National Post (National Edition)
Terrorism tunnel-vision is a distraction.
LAS VEGAS AND EDMONTON ATTACKS REVEAL FUTILITY OF OBSESSING ABOUT ‘TERRORISM’
There isn’t anything good to be found in the two terrible events dominating the recent news: the horrific Las Vegas shootings and the awful — if not deadly — attacks in Edmonton. But there may be a lesson.
For roughly 15 years now, since two hijacked airliners piloted by al-Qaida operatives brought down the World Trade Towers while the world watched on TV, we’ve focused our attention and security efforts on terrorism.
The United States started with the USA PATRIOT Act, which then-president George W. Bush signed into law in October 2001. Its goal was to intercept and obstruct terrorism (the “IOT” in PATRIOT). The changes it introduced included authorizing indefinite detentions of immigrants and adding new penalties for committing terrorist acts and supporting terrorists. Canada followed suit just a couple months later with its enactment of the Anti-terrorism Act (Bill C-36) in December 2001, which created new categories of crimes and provided courts with the power to keep terrorists behind bars for life (among other major changes).
Both countries have been essentially tweaking these anti-terror laws ever since: in some instances, they’ve reined in powers granted in the heat of the frightening moments of the worst attacks, but mostly they’ve expanded government authority in the name of fighting terror.
Unfortunately, this focus on the motivation behind horrible acts — the “terror” part of terrorism — has been misguided, as recent events highlight. U.S. law defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” Maybe Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock will turn out to have had a political motive for the massacre he perpetrated, but from what we know so far, it seems more likely that he committed his crime for his own deranged reasons. In any case, the profound devastation and fear he caused will not change when we learn what was going on in his head (assuming we ever do). The man murdered a large group of strangers; that remains awful and traumatic regardless of why he did it, and calls out for efforts to prevent similar recurrences. Meanwhile in Edmonton, a Somali refugee is accused of driving a car into, and then stabbing, a police officer, before going on to purposely hit four pedestrians with a truck. Not all the information is in on him either, but we’ve been told he had an ISIL flag in his vehicle and had been investigated in the past for voicing extremist views.
In other words, the Edmonton attacks look likely to fit under Canada’s definition of terrorism, which covers violence committed for a political, religious, or ideological purpose or with the intention of intimidating the public. When police first talked to the press about the crimes, they suggested terrorism charges would be filed. That hasn’t happened yet, but the prime minister has already given the requisite radicalization quotes (“We cannot — we will not — let violent extremism take root in our communities”), and CNN reports that authorities are “investigating the incidents as acts of terrorism.”
In theory, then, the Edmonton attacks may very well carry extra penalties and grant police and courts extra authority, as compared to the Las Vegas attacks, because the Edmonton attacks were terrorism and the Las Vegas attacks weren’t. That doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Both incidents were devastating. But the Edmonton attacks can hardly be counted as qualitatively worse or more serious simply because of an apparent terrorist motive. In the grim weighing of effects, the Las Vegas shootings were clearly far deadlier than the haphazard Edmonton strikes. And the dreadful competence of the execution of the Vegas mass murders (especially compared to the comparative clumsiness of the Edmonton assaults) makes them more likely to create fear and terror, in the colloquial sense, than any very small-scale official terrorist act ever could.
It’s not like the Vegas victims’ loved ones will be any less bereaved if Stephen Paddock proves to, indeed, have acted in service of no grand “cause.”
So, why have both the U.S. and Canadian governments spent so much time, brain power and expense obsessing about terrorism as a unique phenomenon deserving of special legal treatment?
The purposeful taking of innocent life is murder. That doesn’t change based on the murderer’s agenda, and neither should the punishment nor the powers granted to prevent such tragedies. Vegas and Edmonton remind us that terrorism tunnel-vision just distracts from the compassion and wisdom needed to deal with all acts of violence.