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Why is Boston 'terrorism' but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine? - Spartacus - Apr 24 2013
[SIZE=16px]Can an act of violence be called 'terrorism' if the motive is unknown?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=16px]
![[Image: 36baca09-6ce3-4839-bcb0-2cd197834952-460x276.jpeg]](https://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/4/19/1366362343041/36baca09-6ce3-4839-bcb0-2cd197834952-460x276.jpeg)
[/SIZE][SIZE=14px]Two very disparate commentators, Ali Abunimah and Alan Dershowitz, both raised serious questions over the weekend about a claim that has been made over and over about the bombing of the Boston Marathon: namely, that this was an act of terrorism. Dershowitz was on BBC Radio on Saturday and, citing the lack of knowledge about motive, said (at the 3:15 mark): "It's not even clear under the federal terrorist statutes that it qualifies as an act of terrorism." Abunimah wrote a superb analysis of whether the bombing fits the US government's definition of "terrorism", noting that "absolutely no evidence has emerged that the Boston bombing suspects acted 'in furtherance of political or social objectives'" or that their alleged act was 'intended to influence or instigate a course of action that furthers a political or social goal.'" Even a former CIA Deputy Director, Phillip Mudd, said on Fox News on Sunday that at this point the bombing seems more like a common crime than an act of terrorism.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14px]Over the last two years, the US has witnessed at least three other episodes of mass, indiscriminate violence that killed more people than the Boston bombings did: the Tucson shooting by Jared Loughner in which 19 people (including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords) were shot, six of whom died; the Aurora movie theater shooting by James Holmes in which 70 people were shot, 12 of whom died; and the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting by Adam Lanza in which 26 people (20 of whom were children) were shot and killed. The word "terrorism" was almost never used to describe that indiscriminate slaughter of innocent people, and none of the perpetrators of those attacks was charged with terrorism-related crimes. A decade earlier, two high school seniors in Colorado, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, used guns and bombs to murder 12 students and a teacher, and almost nobody called that "terrorism" either.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14px]In the Boston case, however, exactly the opposite dynamic prevails. Particularly since the identity of the suspects was revealed, the word "terrorism" is being used by virtually everyone to describe what happened. After initially (and commendably) refraining from using the word, President Obama has since said that "we will investigate any associations that these terrorists may have had" and then said that "on Monday an act of terror wounded dozens and killed three people at the Boston Marathon". But as Abunimah notes, there is zero evidence that either of the two suspects had any connection to or involvement with any designated terrorist organization.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14px]More significantly, there is no known evidence, at least not publicly available, about their alleged motives. Indeed, Obama himself - in the statement he made to the nation after Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured on Friday night - said that "tonight there are still many unanswered questions" and included this "among" those "unanswered questions":[/SIZE]
[INDENT=1][SIZE=14px]"Why did young men who grew up and studied here, as part of our communities and our country, resort to such violence?"[/SIZE][/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[SIZE=14px]The overarching principle here should be that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is entitled to a presumption of innocence until he is actually proven guilty. As so many cases have proven - from accused (but exonerated) anthrax attacker Stephen Hatfill to accused (but exonerated) Atlanta Olympic bomber Richard Jewell to dozens if not hundreds of Guantanamo detainees accused of being the "worst of the worst" but who were guilty of nothing - people who appear to be guilty based on government accusations and trials-by-media are often completely innocent. Media-presented evidence is no substitute for due process and an adversarial trial.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14px]But beyond that issue, even those assuming the guilt of the Tsarnaev brothers seem to have no basis at all for claiming that this was an act of "terrorism" in a way that would meaningfully distinguish it from Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine. All we really know about them in this regard is that they identified as Muslim, and that the older brother allegedly watched extremist YouTube videos and was suspected by the Russian government of religious extremism (by contrast, virtually every person who knew the younger brother has emphatically said that he never evinced political or religious extremism). But as Obama himself acknowledged, we simply do not know what motivated them (Obama: "Tonight there are still many unanswered questions. Among them, why did young men who grew up and studied here, as part of our communities and our country, resort to such violence?").