According to a headline in The Hill newspaper, which takes a position typical of U.S. corporate media, "New Year's attacks fuel fears of extremism in military."
In other words, an institution openly dedicated to mass killing and destruction may have fallen victim to infiltration by "extremists". As if there could be something more extreme than a military.
The reason for this approach is that two U.S. military veterans attempted mass murders that made the news on the same day -- and their status as veterans (or in one case active duty) made the news. The fact that those guilty of mass shootings in the United States are, and have long been, very disproportionately veterans is, and has long been, strictly avoided by U.S. corporate media, including in reporting and commenting on these new incidents.
If people who drink and drive had very disproportionately been trained in binge drinking, we might reasonably suspect more than a mere correlation. But correlations are big news when it comes to mass shooters, as long as they don't touch on anyone having been trained to kill.
The dirty little secret, although it's right out in the open, is that mass killing is not called "extreme" if it's done abroad for the U.S. military (in fact it is a "service" to "thank" people for); it becomes "extreme" purely because of where and to whom it is done or by association with an enemy of U.S. war propaganda (even if more often than not an ally of the U.S. military). Supporters of ISIS are "extreme" when killing in New Orleans, but heroes of democracy when taking over Syria.
Here's how The Hill educates its readers:
"The primary suspects in two deadly attacks on New Year's Day shared a history of service in the U.S. military, underscoring persistent fears over extremism within the armed services that officials have struggled to uproot. The suspect behind a truck rampage in New Orleans that killed 14 people, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was an Army veteran, while the man allegedly behind the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside of the international Trump hotel in Las Vegas, Matthew Livelsberger, was an active-duty service member in the Army. While not the first acts of military extremism, the two deadly attacks amplify questions about the number of radical and unstable veterans and active-duty troops and whether the Pentagon's efforts to identify and root out extremist beliefs is working."
Imagine training people to kill en masse, for a governmental department likely soon to be run by a nominee who has publicly shouted "Kill all Muslims!" while simultaneously striving to "root out extremist beliefs". Imagine generating articles depicting these efforts without bothering to explain what an extremist belief is. The Hill continues:
"Heidi Beirich, a co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism who has studied military extremist activity for decades, said the unresolved problem was particularly dangerous because veterans and active-duty service members can kill more efficiently. 'The military has not adequately addressed the problem, whether it's white supremacists or Islamic extremists,' she said. 'These cases are a reminder of how important it is that people with potential to become extreme aren't trained in military tactics.'"
This is a half-breakthrough, I'd say. This is an explicit recognition of the generally taboo fact that members of militaries have been trained to kill. This is almost certainly a huge part of why those who manage to commit mass killings are veterans, and why mass killings by veterans kill more people. But we're still treating murder-training and "extremism" as completely unrelated to each other.
"Jabbar, the New Orleans attacker, drove a Ford pickup truck through the crowded Bourbon Street before he was shot and killed by police. In addition to the 14 people he killed, he injured dozens more. Jabbar, 42, was a U.S. citizen from Texas who served in the Army from 2007 to 2020, including a year or deployment in Afghanistan, and retired as a staff sergeant. It's unclear if he served in combat, but he was trained as an information technology specialist. Police said they found an ISIS flag in his truck and social media posts online sympathizing with the U.S.-designated terrorist group."
I can find public statements from the U.S. Secretary of State sympathizing with a U.S.-designated terrorist group. I condemn those statements. But I find them far less offensive than others from the same official sympathizing with Israeli genocide and opposing peace in Ukraine. Similarly, I'm disgusted by any such statements by Mr. Jabbar, but not nearly as much as I am by the killing he did in New Orleans and the killing around the world that he supported in the U.S. military.
"Christopher Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division, said in a Thursday press conference that Jabbar posted at least five videos propagating the ideology of ISIS, which the suspect claimed to have joined last year. Raia, who said there is no apparent connection between the New Orleans and Las Vegas attacks, explained the FBI was working to understand how Jabbar became radicalized. 'A lot of questions we are still asking ourselves,' he said. 'That's the stuff that in the coming days, as far as that path to radicalization, that we're really going to be digging into and make it a priority.'"
So, now we know that extremism is a synonym for radicalization. But we still haven't been told what either means, just as we are never told what terrorism means. We just know that these words are all used and not used based on by whom and to whom and where something is done, and not based on what that thing is.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
