A Tale of Two Stories - UPDATED Posted by Michael Cohen

So over the weekend, nine religious fanatics were arrested in Michigan for plotting to kill law enforcement officers. Their hope was that such violence would spark an uprising against the US government. The alleged perpetrators were even going to imitate the tactics utilized by Iraqi insurgents and use IEDs to attack the funeral procession for the officers killed in the initial attack.

However, for some reason the New York Times refers to these white, Christian fanatics as "extremists" as opposed to the name they used to describe the two Muslim suicide bombers who killed more than three dozen people in Moscow today - terrorists. Indeed the Times story on this horrible story, which appears right next to the militia story, used some variation of the words terror or terrorist 11 times.

Aside from the fact that these folks in Michigan are "alleged" extremists and were luckily unsuccessful in their murderous deeds how do they differ in any significant way from a terrorist? 

Let's even step back a second and compare the coverage of this investigation to that of Najibullah Zazi, the Afghan, Muslim who plead guilty to wanting to bomb the New York City subway system. A google search of "Najibullah Zazi terrorist" turns up 735,000 results. Crikey, his wikipedia entry uses some variation of terrorist 61 times. So the news media is pretty clear that Mr. Zazi is a terrorist.

Now I suppose one could argue that because these militia members intended to attack law enforcement figures they aren't the same sort of terrorists that would attack innocent civilians, but when it comes to terrorism intent matters more than the actual target. Dictionary.com defines terrorism as "the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes."

So trying to kill law enforcement figures to spark an anti-government uprising is terrorism. I wonder if the fact that these folks are white and Christian has anything to do with the fact that we refrain from calling them terrorists. Because that's exactly what they are.

UPDATE: As is his wont, Steve Benen asks a good question: when will Dick Cheney accuse the Obama Administration of failing to protect America by not waterboarding the Michigan Nine and allowing them due process rights.

Comments

[m3 zero]

We have no proof that these are right-wing militiamen. Maybe they are Muslim terrorists masquerading as militiamen. They should be harshly interrogated and if they really are militiamen, they should be given every right that American citizens deserve under the constitution.

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[Roque Nuevo]

Another great example of "grand simplistic pronuncements:"

"when will Dick Cheney accuse the Obama Administration of failing to protect America by not waterboarding the Michigan Nine and allowing them due process rights?"

You haven't been paying attention. Cheney, et al, say waterboarding should be permissible under certain circumstances against enemy combatants, not against US citizens in the US. This obviously violates their rights. But the point they make is that foreign enemy combatants do not have the rights of US citizens. That's because they're not US citizens.

I hope I'm not being too repetitive but I see that your "grand simplistic pronouncements" do not admit much nuance.

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