Dylann Roof and Floyd Lee Corkins
Are you familiar with the Family Research Council? It's the conservative anti-gay group that Josh Duggar worked for before he stepped down recently after admitting he had molested his sisters and a babysitter. The FRC was
designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center back in 2010.
Well, in 2012, a black man with a gun and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches walked into the offices of the Family Research Council and planned on shooting the employees and rubbing the sandwiches on their faces (here are the literal sandwiches). He didn't do it and was disarmed by the security officer in the building who held him there until the police showed up.
The federal government called that terrorism. The feds even prosecuted him as a terrorist, and he was the first person ever convicted under a 2002 anti-terrorism act and was sentenced to serve 25 years in prison:
He pleaded guilty to the charges in February.
U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen heralded the sentence as sending a strong message on terrorism.
“A security guard’s heroism is the only thing that prevented Floyd Corkins II from carrying out a mass shooting intended to kill as many people as possible,” Machen said in a statement.
OK? So, a black man walks into a building of conservative white folk with some chicken sandwiches and a gun, gets manhandled by security, and he's a full-fledged terrorist sentenced to 25 years in prison for terrorism.
But, a white man researches the most historic black church in South Carolina with a state senator as its pastor, speaks on his desire to start a civil war, goes into that church, kills a state senator and eight other African Americans, but it's not terrorism?
According to FBI Director James Comey, it isn't.
But look at the definitions of terrorism listed on the federal government websites and you see this below the fold:
The search for a universal, precise definition of terrorism has been challenging for researchers and practitioners alike. Different definitions exist across the federal, international and research communities.
Title 22 of the U.S. Code, Section 2656f(d) defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”
Both definitions of terrorism share a common theme: the use of force intended to influence or instigate a course of action that furthers a political or social goal. In most cases, NIJ researchers adopt the FBI definition, which stresses methods over motivations and is generally accepted by law enforcement communities.
Something is terribly wrong here. It doesn't add up.
Glenn Greenwald is right. "The refusal to call the Charleston shootings 'terrorism' again shows it's a meaningless propaganda term."
Furthermore, it appears that the reluctance to call a white man who terrorized not only the nine people he killed, but their church, their community, African Americans in general, and black churches across the nation, while calling an African American who almost did the same thing a terrorist is not preposterous—it is a racist application of the law.