I watched a great ireport wherein the question is posed why it is that the guy who killed a security guard at the Holocaust Museum and the the guy who shot the abortion doctor recently weren’t on a terrorist watch list since they had both committed similar acts in the past. It seems like we’ll send in the marines if the terrorists are muslim, but when they’re old white guys we don’t care?

It seems like “terrorist acts” happen all the time in the US and yet we’re able to deal with them as crimes and not terrorism. The shooting of an abortion doctor in order to terrorize people who provide abortions or patronize those doctors (abortion, though repugnant to some is at least currently a legal practice), and the attempt to commit a mass murder of innocents at a holocaust museum in order to terrorize jews were both clear acts of terrorism. Replace the old angry white guy perpetrator with a muslim and we’d be dragging him off to Guantanamo for some “enhanced techniques” so we could sniff his compatriots out of their holes. Both perpetrators are alive and in custody at this time as far as I can determine, so can we start torturing them for more information now?

James von Brunn remained in critical condition in a Washington hospital after being shot by other security guards at the museum Wednesday…David Gletty, who infiltrated white supremacist groups for the FBI, said younger members of the movement considered von Brunn “a POW” for his prison time (served for attempting to kidnap the Fed Reserve in the 1980s). – CNN, 6/11

Scott Roeder has been charged with murder in the shooting death of Dr. Tiller. In an interview with the Associated Press, Roeder warned of more violence against abortion providers. “I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal, ” Roeder said. -ABC, 6/8

We’re somehow able to deal with these guys as criminals while we use the label terrorists in different contexts. Americans just accept this double standard without much question.