Terrorism By Any Name

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/terrorism_by_any_name_20100221/

Posted on Feb 21, 2010

By Marcia Alesan Dawkins

“Nothing changes unless there’s a body count,” according to A. Joseph Stack III. On Thursday, Stack, 53, posted a suicide note on the Internet, burned down his house in Austin, Texas, and then flew a Piper Cherokee PA-28 into an IRS office, killing both himself and IRS employee Vernon Hunter and wounding 13 others. More and more is being revealed about Stack’s life story, including his rage and hatred for the IRS, the federal government and the Catholic Church. In the six-page manifesto that he posted he rails against many entities, including the American justice and educational systems, claiming they create a false sense of security and financial entitlement.

Perhaps nothing is as direct as his closing: “Well Mr. Big Brother IRS man … take my pound of flesh and sleep well.” Speculation abounds. ‘‘I don’t know what to base his madness on. It must have been lurking beneath the surface,’’ Michael Cerza said in a New York Times interview. Cerza played drums, piano and trumpet with Stack in the Billy Eli Band.

But what’s as interesting as Stack’s motives are our motives in labeling this act. Was Stack’s gesture an attention-grabbing suicide plot, a deliberate criminal act, an act of heroism or an act of terrorism? It seems that the answer varies according to whom we ask. Stack’s friends and neighbors are stunned because he never discussed his anti-government feelings with them. They’re calling it suicide.

Some of his Facebook fans are calling it heroism. “Finally an American man took a stand against our tyrannical government that no longer follows the Constitution,” wrote Emily Walters of Louisville, Ky. Meanwhile, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said: “… we don’t suspect that . I am going to wait, though, for all the situation to play out through investigation before we determine what to label it.”

For his part, Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, expressed a different perspective. Awad noted that “whenever an individual or group attacks civilians in order to make a political statement, that is an act of terror. Terrorism is terrorism, regardless of the faith, race or ethnicity of the perpetrator or the victims.”

Awad’s description is in line with federal policy. According to Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Pub. L. No. 107-52), a person engages in domestic terrorism if he or she does something that is “dangerous to human life that a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; to be intended: (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping. … occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.” If they do not, they may be regarded as international terrorism. In other words, if an act is intended to strike with fear those against whom it is adopted and/or uses methods of intimidation (like flying a plane into a building housing a federal office) then it’s safe to call it terrorism. So, why the hesitation?