Paracelsus

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Dylan Roof is a TERRORIST-discuss!

There , I said it. Dylan Roof, the alleged perpetrator of the Charleston, SC massacre of nine African Americans(mainly women) is a terrorist- as much as say, Timothy McVeigh, John Walker Lindh(the so-called "American Taliban"), the hijackers of 9/11, Boko Haram, ISIS , the Tsarnaev brothers and our own "homegrown" terrorists suchas the Red Army Faction( the so-called "Baader Meinhof Gang"), Actione Directe and our own Provisional IRA.

To my mind, much of the talk about terrorism is tinged with(at least in its American context) cant, hypocrisy and thinly veiled racial and religious doubles standards( case in point, Republican Congressman Peter King of New York who never fails to inveigh against violent jihadism whilst giving a free pass to Provo terrorism in Ireland,esp during the troubles- a cynic might suggest that as long terrorists had names like Seamus, Padraig, Kevin, Malachi and Mairead he was OK with them- as opposed to those with names like Suleiman, Osama. Faisal, Ahmed, Mohammed and Khalid- that is to say Irish Catholic ones as opposed to Islamic fundamentalists).

It may be argued that as Dylan Roof is not a Muslim(either a convert or by birth) and has no known ties to violent white supremacists such as the KKK, he is"not really a terrorist". My response to this charge is that as he used murder and other forms of violence for political reasons ie to create a race war, he is manifestly a terrorist. As long as terrorists are seen as swarthy foreigners with hard to pronounce names rather than looking like "the boy/girl next door" we will never recognize them for what they are!

That being said, I AM not urging that Mr Roof be shipped off to "Gitmo" as a so-called"enemy combatant" , far less that he be subjected to"waterboarding" and other forms of "enhanced interrogation techniques" (ie torture) or be tried by military commission as Republican conservatives were prone to demanding for violent jihadists(as opposed to Caucasian Christians such as Mr Roof)

And given that so-called conservatives have been suspiciously silent regarding Dylan Roof's motivations ahd his likely punishment indicates clearly to me the racial/religious double standards implicit in discussion of terrorism!

Anybody think as I do?

Terry

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