Terrorism!

[Anonymous]

So, with news coming out that the suspect in the Norwegian bombing and shooting is a white Christian, are we still going to label it terrorism? Are we going to look into what aspects of white culture or Christianity led him to such heinous acts? Or does he reserve the privilege of being viewed as a "lone wolf" and not have his acts extrapolated to the larger group? Should Norway start profiling white, blond males?

[Anonymous]

ter·ror·ism? ?/?t?r??r?z?m/
[ter-uh-riz-uhm]

–noun
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

I am not sure who you mean by "we", but most news organizations I have been following (foreign and domestic) call it exactly that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ter·ror·ism? ?/?t?r??r?z?m/
[ter-uh-riz-uhm]

–noun
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

I am not sure who you mean by "we", but most news organizations I have been following (foreign and domestic) call it exactly that.

Please provide links. I would be encouraged to see that this is true, but most of what I read quickly ran away from the T-word upon finding out the suspect's identity.

[Anonymous]

Here is the problem. If a Muslim in this country does something unusual, all on his own, he will get portrayed as a "devout muslim", or maybe a "muslim extremist"

Now let's take a look at this article.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43859395/ns/world_news-europe/

Notice anything missing?

In this entire article, I don't think the word "Christian" appears once.


The basic problem of our reporting is that we attribute religion to the motive of a wack-job who commits a crime if he is muslim.

But if someone is a Christian, we might call him right-wing, extremist, anti-semitic. But we do not attribute his motive to Christianity.

Why? The answer is clear. We trust Christianity. We distrust Islam. Even if Christians march in white sheets, blow up houses, and lynch people, we do not call it a Christian problem. We figure that these are hateful people and Christianity is something they abuse in the process. If the same is true of a muslim, we say "oh, his religion caused his behavior". Not that he was crazy and religion just got wrapped up in his delusion.

[Anonymous]

http://www.dagbladet.no/2011/07/23/nyheter/terror/innenriks/17424269/

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/07/22/fishman.norway/index.html

I believe the President also called it terrorist attacks.

[Anonymous]

"Right-wing Christian fundamentalist" is pretty much in the first few paragraphs of all of these articles. I didn't bother looking for more, these were the first three I happened to click on...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/norways-capital-shaken-by-bomb-blast/2011/07/22/gIQABA6dTI_story.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/world/europe/24oslo.html?_r=1&hp

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/07/23/norway.suspect/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is the problem. If a Muslim in this country does something unusual, all on his own, he will get portrayed as a "devout muslim", or maybe a "muslim extremist"

Now let's take a look at this article.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43859395/ns/world_news-europe/

Notice anything missing?

In this entire article, I don't think the word "Christian" appears once.


The basic problem of our reporting is that we attribute religion to the motive of a wack-job who commits a crime if he is muslim.

But if someone is a Christian, we might call him right-wing, extremist, anti-semitic. But we do not attribute his motive to Christianity.

Why? The answer is clear. We trust Christianity. We distrust Islam. Even if Christians march in white sheets, blow up houses, and lynch people, we do not call it a Christian problem. We figure that these are hateful people and Christianity is something they abuse in the process. If the same is true of a muslim, we say "oh, his religion caused his behavior". Not that he was crazy and religion just got wrapped up in his delusion.

Spot on. Excellent analysis. We will also likely see questions regarding his sanity brought up (something never done with Muslims) and the "lone wolf" trope will likely continue.

[jsteele]

One of the most egregious articles on this topic was written by Jennifer Rubin on Washingtonpost.com:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/norway-bombing/2011/03/29/gIQAB4D3TI_blog.html

She immediately blamed al-Qaida:

"Moreover, there is a specific jihadist connection here: 'Just nine days ago, Norwegian authorities filed charges against Mullah Krekar, an infamous al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist who, with help from Osama bin Laden, founded Ansar al Islam – a branch of al Qaeda in northern Iraq – in late 2001.'"

Then, she went on to criticize both Democrats and Republicans for considering defense cuts, concluding:

"Obama would have us believe that al-Qaeda is almost caput and that we can wrap up things in Afghanistan. All of these are rationalizations for doing something very rash, namely curbing our ability to defend the United States and our allies in a very dangerous world."

It's ironic that she is cautioning about doing something "rash" while she is not only jumping to premature conclusions, but using those conclusions to justify her political position.

Rubin has posted four additional articles subsequent to this one. Yet, she has failed to address the misinformation spread in this post.

[Anonymous]

I consider the bombing of Hiroshima terrorism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, with news coming out that the suspect in the Norwegian bombing and shooting is a white Christian, are we still going to label it terrorism? Are we going to look into what aspects of white culture or Christianity led him to such heinous acts? Or does he reserve the privilege of being viewed as a "lone wolf" and not have his acts extrapolated to the larger group? Should Norway start profiling white, blond males?

Yeah, their turn for harassment, suspicion, scrutiny, profiling, interrogation, shadowing and hostile and poor treatment in public!

[Anonymous]

If the wingnuts get to blame all Muslims for the acts of a few extremists, then you must also blame all right-wing Christians for this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the wingnuts get to blame all Muslims for the acts of a few extremists, then you must also blame all right-wing Christians for this.

And even there you said "right wing" christians, which is completely different from "all Muslims".

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:If the wingnuts get to blame all Muslims for the acts of a few extremists, then you must also blame all right-wing Christians for this.

Just for fun, I read through some of the comments on Free Republic about this. Of course, some are still convinced it had to be a Muslim. But, among those who accepted it was a white Christian male, there was concern that either the UN or Obama would use this as an excuse to start targeting them and their guns. There were all kinds of warnings about new gun control laws and the fact that all white Christian males would come under government scrutiny. I'm not even sure that they were all that offended by this idea. They just accepted is as a fact of life. In reality, these guys will never experience the type of prejudice and suspicions that are a fact of daily life for many Muslims. Yet they view themselves as persecuted and have no concern for what Muslims actually go through.

[Anonymous]

Herman Cain apparently thinks all Muslims tainted because, unlike other religions, Islam includes a system of laws. Therefore, the First Amendment, rather than ensuring Muslims the right to worship, ensures communities the right to ban mosques:

It's a good thing churches and synagogues don't try to teach the ten commandments, or dietary laws, or positions on abortion or marriage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I consider the bombing of Hiroshima terrorism.

Just think, the man who dropped the bomb wrote bomb wrote his mothers name on the aeroplane, that way whenever Hiroshima is mentioned, his mothers name is linked to it. The world must remember the American mother who raised her son to do that.
And without that American mother raising her son the way she did, maybe Hiroshima would not have happened.
Someone had to agree to drop the bomb, afterall