[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14px]It's certainly possible that it will turn out that, if they are guilty, their prime motive was political or religious. But it's also certainly possible that it wasn't: that it was some combination of mental illness, societal alienation, or other form of internal instability and rage that is apolitical in nature. Until their motive is known, how can this possibly be called "terrorism"? Can acts of violence be deemed "terrorism" without knowing the motive?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14px]This is far more than a semantic question. Whether something is or is not "terrorism" has very substantial political implications, and very significant legal consequences as well. The word "terrorism" is, at this point, one of the most potent in our political lexicon: it single-handedly ends debates, ratchets up fear levels, and justifies almost anything the government wants to do in its name. It's hard not to suspect that the only thing distinguishing the Boston attack from Tucson, Aurora, Sandy Hook and Columbine (to say nothing of the US "shock and awe" attack on Baghdad and the mass killings in Fallujah) is that the accused Boston attackers are Muslim and the other perpetrators are not. As usual, what terrorismreally means in American discourse - its operational meaning - is: violence by Muslims against Americans and their allies. For the manipulative use of the word "terrorism", see the scholarship of NYU's Remi Brulin and the second-to-last section here.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14px]I was on Democracy Now this morning discussing many of these issues, as well as the legal and civil libertarian concerns raised by this case, and that segment can be viewed here (a transcript will be posted here later today):[/SIZE]
UPDATE
[SIZE=14px]Andrew Sullivan, back in his fight-the-jihadis mode, proclaims that - unlike President Obama - he knows exactly why the Tsarnaev brothers attacked Boston. "Of Course it Was Jihad", he declares in his headline, and adds that it was "an almost text-book case of Jihadist radicalization, most likely in the US." He then accuses me "veer[ing] into left-liberal self-parody" for suggesting today that the evidence is lacking to make this claim.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14px]But in trying to negate my point, Andrew instead demonstrates its truth. The only evidence he can point to shows that the older brother, Tamerlan, embraced a radical version of Islam, something I already noted. But - rather obviously - to prove that someone who commits violence is Muslim is not the same as proving that Islam was the prime motive for the violence (just as the aggressive attack by devout evangelical George Bush on Iraq was not proof of a rejuvenation of the Christian crusades, the attack by Timothy McVeigh was not proof of IRA violence, Israeli aggression is not proof that Judaism is the prime motivator of those wars, and the mass murder spree by homosexual Andrew Cunanan was not evidence that homosexuality motivated the violence). Islam or some related political ideology may have been the motive driving Tamerlan, as I acknowledge, but it also may not have been. You have to produce evidence showing motive. You can't just assert it and demand that everyone accept it on faith. Specifically, to claim this is terrorism (in a way that those other incidents of mass murder at Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine were not), you have to identify the "political or social objective" the violence was intended to promote: what was that political or social objective here? Andrew doesn't have the slightest idea.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14px]But this proves the point: "terrorism" does not have any real meaning other than "a Muslim who commits violence against America and its allies", so as soon as a Muslim commits violence, there is an automatic decree that it is "terrorism" even though no such assumption arises from similar acts committed by non-Muslims. That is precisely my point. (About the younger brother, Andrew asserts that "the stoner kid [] got caught up in his brother's religious fanaticism" but he has no evidence at all that this is true, and indeed, his friends say almost uniformly that he never evinced any religious fanaticism).[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14px]The most bizarre statement from Andrew is also quite revealing: "but does Glenn wonder why Tamerlan thought it was ok to beat his wife, whom he demanded convert to Islam?" In case Andrew doesn't know, domestic violence in the US is at epidemic levels, and the overwhelming majority of men who abuse women have nothing whatsoever to do with Islam. Yet with this claim, Andrew simply assumes that any bad act done by a Muslim - even a bad act committed mostly by non-Muslims - must be caused by Islam, even though he has no evidence to prove this. This irrational, evidence-free assumption of causation that Andrew so perfectly illustrates here (any bad act committed by a Muslim is, ipso facto, motivated by religious or political Islam) is precisely what I was describing and denouncing. And it only rears its ugly head when the perpetrator is Muslim.[/SIZE]
