All of America, and proably most of the world is aware of the trajic mass murder that has occurred recently at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg Virginia.
This sad event was our nations largest mass murder.
Today NBC received a package from Cho himself, containing a video and written statement that has been called his "manifesto".
NBC immediately turned this evidence over to the FBI.
Our entire nation has been watching this tape this evening, and it is the opinion of Mikes Vacation that this is a graven mistake on the part of NBC and the FBI.
It is extremely poor judgement on the part of NBC and the FBI to allow even the mere existence of this material to become known to the American public.
Americans have a right to know what is going on in their country, however this evidence from the killer Cho will do nothing to help his victims achieve justice or their families find closure.
It is the opinion of Mikes Vacation that this material could serve to motivate other unhappy and mentally ill individuals to now videotape "manifestos" and commit copycat style crimes.
Mikes Vacation believes that the combination of this incident being the largest mass murder in United States history, and simultaneously having a nationally broadcast "manifesto" is a terribly dangerous cocktail.
This lethal combination of potentially glamorizing Cho's crimes to tens of thousands of mentally imbalanced and unhappy individuals in America by allowing them to watch what undoubtedly will be hundreds of hours of national television discussing this crime, has the POTENTIAL of inspiring them to commit similar crimes in hopes of being nationally known themselves.
It is very rare that Mikes Vacation would support the United States government and a large corporation in a purposful act of repressing information from the general public, however in this case to do anyting but just that, has simply put the American public at risk for a similar attack, without the potential for any redeeming benefit to them.
I am not a law enforcement official, or a forensic psycologist, but I find it intuitively obvious that this "manifesto" should have been reserved for the FBI mindhunter division, and even its very existence should have been classified.
Michael Miller
Indianapolis, 2007
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6 comments:
What is interesting for me is that when these Americans go off on killing sprees, and there has been what, 6 incidents in the last twelve months? Why is it that they never refer to it as terrorism? The action is the same, the results are the same. Why is it that when individuals rain bullets on innocent victims because of personal dissatisfaction that people do not see it in any way as a political act. Just because it is selfish rather than for a group doesn't change the fact that these are public acts of striking put against a world which can't be spoken to in a civilized fashion. I say call a spade a spade. This was terrorism and nothing else.
Adam, you are asking a very good question. I am not an expert, but here are some views for you.
The U.S. government is very sensitive about actually defining the word "terrorism".
Firstly, if the U.S. government were to actually define this word, then their definition would come under scrutiny, and secondly, their labeling of "terrorists" would have to agree with their primary definition of said "terrorism".
The U.S. government is in big trouble in the eyes of the world for several things, one of which is the mislabeling of "partisan" forces in Iraq and Afganistan as "terrorists".
The civilized world is very sympathetic to "partisans" and their actions to evict invaders from their respective lands.
The U.S. government is aware of this and must take every step to invalidate any "partisans" it encounters and devaluate them into "terrorist" status.
It is almost diagnostic in the eyes of the world that when a "partisan" exists, and there is a illegal invasion in progress.
This is not to say that all violent opponents to U.S. troops in Afganistan and Iraq are "partisan" and not "terrorist", but I do suggest that the line is certainly less clear than the Bush administration would want you to believe.
When I was in the United States Army and was about to depart for the original "DESERT STORM" war, I attended a lecture by our company's security specialist giving us advice on how not to become a victim of "terrorism".
This same security specialist gave a very insightful and worldly definition of what constituted "terrorism".
1) Terrorism is a violent act upon an unarmed civilian population for the purpose of intimidating them into behaving in a different manner than they would naturally desire to behave.
1A) This includes voting differently, believing in a different god, and in general changing their normal life patterns out of fear of another attack.
2) Soldiers at peace can be victims of terrorism if they are out of uniform and going about their personal affairs. For example soldiers drinking beer in a Berlin bar or disco can be victims of terrorism if they are not involved in a war with the party that attacks them.
3)Soldiers at peace wearing a uniform can be victims of "terrorism" if they are attacked by persons "out of uniform" AND "belonging to a paramilitary organization that has not yet declared their name and their adversarial status to a government". For example, if al quaida were to attack Belarusian soldiers in uniform, without first making a declaration of hostility with the Belarusian government, or vice versa, then these same hypothetical Belarusian soldiers would in theory be victims of "terrorism". However, if Belarusian soldiers were involved with attacking or threatening al quada, then the hostilities between the two groups are of no surprise to either of them at that point.
The key measurements for terrorism involve violence against an "unarmed civilian population" or against "soldiers at peace" for the purpose of "intimidating" them/their countrymen into altering their political ideas and ultimately voting differenly, or somehow applying someother method of political pressure upon their government.
