Terror is a concept.
The Campus at Texas University-Austin erupted Aug. 1, 1966, as bullets suddenly started flying out of nowhere. Some people were shot and fell to the ground, some kept running. Others were frozen in panic not knowing where to go.
Above the campus atop the 28-story clock tower stood 25-year-old decorated U.S. Marine Charles Whitman. He was shooting randomly with enough rifles, shotguns, handguns and ammunition to last for more than an hour and a half, until the police finally got to him. Thirty-three people were killed, and hundreds were injured physically and mentally. The event at the Texas University campus was terrorizing, yet not labeled an act of terror, but rather as a rampage shooting.
Two bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon on April 15. A horrific scene resulted, where three people died and more than 100 were injured. That is labeled terrorism. But I am certain the victims at both incidents were equally terrified. The day after the marathon bombing, mourners honored the Virginia Tech shooting six-year anniversary. Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed thirty-two victims. Those victims were surly terrorized as well, yet the event is referred to as a massacre, not as a terrorist act.
Sen. Clair McCaskill, D-MO, accurately stated in a recent Homeland Security meeting that: “Based on the evidence at this point is there any difference between [the recent] Sandy Hook [shootings] and the Boston [bombing], other than the choice of weapon?”
Moreover, 18 years ago last Friday, a huge explosion hit the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. It destroyed a third of the building killing 168 people, including 19 children. Hundreds were injured and 300 buildings surrounding the site were damaged. Aside from 9/11, the Oklahoma City bombing is the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil in American history. And former U.S. soldiers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols perpetrated the crime.
Hate crimes against American Muslims have increased by four times as many as were reported in 2000, according to The Leadership Conference on Civil and Humans Rights. And this is because we attribute mass murders not to individuals but to the groups they share attributes with. Plutocratic politicians and ideological individuals who exploit foreign lands and get very rich inventing wars and investing in weapons have manufactured the concept of terror. They must invent enemies, too, which is where we’re at currently.
The most significant risk from the war machine is that it contributes to our ignoring the real dangerous people, who are people like the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. He terrorized America from 1978-1995. He sent package bombs randomly over the years, killing three and wounding others. Kaczynski told authorities he had spent much of his time at the U. It was Oct. 8, 1981, when he attempted to explode the business building at the U. Luckily, the bomb was detected in a classroom in time. He remained elusive until his next attack.
George Hennard in Luby’s Café in Killeen, Texas, on Oct. 16, 1991, began randomly shooting the patrons. In the 15 minutes until police arrived, he killed 23 people and injured dozens.
The Mormon bomber Mark Hofmann terrorized Salt Lake County from October 1985 until February 1986. He killed two people with package bombs. Where are the terrorist labels for these individuals?
Recent killers like Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, Jared Loughner, James Egan Holmes and Adam Lanza have not been called terrorists, but clearly they are. Whether we call them bombers, shooters or terrorists, they are all the same — they kill people. If even a fraction of the time and money were spent on investigating and preventing the real terrorists in this country, rather than on investigations into invented faceless Middle Easterners, we would have and will save a lot more American lives.