Why isn’t the government calling the LAX shooting “terrorism?”

Ali Abunimah 3 November 2013

LAX shooting suspect Paul Ciancia

AP/FBI

“Paul Ciancia, the alleged gunman who paralyzed much of Los Angeles International Airport [LAX] in a Friday shooting spree, could have turned the nation’s third-busiest airport into a massive killing zone had it not been for the quick response by airport police,” officials told USA Today on Saturday.

Using an assault rifle, Ciancia allegedly shot and killed Gerardo I. Hernandez, 39, a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer, and injured two more TSA officers and two civilians before he was stopped.

Ciancia was shot and injured by police and taken into custody. He has been charged, among other offenses, with killing a federal officer.

Based on available information, Ciancia’s alleged actions amount to a textbook case of “terrorism” according to the US government’s own definitions. But for some reason neither media nor officials are describing it that way.

It is instructive to look at how the US defines “terrorism” and compare the reaction to the LAX shooting to the aftermath of last April’s Boston Marathon bombing.

US definition of “terrorism”

As I’ve noted previously, the US government has no single definition of “terrorism” but the National Institute of Justice at the US Department of Justice points to two influential standards that are in use, one enshrined in law and the other provided by the FBI:

Title 22 of the US 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.

These definitions, it should also be noted, are carefully crafted to avoid including state violence as “terrorism” even when in every other respect, except the identity of its perpetrator, it fits the descriptions.

Ciancia’s alleged motive

Based on information released by officials, Ciancia’s intent was not in doubt. USA Today reports:

Investigators recovered a rambling note from the bag the shooter allegedly was carrying, which detailed an intent to “kill” TSA officers, said two federal law enforcement officials familiar with the message’s contents.

[FBI Special Agent David] Bowdich said the handwritten note made it clear that the suspect intended to kill “multiple” TSA employees and to “instill fear into their traitorous minds.”

The officials, who are not authorized to comment publicly, told USA TODAY that the note was written in a way that suggested the author expected to lose his life.

One of the officials described the incident as a suicide mission.

The Associated Press described the materials that were allegedly in Ciancia’s possession as “Patriot movement propaganda.”

There is no doubt Ciancia’s alleged actions clearly meet the government definition of “terrorism”: there is evidence of premeditation, a clear anti-government motivation and an intent to “instill fear.”

If any example of violence deserves to be treated as “terrorism” then it is hard to think of a more clear-cut example.

Is it “terrorism” yet?

And yet, neither major media nor public officials have, as far as I can determine, applied the terms “terrorism” or “terrorist” to what happened at LAX.

While the incident received major news coverage, there has been no national panic on the scale that followed the 15 April Boston Marathon bombing.

Recall that after that attack, media and officials all rushed to declare the incident a “terrorist” attack.

President Barack Obama, after initially hesitating, described the Boston bombing as an “act of terrorism” the very next day even before the identities of the suspects were known.

With the “terrorism” panic in full force, the city of Boston was placed under an unprecedented curfew – effectively martial law – with thousands of police scouring the streets and invading people’s homes as the search for the suspects went on.

After 19-year-old suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured by police, Obama made a statement declaring: “We will investigate any associations that these terrorists may have had. And we’ll continue to do whatever we have to do to keep our people safe.”

He followed up with a video address to the nation, declaring that “an act of terror wounded dozens and killed three people at the Boston Marathon.”

Members of Congress demanded publicly that the surviving Boston bombing suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, be treated as an “enemy combatant.”

In fact officials of Obama’s Justice Department deprived Tsarnaev of his basic civil rights by questioning him for an extended period after he was taken into custody without reading him his Miranda rights. This violation met with broad public and elite approval.

After all, weren’t we dealing with “terrorism?”

Contrast

Contrast this with Obama’s silence after the LAX shooting. There’s no statement about it on the White House website as of today.

Obama has kept a low profile, speaking to officials by telephone, but saying nothing publicly to reassure an alarmed nation of his resolve against “terrorism.”

What’s important to remember is that in the Boston case, unlike the LAX shooting, there was and is no clear evidence of a political motivation that would meet the government’s definitions of terrorism.

The only “evidence” was that Dzhokar and his older brother Tamerlan, killed during the manhunt, were of Chechen ancestry and Muslim background.

Despite massive efforts, the government has found no credible evidence that the Tsarnaevs were acting on behalf of any group.

(More than a month after the bombing an anonymous official source claimed – rather incredibly – that the heavily bleeding Dzhokar had scrawled a note on the side of the boat he was hiding in when he was captured, stating the attack had something to do with US occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan).

