by Ramin Mazaheri (@RaminMazaheri2) and crossposted with PressTV.
The entire world breathed a sigh of relief when it turned out that the alleged Nashville, Tennessee, bomber was not a Muslim – now nobody can get dragooned into supporting yet another war on a Muslim-majority country.
Isn’t it spectacular how after 9/11 the US impressed almost the entire West into never-ending military service? Western piracy in Afghanistan continues today; Iraq was reduced to shambles; France used the ruse to invade Mali, the Central African Republic and to create a roving “anti-terrorist” force across the entire Sahel; Libya is no longer really a nation; Syria stands despite all the money, guns, terrorists and concrete fortifications the West could muster. I am probably missing some others.
It was true that in the years after 9/11 Muslims silently held their breath when they heard about a terrorist attack, but after 20 years and so many bombs, drones and assassinations it’s abundantly clear that Muslims are not the aggressor nor the transgressor: The pointed finger alleging cultural failure was clearly a false accusation.
The question Muslims now often feel confident enough to ask non-Muslims in public is, “What did Islam ever have to do with terrorism, anyway?” The answer is the same as it was on 9/12/01: “Nothing”.
The Nashville bombing occurred on Christmas day – maybe this was an act of “Christian terrorism”?
The sad irony is that many Christians will flinch at such a term because they view “Christianity” and “terrorism” as being total opposites. Do such persons realise that Muslims view joining “Islam” to “terrorism” also creates an oxymoron? Muslims and Christians should permanently unite around this concept: the sadness of feeling totally misunderstood when the word “terrorism” is affixed to either religion. The only barrier to this is the Islamophobic nonsense which pours out of the West’s chattering classes.
Terrorism is always defined as violence which has a political motive. Was the Nashville bombing, allegedly caused by Anthony Warner, terrorism? We don’t know at this point, so it’s wrong to call it terrorism.
Some report that Warner was paranoid about the effects of the new 5G technology – that seems rather more social than political.
There are unproven accusations that Warner was bombing storage facilities used by the voting machine company Dominion, which is being sued for allegations of vote tampering – if proven to be true then it’s possible this was a political act. It’s looking like Joe Biden will prevail in the still-disputed US presidential election, but is Warner the advance scout of a battalion of right-wing, pro-Trump terrorists which the US media warned about so hysterically in 2020? Considering how insistently they promoted anti-Trumpism and the fear of right-wing violence, it’s surprising that US media hasn’t immediately called Warner a “post-Trumpian terrorist”?
Maybe they will get there, but what this unfortunate episode can teach us is that the West rushes to demonise Muslim citizens and the teachings of Islam whenever they think they have an opportunity to do so. If Warner had been a Muslim there would have been an unjournalistic rush to judgment by Western media that Nashville was undoubtedly an act of – ugh – “Islamic terrorism”.
It’s unfortunate that Islam is so easily slandered in the West, but the problem to discuss here is not religious misunderstanding but reactionary political thought: Islam is slandered so easily precisely in order to create false justifications for the West’s endless imperialist wars in the oil-rich, Israel-surrounding Muslim World.
In the Western world talking of “imperialism” is (incredibly, to me) denigrated as anachronistic, eccentric and unrealistic. It’s not even taken seriously – if I was writing about transgender bathrooms I would be taken infinitely more seriously, and that is no exaggeration. And yet, doesn’t using the lens of imperialism explain the very different US media treatment for Anthony Warner as opposed to “Omar” Warner?
After all, who can the US media suggest we invade as a result of Warner’s alleged act? Which culture can be insulted and ordered to change at the point of a spear? How can Americans feel a misguided sense of superiority – which helps deflect from their ever-increasing inequality, poverty and socioeconomic instability – when Warner’s culture is their own?
And thus Warner is getting treated far more sympathetically than any Muslim menace to society, even though Warner is no more human.
I do not begrudge sympathy for Warner: The unpredictable actions of severely mentally ill people often have devastating consequences on people, and this is an unfortunate part of life and must be discussed.
What I do point out is that, for example, in the majority of France’s terror attacks following Charlie Hebdo’s publication of pornographic pictures of Prophet Mohammad the attacker was also just another mentally-ill person, and not some political mastermind and zealot. I covered these attacks year after year and the perpetrators always fell into one of two categories: the largest was mental illness, while the smaller grouping was political (not religious) terrorists who – without fail – expressly said their attacks were retribution for France’s many imperialist attacks on Muslim countries.
The problem in the world today is not religious – as the West and Israel asserts – but political, as the developing world asserts.
But – as the four-year “daily cultural insanity” of the Trump era proves – the US is incapable of discussing political nuance intelligently and without resorting to hyperbolic slander or wild-eyed absurdities. This explains why if Anthony Warner had been a Muslim the violence would have undoubtedly been declared “terrorism”, immediately – I am referring to endemic American political hysteria of the “other”.