UPDATE II
[SIZE=14px]The New York Times today reports that "United States officials said they were increasingly certain that the two suspects had acted on their own, but were looking for any hints that someone had trained or inspired them." It also reports that "The FBI is broadening its global investigation in search of a motive." There's no reason for the FBI to search for a motive. They should just go talk to Andrew Sullivan. He already found it.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14px]In sum, neither the President nor the FBI - by their own admission - know the motive here nor have evidence showing it, but Andrew Sullivan, along with hordes of others yelling "terrorism" and "jihad", insist that they do. That's the special species of rank irrationality that uniquely shapes public US discourse when the issue is Muslims.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14px]http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/22/boston-marathon-terrorism-aurora-sandy-hook[/SIZE]
RE: Why is Boston 'terrorism' but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine? - Mr.Tea - Apr 24 2013
Wow, let's defend terrorists now. Detonate a bomb in a public place during a large event....Act of terror. The mass shootings......act of terror. Committing an act of terror makes you a.....terrorist. These two happen to Muslim. Before any suspects were identified it was called an act of terror..
When a government has a person a watch list is pretty unusual and would tend to let you believe they were doing nefarious stuff.
RE: Why is Boston 'terrorism' but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine? - ceddeeoo - Apr 24 2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/23/boston-bombing-suspects-motive-afghanistan-iraq_n_3140547.html
Quote:[SIZE=15px]The two [/SIZE][SIZE=15px]suspects in the Boston bombing [/SIZE][SIZE=15px]that killed three and [/SIZE][SIZE=15px]injured more than 260 [/SIZE][SIZE=15px]were motivated by the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, officials told the Washington Post.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=15px]Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, "the 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, has told interrogators that the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated him and his brother to carry out the attack," the Post writes, citing "U.S. officials familiar with the interviews."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=15px]The report comes one day after U.S. officials told the Associated Press that it was the religious beliefs of Tsarnaev and his older brother Tamerlan that fueled their alleged plot.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=15px]But if the officials who spoke to the Post are correct, the Boston bombing suspects would be the latest accused terrorists who have listed American interventions as their motive.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=15px]The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald has repeatedly argued that U.S. violence in other countries is what actually fuels terrorist attacks.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=15px]Greenwald frequently cites a Pentagon report finding that, "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies," including "American direct intervention in the Muslim world."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=15px]Greenwald also notes that this is one of the reasons mentioned by Osama Bin Laden as a justification for his support of violence against America.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=15px]Last year, convicted underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab argued that his attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009 was intended to avenge, "the attacks of the United States on Muslims."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=15px]The Boston Bombing took place just days after a deadly attack in Afghanistan killed 17 civilians, including 12 children,[/SIZE][SIZE=15px]according to the New York Times.[/SIZE][SIZE=15px]The Afghan government blames the C.I.A. for the attack, while the agency itself refused to comment.[/SIZE]
RE: Why is Boston 'terrorism' but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine? - Spartacus - Apr 24 2013
I agree that in all cases it should be said that all of them were an act of terror. However, most of the time in the shooting cases, mainstream media portrayed the gunmen as a deranged lunatic (sometimes suffering from depression or other social illnesses) instead of someone who did it out of "ideological goals"/"terrorism". Anyone who targets the innocent are all deranged lunatics if you asked me. It is semantics but the outcome/effects from those events differ and matter greatly.
Quote:Chechen Relative of Boston Suspects Alleges Russian Plothttp://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/04/23/world/europe/23reuters-usa-explosions-boston-relative.html?_r=0
By REUTERS
GROZNY, Russia (Reuters) - A member of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers' extended family said they were victims of a Russian plot to portray them as Chechen terrorists operating on U.S. soil.