Meanwhile, police have uncovered evidence that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was involved in a triple homicide in 2011, suggesting a hardened criminal who did not kill from a political motivation.

Not if it’s a white guy…

By now it should be clear that there is a pattern: acts of spectacular violence, predominantly by white men, are rarely termed “terrorist” even when all the evidence points in that direction according to the government’s own standards.

The LAX shooting is not an isolated case. Recall that on 18 February 2010, Andrew Joseph Stack flew an aircraft into an Internal Revenue Service building in Austin, Texas, in an apparent suicide mission.

Stack killed himself and an IRS worker, Vernon Hunter. And just like Ciancia allegedly did, Stack also left a note explaining his anti-government motivations.

Yet even as information about Stack emerged, the Obama White House and various public officials refused to label his suicide mission a “terrorist” attack.

Similarly, Obama refused to term the August 2012 massacre of six persons at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin a “terrorist” attack.

The shooter, Wade Michael Page, was a US army veteran and white supremacist.

Blaming “mental illness”

Instead of the “terrorism” label, the media immediately begin to pursue a line of thought suggesting that the suspect (if white) is “mentally ill” or a “disturbed” loner.

This is already happening with Ciancia, whom The New York Times described today as “a troubled 23-year-old, with an assault rifle and an apparent grudge against the government.”

Ciancia, we are informed, attended a Catholic school, but there’s no speculation about what role religious education might have played in his alleged actions.

“Several family friends, neighbors and classmates described him as having been a reserved, quiet boy who, along with his younger brother, Taylor, seemed to be scarred by his mother’s long battle with multiple sclerosis and her death in 2009,” the Times reports.

It quotes a 21-year-old server in a local diner in the family’s New Jersey hometown claiming that the Ciancia brothers “had some depression issues, and they both got obsessive.” The Times does not explain what qualifications the server had to make such a clinical diagnosis.

Aside from stigmatizing mental illness, the absence of this knee-jerk reaction when Muslims are accused reflects a bizarre belief that only white people can be “disturbed” or “mentally ill.”

“Terrorist” as a racial term

Despite the government having fairly clear definitions of what constitutes an act of “terrorism,” the terms “terrorist” or “terrorism” are used not to describe actions but to label people.

It is clear these are racialized terms, applied in a discriminatory way to people perceived as Muslim, Arab or nonwhite. And as such they are terms that stigmatize entire groups of people and to justify the government’s increasingly unaccountable power.

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Comments

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naem replied on

Well, since Glen Greenwald, Edward Snowden and David Miranda are now accused of terrorism too, you probably will have to extend your definition a little bit. After, they are not "arabic muslims" either.

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JT replied on

Yep, all those people you mentioned carried out such horrible acts of violence.

Go read a dictionary & come back when you're ready to label people more accurately.

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Woody replied on

The administration doesn't need any War on Terror political capital. It does need anti-gun political capital. That's what this will become. Just as it will also become an excuse to crack down on "anti-government" people.

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Deïr Yassin replied on

I forgot his name but clearly remember the incident.
In France this was hilarious. On the eight o'clock national news, journalist David Pujadas spoke about a 'terrorist attack' but later on, the same night when informations came out about the guy (being 'White'), the 'terrorist' part suddenly disappeared . Just like domestic violence often turns into 'honor killing' when Muslims are involved.

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Jason replied on

I appreciate this article pointing out the inconsistent and racially driven use of the word "terrorist" however I think any use of the word, or variations of, by the government should stop being used considering the government itself is the greatest purveyor of terror around the globe. In this context the term has no meaning and simply functions as propaganda.

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brenda replied on

Similarly, the media has frequently identified Ciancia as having a Catholic background simply to add to a puzzling profile--many times in a "gee, go figure" tone. I've yet to see him labeled a "Catholic suspect" or a "Christian shooter" or "the 23-year old Catholic." Yet how many times do we read/hear such labels when the alleged perpetrator is Muslim? Why the disparity?

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Nobody replied on

"so far everything points to an act of domestic terrorism carried out by an ideologically driven member of the modern Patriot movement" wrote Forbes yesterday, so this angle is not being completely ignored by the media.

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Peter replied on

While carefully avoiding the hotbutton "terrorist" label or mentioning religios or racial background...

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'DaTruth replied on

When the perpetrators are Muslim they are terrorists.
When the perpetrators are Black or Latinos they are thugs.
When the perpetrators are Asian then it's because of their culture.
When the perpetrators are White then it's because they are having problems or mentally ill.

An example of institutionalized racism in America.

