrocities as acts promoting the will of their god. There is no doubt that they and all who adopt their ideology deserve to be labeled terrorists. But why not Roof and Dear? It seems clear to me that both acted to “influence or affect the conduct of government.”
Anti-abortion organizations were quick to disavow any connection to Dear and to condemn his actions. White supremacist groups, some of whom were instrumental in inspiring Roof to form his twisted, racist weltanschauung, were also quick to distance themselves from Roof’s rampage. So let’s assume Dear and Roof were lone wolves and not part of larger cells of evildoers intent on taking violent action to promote social change.
Yet Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik were not part of any terrorist cell either. They were mostly inspired from afar, by a jihadist ideology they encountered almost exclusively online, a common 21st-century route to radicalization. Roof was similarly “self-radicalized” (another interesting word in the new age of terrorism) by white supremacist material he read online. Dear, in his rant about “baby parts,” presumably chose to be influenced, at least in part, by the controversial Breitbart video purportedly exposing offensive Planned Parenthood practices.
In fact, it could be argued that the Roof and Dear shootings are better matches for the FBI definition of terrorism than the San Bernardino rampage was. Dear’s and Roof’s targets were clearly chosen for political purposes. It is hard to make a case for a regional health-services center in California representing, even symbolically, a target for jihadist coercion or retaliation. (As an aside, it seems incomprehensible that Farook and Malik were able to buy 5,000 rounds of ammunition for assault rifles without some red flag going up somewhere.)
Violent white activists do occasionally get the terrorism label. The Earth Liberation Front, a group responsible for arson attacks in Vail, Colorado, and elsewhere, was charged with multiple counts of terrorism in 2006. But if you are Muslim, you are far, far more likely to be charged with terrorism for any violent attack or planned attack. In the minds of many Americans and often, apparently, in the minds of FBI investigators, “terrorism” and “Muslim” are two words that go hand in glove. People like Dear and Roof, on the other hand, are more likely to be thought of as crazy white guys and prosecuted as such, with “terrorism” excluded from crazy-white-guy definitions in the investigative process and criminal proceedings.
Oliver lives in Warren.