Said Tsarnaev, who lives in Grozny, the capital of Russia's volatile Chechnya region, on Tuesday accused Moscow of sending false information to the United States to frame the suspects, ethnic Chechen brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
He said Moscow wanted to convince the West that an Islamist insurgency being waged across Russia's North Caucasus had gone global, resulting in an attack on an American target.
"It would not have happened without the involvement of the Russian side," Tsarnaev, 56, told Reuters in his home in Grozny.
"Russia needed to show the West, including the United States, that Chechens are terrorists ... They needed to blacken their reputation and present these two people and the Chechen people as a whole as terrorists. This is why it all happened."
Anyway, I don't know what to believe in the news anymore. Innocent people were killed, just not sure whether justice would prevail. Need more uplifting news.
RE: Why is Boston 'terrorism' but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine? - cucubelu - Apr 24 2013
Spartacus, post: 90732, member: 1060 Wrote:I agree that in all cases it should be said that all of them were an act of terror. However, most of the time in the shooting cases, mainstream media portrayed the gunmen as a deranged lunatic (sometimes suffering from depression or other social illnesses) instead of someone who did it out of "ideological goals"/"terrorist". Anyone who targets the innocent are all deranged lunatics if you asked me. It is semantics but the outcome/effects from those events differ and matter greatly.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/04/23/world/europe/23reuters-usa-explosions-boston-relative.html?_r=0
Anyway, I don't know what to believe in the news anymore. Innocent people were killed, just not sure whether justice would prevail. Need more uplifting news.
Lets just say if Russia decided to invade Chechnya, I am sure the US public will be ok looking away! xD
RE: Why is Boston 'terrorism' but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine? - George Of The Jungle - Apr 25 2013
There isn't really a clear definition of terrorism, but it's usually considered terrorism when the motives are 'political', religious, etc. Which is probably the case here.
Spartacus, post: 90732, member: 1060 Wrote:Anyone who targets the innocent are all deranged lunatics if you asked me.
Maybe, but bear in mind that governments have targeted 'the innocent' aka civilians many times in the past. 9/11 doesn't differ all that much from Hiroshima/Nagasaki.
RE: Why is Boston 'terrorism' but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine? - Moriarty - Apr 25 2013
cucubelu, post: 90733, member: 15378 Wrote:Lets just say if Russia decided to invade Chechnya, I am sure the US public will be ok looking away! xDSorry bro but your post doesn't make sense for me. Chechnya is Russia, it is Russian problematic region. It doesn't need to be invaded. If anything US can say or do nothing about it. Its like if Texas wanted to separate from US and Russia would have nothing to do with that. Russia is not Syria or Iraq.
RE: Why is Boston 'terrorism' but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine? - cucubelu - Apr 25 2013
Moriarty, post: 90831, member: 9168 Wrote:Sorry bro but your post doesn't make sense for me. Chechnya is Russia, it is Russian problematic region. It doesn't need to be invaded. If anything US can say or do nothing about it. Its like if Texas wanted to separate from US and Russia would have nothing to do with that. Russia is not Syria or Iraq.It has been trying since 1990 to declare its independence from Russia. Unsuccessfully thus far but still. The situation is different that Texas doesn't want to withdraw from the USA. If Russia were to send troops to keep them in line nobody would help them xD
Prime example would be the Bosnia, Albania and Serbia and what happened with the fall of Yugoslavia, and how the US supported that that war. Anyways, it was just a meaningless way to say that US wouldn't think twice of helping if it came down to it! /pokes at the whole situation of the bombing.
RE: Why is Boston 'terrorism' but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine? - Mr.Tea - Apr 25 2013
1. Texans have tried to leave the US (a minority, but still)
2. US didn't do much about Yugoslavian break-up until European countries failed to do anything to prevent the mass genocide. We had the whole desert storm brewing and wanted to see if Europe could handle their own affairs.
RE: Why is Boston 'terrorism' but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine? - Moriarty - Apr 25 2013
Right now it was actually quiet in Chechnya. Their local government and most people understand that they are nobody without Russia. So called Freedom Fighters. Or just regular terrorists. They are the ones trying to bring chaos and there is so little of them left hiding in the mountains.