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justin replied on

Can anyone post me a link of any major media event in the last decade that the majority of media headlines read THUG in the same fashion we use terrorist.
As well a American Asian being touted as having something in their culture attributed to a criminal event. Unless of course you mean the Muslims being predominantly Asian as they are referd to in the UK.

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Johnny replied on

An assault rifle has many identifiable characteristics, but most of all it is fully automatic. Has anyone confirmed that he was in possession of a fully automatic AR-15? Those are very illegal in California... Lets not propagate fear, and false information. From what I have read he was armed with a semi-automatic AR-15, which would be considered a sporting rifle, not an assault rifle. There is a difference!

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gerry replied on

You can lump in every murder that occurs as "terrorism" if it makes you somehow feel better. It will still be impossible to ignore there is one particular cause and common idealogy that VASTLY dwarfs any other single motivating factor.

But yeah, you're right, it's all probably just racism. Just pop your head back in the sand.

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SamRnyc replied on

You're absolutely right. That ideology is U.S. and E.U nationalism and imperialism: bombing, invading, occupying and exploiting all over the world. Of course, this ideology is fused with christianity as well - as the major slave trades and most of the genocides have for the last few hundred years - chattel slavery, colonialism in Africa, Asia and South America, and the genocide of the Native Americans here.

The recent violence and murder caused by the U.S. - with its mostly white and christian power structure, dwarfs ANYTHING by Islamic radicals or even the nations in the Middle East.

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dave replied on

It's about the method. Guns are normal in America, bombs are not. Is the government trying Nidal Hassan on terrorism charges? No. Most people wouldn't classify him as a terrorist either, which is insane. If he bombed that office instead, it'd be a different story.

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Paul E. Merrell, J.D. replied on

The parent article and its linked source state that the weapon used was an "assault rifle." The LA Times says it was a Smith & Wesson M&P 15. http://tinyurl.com/lon7fll (.) That is a *semi-automatic* sporting rifle, not an assault rifle. http://tinyurl.com/4xkcq76

An assault rifle must be capable of "selective fire (selective between semi-automatic, automatic and/or burst fire)." They must have certain other features to meet the "assault rifle" definition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Gun control advocates succeeded in passing a national ban on the sale of "assault weapons" — not assault rifles — in 1994, which expired due to its sunset provision in 2004. An "assault weapon" in that law was defined as a *semi-automatic* rifle (one round fired per trigger pull) that included two or more defined features such as a flash suppressor, a folding or telescoping stock, or a pistol grip on the weapon's action. The thrust of that law was to ban sale of weapons that had only a cosmetic resemblance to an assault rifle.

In the lobbying to pass that law, some of vocal advocates capitalized on the public's recognition of the "assault rifle" term from news coverage of the use of M-16 and AK-47 assault *rifles* in the Viet Nam War, firing in burst or fully automatic mode. They ignorantly or willfully painted the legislation as banning "assault *rifles."* But legal sale of firearms capable of fully automatic or burst firing to civilians in the U.S. had been nearly impossible since 1934.

Sale of other semi-automatic rifles was not subject to the 1994 law and it did not affect the total number of semi-automatic rifles sold. But ever since that lobbying effort, the term "assault rifle" has frequently been used when the weapon had only a cosmetic resemblance to an assault rifle. Some use the term in ignorance; others deliberately misuse it to sensationalize news or to slant public debate with a lie that a far more powerful military weapon was used.

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Me La replied on

This article is fundamentally flawed. Title 22 of the US Code, Section 2656f(d) is the country report on terrorism the Sec of State is required to provide to the House every year. Yes it defines terrorism but it has nothing to do with the how a suspect is charged for terrorist acts. That is 18 USC 2331. The government would have to prove the requirements outlined there in a court of law, which are different from this article. I would argue that it would be harder to prove without a doubt terrorism than death of a federal employee. Both could result in the death penalty so in the end, you choose the one with the highest probablity of success. It's not a religious decision.

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Elliot McPherson replied on

Lord knows they would have never labeled Christopher Dorner a terrorist because he was a white guy!

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Lara replied on

While interesting points are raised, I'm not going to pull the race card on this case. I think there were a number of factors at play in this case (both mental health and personal grievances appear to be factors that motivated Ciancia). However, the reference to "NWO" in the letter he penned does suggest some form of political motivation. The "New World Order" theory is considered to be a conspiracy theory; does this mean that political motive needs to be informed by a more 'coherent' political ideology in order for it to be counted as terrorism? I have also written a blog entry on the problem of whether such incidents should be branded as criminal mass murder or terrorist acts: http://red24opinion.wordpress....

Ali Abunimah

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.