Let’s call all terrorists “terrorists”

But would people be as willing to call the Paris attack “terrorism” if the suspects involved were white or members of a right-wing hate group? I don’t think so. In one really telling quote form earlier today, former deputy director of the CIA Michael Morrell called the storming of the Charlie Hebdo headquarters “the worst terrorist attack in Europe since the attacks in London in July of 2005.” Mike Morrell apparently can’t remember the actual worst terrorist attack in Europe between the 2005 London bombings and today’s Paris shootings. I’m talking, of course, about the 2011 Norway attacks, where a white right-wing extremist and racist named Anders Breivik killed 77 people during a rampage through Oslo and a nearby summer camp. If Breivik’s name were “Omar” and he said that he acted in the name of Islam as opposed to “Europe” and Christianity, I doubt people like Michael Morell would forget who he is or what he did. But like other white perpetrators of mass political violence, from the guy who shot up a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin a few years ago to the guy who attacked a Kansas JCC this past April, Breivik gets a free pass from the media. He’s a “mass shooter” or “mass murderer,” not a “terrorist.” These are other examples, too. Are the guys who aimed loaded guns at federal officers at the Bundy ranch called “terrorists”? They are. Or the people who bombed the NAACP building yesterday in Colorado? Absolutely.

Thom Hartmann in Let’s Call All Terrorists “Terrorists” (Truthout)