I am not here to complain – as a professional wordsmith often pedantically does – about the misuse of words and the confusion caused by refusing to abide by established definitions. Instead, I am suggesting that non-Muslims in the West should wake up to just how easily they are intellectually manipulated when it comes to any violence which employs something more brutal than a handgun: Had Warner been a Muslim Americans and Westerners would have shouted at to maintain their awful, destructive and immoral two-decade long war posture towards Muslims and Islam.
When there are acts of political terrorism, the West needs to examine the politics behind it and make sure their politics are just. When there are acts of violence, just because a Muslim was the perpetrator doesn’t make it political. However, in the identity politics-obsessed West, it seems one is always defined solely by his or her tribe and is never just another son or daughter of Adam.
“Anthony” or “Omar” shouldn’t make a difference to you but it certainly does, depending on where you live: manipulative Islamophobia may have sent your children off to die in hopeless wars, gutted your individual political rights and caused you to see anyone with a different political view as your lifelong enemy.
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Dispatches from the United States after the presidential election
Results are in: Americans lose, duopoly wins, Trumpism not merely a cult (1/2) – November 5, 2020
Results are in: Americans lose, duopoly wins, Trumpism not merely a cult (2/2) – November 6, 2020
4 years of anti-Trumpism shaping MSM vote coverage, but expect long fight – November 7, 2020
US partitioned by 2 presidents: worst-case election scenario realized – November 9, 2020
A 2nd term is his if he really wants it, but how deep is Trump’s ‘Trumpism’? – November 10, 2020
CNN’s Jake Tapper: The overseer keeping all journalists in line (1/2) – November 13, 2020
‘Bidenism’ domestically: no free press, no lawyer, one-party state? (2/2) – November 15, 2020
Where’s Donald? When 40% of voters cry ‘fraud’ you’ve got a big problem – November 17, 2020
The 4-year (neoliberal) radicalisation of US media & Bidenites’ ‘unradical radicalism’ – November 22, 2020
80% of US partisan losers think the last 2 elections were stolen – December 3, 2020
Trump declares civil war for voter integrity in breaking (or broken) USA – December 5, 2020
Mess with Texas via mail-in ballot? States secede from presidential vote – December 8, 2020
Biden won? 2016-2020 showed what the US does to even mild reformers – Dec 18, 2020
Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.
Meanwhile, China scores points every day with the ummah, wins praise from the World Muslim Council, sends aid to Muslim countries, and is about to sign a very big deal with Iran which, significantly, includes a defense component.
The US can never score points like that. Why?
It is controlled and wagged by Apartheid Israel which wants the entire world to know (falsely, of course) that all Muslims are evil and terrorists.
That’s why for decades they’ve been portraying Muslims as such in Jewish-controlled Hollywood movies and in the media.
It’s been a well-coordinated demonization with the full backing of Jewish power.
http://biblicisminstitute.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/the-demonization-of-arabs-and-muslims/
What the bombing did do is add another layer of paranoia to the daily confused lives of todays Americans.
Now in the future campers will just look like another bomb.
Exactly -and stay clear of any camper that has the word ‘Democracy’ stencilled on it.
I haven’t seen one of those yet.
“Anthony” or “Omar” shouldn’t make a difference”
I fear the divide is more primal as it is between Israel and Moslems wherein even Christian US sides with Israel.
As we know the jewish lobby in the US is huge yet they must understand that as the US empire falls so does their influence. Will the Chinese consider Israel merely as a pebble in their sandal as they walk the world stage?
My most important question is ‘who is in control of the US military machine’ as it is not Trump or Biden or any other politician and what options do they have to survive in the manner they have previously enjoyed? The basis of every capatialist society is to ‘take the money and run’ and this is what most of the 1percent of the US still believe. For light relief I did a video on Cleopatra’s Banquet: This is a satire that contains nudity. It examines an old historical event without identifying the actors yet Israel is included. https://youtu.be/OCsX5RNRkgE
I just had this satirical video removed from Twitter. It seems someone has understood what ‘satire’ really means. I did push it to the limits so it is not so surprising yet my aim was to test the algorisms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3czFJxV3Z4
In fact the video has been up for at least two weeks and has had hundreds of views. I am not anti-jewish or anti-US yet I consider it valuable to satire extremeism wherever is happens and it appears that Twitter is an extremist organization.
Well there is a difference … the guy did not try to take out people but took as many precautions as possible to not cause collateral victims.
The 5G story is a convenient way to sideline him as a nut job.
He seemed to know how to take out a node from the system which is supposed to be redundant (that’s what contracts stipulate and pay for), but it obviously was not.
