A jihadist around every corner

October 6th, 2005 at 16:53 Björn Hallberg

The US sorry excuse for a free press and its driveling masters in the military-media-industrial complex has certainly outdone themselves this time. Agonist asks if the OU Student could have been a suicide bomber. Close to buckling under the pressure, they do raise finger of warning though, noting that the Jihad version is propagating mainly along the loyal echelons of conservative blogs and pundits.

Somehow they seem like the wrong questions. Does it matter, even if he did have plans to take other people with him. Is the “bombing” part significant beyond its copycat qualities? Does it help establish and cement some sort of link to “jihadists?” Can Americans even handle two or more parallel lines of thinking or is “Islamic terrorism” the root cause of everything these days? Would McVeigh, Harris and Klebold have been included in that same generalization had they committed their violent acts in the current climate? One cannot forget how especially Harris and Klebold’s acts were blamed on computer games in particular. I guess blame is all in the eye of the beholder. Or rather a fashion statement. Looking at a description of Joel Hinrichs in the Oklahoma Daily opens up a far more likely venue for explaining Hinrichs’ death. In that context, that is reality, the “jihadist” claim makes about as much sense as blaming Heffalumps. And for crying out loud, that man must have had a lot of other things on his computer as well. Just wait until the right wing media machine finds his stash of porn.

So what can be said of the people peddling these acidic lies? Well they fit nicely into two types of archetypical thinking. One is racism and the other is the effort to clamp down on civil liberties.

On the topic of racism, anyone who has read up on the discourse and history of racism recognizes the element here. The dangerous, dark and seductive foreigner, nonconformist culture or religion that leads people astray. Seduces them and makes them morally corrupt. Eats away at the “national culture” (as if it ever existed). Just eyeballing “jihad material” will put place you in danger. Therefore it would be best to expel those people and ban “jihad material,” essentially taking whatever measures necessary to contain the perceived threat and the cultural contamination. Obviously, the consequences can’t be foreseen in great detail but the discourse and ideology is eerily familiar. Just like the fear of a Muslim caliphate is reminiscent of the fears of the great Jewish world conspiracy in the turn of the last century.

As far as civil liberties go, there is really no need to elaborate. Obviously, being able to convince at least some that the fuzzy terrorist threat is not contained even to muslims is greatly beneficial to anyone who wishes to curb civil society. Possibly, the fear of Islam hasn’t generated enough domestic momentum to carry through the desired changes. For example regarding the posse comitatus.

Also reporting on this: Sabbah’s Blog, Michelle Malkin (who builds a circumstantial case based on a beard and general xenophobia).

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