Taheriazar's Terrorism

Michelle wonders if we can finally call Mohammad Taheriazar's actions terrorism. She's [not alone.] Jason Smith wonders the same thing.

They're not alone. Quite a few people are scratching their heads wondering why law enforcement and the UNC Chapel Hill administration are not willing to openly declare that this was an act of terrorism.

Are they afraid of making that determination? If so, why? If not, why can't law enforcement and prosecutors make that determination considering that this has all the hallmarks of a hate crime and the tactics are one designed to cause terror among the population.

The growing amount of evidence being collected points in that direction. Taheriazar's statements support that contention, and furhter support the contention that he intended to cause grievous bodily harm to Americans because of violence directed at Muslims.

Great logic there considering that all of the latest violence in Iraq was perpetrated by Islamic terrorists seeking to cultivate a civil war (and have failed miserably despite a high body count).

Taheriazar's actions were premeditated. And in an op-ed at the Daily Tar Heel, Ginny Franks calls Tahariazar a terrorist:

"Hit-and-run" names a crime in which people are unintentionally hit and discarded like dogs beside a highway. Drivers in hit-and-runs gain villainy for their cowardice.

But Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar - an Islamist who rented an SUV with the stated intent to kill students on campus to avenge Muslims worldwide - is not a "hit-and-run" criminal, as WRAL reported and others parroted.

He is a terrorist.

President George Bush quickly labeled terrorists as cowards following Sept. 11, 2001. We, a nation of bravado, were struggling to find words to describe what we experienced. So we chose coward.

Coward is the lowliest epithet we can fathom - in a society where we often fling nonsensical four-letter words to wound each other, the most degrading thing we can call someone is not an obscenity. It is cowardice that is offensive to us - being weak-willed, dishonorable and submissive to fear when we face evil.

Terrorists are wrong, and they are evil. But they are not cowards.

Our modern enemies have strength that cowards, by definition, do not possess.

Some have taken Islam and followed a succession of philosophers and false prophets to reach a conclusion that gives them strength and conviction that Western beliefs are dangerous.

"This was not a political or an economic or a racial struggle; had it been any of these, its settlement would have been easy, the solution of its difficulties would have been simple," wrote Sayyid Qutb, one of the philosophers who is the founder of al-Qaida principles. Qutb is right in arguing that this is instead a much more difficult struggle - a struggle of beliefs.

It's nice to see folks reading Qutb, since his teachings have formed the basis for the modern militant Islamist movement, and fostered the likes of Osama and Sheik Rahman.

UPDATE:
The Anchoress muses about the Taheriazar incident and wonders whether institutions of higher learning actually teach thinking. Good question when you've got lots of apologists who are saying that this was an isolated event.

In that context, Pearl Harbor was an isolated event. So was Midway. Guam. Dutch Harbor. Okinawa. The Marshalls. And all those little battles in the European Theater. Anzio. Sicily. France. Ardennes. Normandy. Stalingrad.

Just because someone doesn't act under the direct order of the Jihadi High Command doesn't mean that an individual didn't commit an act of terrorism or wasn't furthering common aims and goals via terrorism.

UPDATE:
Michelle updates, including Newsbusters taking the NYT to task for Dowdifying Taheriazar's intent based upon religious ideology.

The man charged with nine counts of attempted murder for driving a Jeep through a crowd at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill last Friday told the police that he deliberately rented a four-wheel-drive vehicle so he could ‘run over things and keep going,’ according to court papers released yesterday by investigators. Details in the search warrant for the Carrboro, N.C., apartment of the defendant, Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, suggest that he had planned his actions for months and was disappointed the attack had not done more damage. None of the nine people who were struck by the Jeep Grand Cherokee as they were standing in a campus commons area known as the Pit were seriously injured.

“According to statements taken by the police, Mr. Taheri-azar, 22, an Iranian-born graduate of the university, felt that the United States government had been ‘killing his people across the sea’ and that his actions reflected ‘an eye for an eye.’”

The stock AP (such as this ABC News version) reports specifically state that he was avenging the deaths of Muslims. The Times own writers come up with a version that conveys fewer facts and muddies the waters on intent. This, from the Paper of Record.

UPDATE:
Kokonut Pundit has satellite images of the Pit and the area involved, which may help explain why more people weren't injured or killed. He also provides Taheriazar with the stuck on stupid award.

Mark My Words also has some thoughts on the matter.

Technorati: unc chapel hill, taheriazar, taheri-azar, cartoon jihad.

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