If you agree in principle with these definitions of "terrorism" then the Cho killings don't meet the benchmark of being a "terrorist" attack.
If there was a political component to the Cho murders, if he was in some way trying to make the student body of Virginia Tech, or America for that matter somehow intimidated for a second attack so they would politicly behave differently then these killings could be considered "terrorism" as you suggest.
However, at this time, the Cho killings don't have a political component to them, at least not that I have heard.
You refer to 6 incidents in the last year, if one or all of these incidents were to meet the benchmarks of intimidating a population group to inspire them to vote, or politicaly behave differently than they wish, then yes, they could be considered " terrorism", otherwise, they are not.
I don't think your "eyes of the world" theory is right. Policy decisions are money and power decisions period. Public opinion doesn't mean anything and frankly, I don't even think Americans in general are even paying attention. But the issue of not using the word "terrorism" means avoidance of responsibility on the part of the Government. To say to people "We will fight terrorism" is supposed to mean that energy and recourses are being used to combat private armies. But at the same time, by refusing to see that there is no difference between a guy blowing himself up in Bagdad and an English major taking out 33 students at VTech, the US disallows itself from addressing and at least potentially fixing the sorts of social and economic issues that have led to what, five or six such episodes over the last year.
And by the way, wasn't what he did absolutly definition #1?
Adam, you are right that Americans aren't paying attention. Why should we? We live in a broken democracy enabled by a geopoliticly retarded populus cupled with government burocracy that is evolved to frusterate and dilute dissention. They people that "pay attention" are often ridiculed as un american, un patriotic, and have tremendous problems socialy and emotionaly surviving anywhere in America outside of places like San Francisco, Seattle, or maybe Los Angeles. If you live in Indiana, I dare you to try to have a cereberal conversation about the legality, and validity of the Iraq invasion. You will just be shunned and ostracized for the most part.
U.S. government decisions are about money and power, but they are not about the money and power of the people in general, they are about the money and power for a select few, the officials that enable this type of theft and misappropriation are on some level elected, however weirdly here in the U.S.
While small amounts of public criticism and admonishment don't phase the Bush's and their gang, they must be constantly aware of crossing the line too far, of allowing their thefts to be criticized beyond the "tipping point" where foreign and domestic public opinion might just bring some justice down on them.
You are right that death is death, and a suicide bomber in Bhagdad is as lethal as a nut in a Virginia classroom, however we are suppossed to have certain constitutional checks and balances in place here in America that prevents the Government from treating suspected U.S. citizens like they are getting away with treating about 15,000 suspected terrorists in the middle east.
You are missing an important point. The point you are missing is not that the U.S. government is incorrectly not labeling Cho's killings as terrorism, the point is that they are actually mislabeling multiple partisan actions in Iraq as terrorism.
Our domestic problem of nuts shooting the place up is far different that the problem of a criminal invasion of Iraq that has put our soldiers in the gun sights of partisans and terrorists.
These are two distincly different issues.
The first issue is of a criminal invasion of a nation at peace/Iraq.
The second issue is how to somehow prevent a free and armed and often transient U.S. population from enduring any more mass murders than prudently possible.
There are 300 million people here now, almost all of them have the right to state of the art personal weapons.
The question domesticly is how do we engeneer a society that breeds fewer homocidal, miserable nuts, and simultaneously stays well armed.
Ultimately you are correct if you think that there are politicians in Washington avoiding difficult and politicly painful issues that should be addressed.
But if you think that the issues of U.S. troops getting killed in Iraq are the same as college students being murdered in the classroom then I must disagree with you.
These are essentially two divergent issues.
The Cho killings do not meet the benchmark of the first definition, because Cho is not trying to make them or their families or friends, or the citizens of america or virginia behave, vote, or believe or act differently, yes his victims were unarmed civilians, but he wasn't a member of a terrorist cell/group, and his killings didn't have a political aim. His killings had a hateful, and dreadful aim, but not a political one.
Of course he was striking back against a system he deplored and wanted to make an impoact. Specifically he was against rich kids and women of less than spotless moral virtue. And without stretching too far, I am sure he saw the issue as systemic which was why he had no problem after he relized his life was over after taking down his ex-girlfirend for talking to another guy, taking another 31 people with him. I mean the guy was a psycho but what he did was terrorism.
In any case this incident is effectivly going to restrict more and more our indevidual freedoms in the name of security and this new "surveilence" is going to eventually be the norm for life. I also imagine there are going to be students who will end up with FBI files or worse because they wrote graphic material for their writing classes.
However, as a personal note, I suggest that you ought to look into the possibility of taking work in your field in another, more open minded city. Not that I believe you will find anything different, but your dark thoughts concerning your present home are made clear enough.
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