Mohammed, Drive Your SUV to the Courtroom in Baghdad
By Randall Nunn (03/12/06)
Last week, a University of North Carolina graduate named Mohammed Taheri-azar drove an SUV onto the campus of the University of North Carolina and tried to run down people gathered there, injuring nine. Taheri-azar, who studied psychology and philosophy at UNC, said he intentionally hit people to “avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world.” If that was his purpose, he should have gone to Iraq, gotten into an SUV and crashed into the Baghdad courtroom where Saddam Hussein is being tried, and run him down. He would have avenged far more deaths of Muslims than anything he could avenge by striking down Americans. The number of Muslims killed by Saddam Hussein and his henchmen far exceeds the number killed by United States forces in military action. Taheri-azar’s conduct, and his stated reasons for his crime, illustrates just how unhinged the radical Muslims really are. They care far more about attacking non-Muslims because of their faith than they do about life, justice or liberty for other Muslims.
If one counts up the number of Muslims killed and murdered around the world, it becomes readily apparent that the most dangerous enemy of Muslims everywhere is the hatred and fanaticism of radical Muslims. That hatred and fanaticism justifies whatever murderous actions they carry out, no matter the number of Muslims killed as a result of the “collateral damage” of their bombs. In fact, if the mainstream media gave this attack in North Carolina the coverage that it deserves, more Americans would better be able to see and understand the nature of the enemy we are dealing with in the war on terrorism.
What is surprising to many is that the mainstream media has not given much coverage to the UNC attack and, when it does, one of the main issues raised is whether the attack should be identified as “terrorism.” It is not good enough that Taheri-azar said that he was “punish[ing] the government of the United States for their actions around the world” and that he was “thankful for the opportunity to spread the will of Allah.” People more learned than us must examine unexpressed motivations, legal definitions and subtle distinctions to determine whether this may have been simply the act of a “loner” who had no “ties” to any terrorist group. Since Taheri-azar studied psychology and philosophy at UNC, maybe we should give more credit to his stated motivations. And maybe the seething hatred that drove Taheri-azar and which was, no doubt, implanted in him and nurtured over the years by statements of any number of radicals and extremists, was the strongest “tie” of all to the terrorist groups. Willing and blind acceptance of indoctrination by terrorists is as strong a tie as there is. Perhaps if Taheri-azar had a picture ID showing him to be member of al-Qaeda or Hamas, the mainstream media would be persuaded. But I doubt it.
Radicals like Taheri-azar tell us in no uncertain terms what motivates them and tell us plainly that this war is driven by their radical religious beliefs. The mainstream media does not want this war on terrorism to be defined in clear terms because to do so would impress upon Americans the true nature of the threat and the extreme danger our country is in. That, in turn, would cause more Americans to be more supportive of the Bush administration’s efforts in this war. One cannot listen to the mainstream media for long without coming away with the feeling that, in their eyes, the Bush administration is the greatest threat to this country—at least, to their view of what this country should be.
Copyright 2006 Randall H. Nunn
(Printer friendly version) Email: Randall Nunn