Whether this was aimed at the surveillance state, or the elections, or whatever … after the Nevada shooting it should be clear that we will never know. Anything they say is just narrative control. We will never even know for sure whether he was attempting a heroic statement or whether he was a patsy in an intel conspiracy.
I know pitifully little about Mr. Warner, beyond his having said something or other about concerns about 5G, which could have been nothing more than an off-hand remark the media picked up on. One thing that is clear to me is the powers-that-be intend to keep the lid on any sane discussion of concerns about 5G safety.
On the same Christmas day that Mr. Warner allegedly blew himself up, a friend of mine in Japan suffering from electrosensitivity (EHS), aged 44, simply keeled over and died. Another friend with severe EHS–acquired early in 2020 when a neighbor put up a new antenna on a roof facing her apartment–notified her advocacy group in September that she had had a near death experience, which as far as we know was from trying to tolerate a hospital environment where they had recently brought in Wi-Fi, and we never heard from her again. A major, long-time advocate for the EHS in Tokyo who may have been EHS himself simply keeled over after farm work in August, and a lady with EHS and multiple chemical sensitivities who was in touch with the advocacy group died in November.
Previous to now, these people suffered a lot, but I had not heard of any dying. Again, I know nothing about Mr. Warner, but wouldn’t this sort of thing motivate that sort of action? Are these people simply supposed to crawl off somewhere quiet to do their keeling over so that the Great Reset can go through smoothly?
What about the missile? Who sent it? If the bomb was in the camper why wasn’t there a crater? This story does not add up.
The bomb was just a cover for an EMT attack. The ATT data storage center had evidence of election fraud. Funny how the FBI was there in a very short time on Christmas day. How did they get there so fast on Christmas day?
The bombing took place in a downtown area with many many security cameras. Two security cameras were pointed directly at the RV and could have easy captured the driver from either side. Until the FBI releases the camera footage, assume the FBI did the bombing. The past supposed Muslims terrorist stuff is starting to smell funny too.
I have yet to see the words “suicide car bomber” or “terrorist” used to describe Anthony Warner. Likewise, I see few connecting him to far right politics. If he were Black, no doubt he would have been motivated by the hate rhetoric of the faux left. If his name was Omar, or Willie, or Pedro, the media coverage would have been very different. In the US, we have completely lost faith in our media and our government, so any theory that tries to explain events is as good as another. Truth? Who knows? The nation is ungovernable. The Empire is dying. The economic system is totally corrupt. The political system is impotent. Happy New Year!
the outcome of the ‘free election’, in the only real gulag in the world is far from over.Karma is a bitch ,this regime change by regime change masters,, might just burn their mighty asses.experience in evil endeavour does not always guarantee success for the dark ones.
countless lost souls, cause of the ,”fight to bring peace and security to the world ” by the empire, now the gulag in Vietnam,korea,phillipines,yugoslavia,ukrine,irag,libya,afghanistan,seria,gaza can R.I.P. ,finally.
the fall of the evil doers ,will be mighty and long lasting.,it aint over by a long shot dudes.
the fib solved a “bomb” attack in 48hours🤔
Sorry but i am not buying it.
The fib Only solve “terror” attacks that they have entrapped/provoked mentally ill/dumb people to do.
So true.
I bet a deep, unbiased view into Warner’s cell records, email, and physical whereabouts in the last 18 months would turn up interesting leads in a case like this. Did Warner have any new friends or confidants, especially ones unknown to his family and older friends? Did Warner communicate with others and believe he was cooperating with a group of co-conspirators? Were the gunshots in the camper that first summoned police Warner’s “withdrawal” from the conspiracy?
We’ll likely never know.
I don’t get this article at all. I don’t think Muslim crossed anyone’s mind. I guess I missed something.
And no-one has any idea what actually happened.
I recall how some US Republicans and/or alt-righters would complain about the way the MSM (CNN, NBC, PBS, etc.) would keep mum about certain details regarding a terrorist attack – particularly the religious beliefs of the attackers. Their argument is that the omission of said details is an attempt to not portray Islam in a bad light.
I am assuming the media Mr. Mazaheri talks about is the likes of Fox News. I could be wrong; maybe there was similar negative portrayal of Islam in CNN and NBC that I missed.
only thing you can be sure of in this story is the fbi are liars. eagle eyes have clearly shown the RV in the street and one on google images from his address have a different number of pin stripes on the doors. ie not the same vehicle.
Does this person have a manifesto wherein he explains that he is taking a stand against the technosphere which is enslaving the biosphere and eventually will lead to the demise of the biosphere? Is he one of the few who are taking a stand against this? Will there be college courses analyzing his manifesto? This is something that can only be accomplished with a nuclear war where all of the circuits are fried. It will be necessary for humankind to write messages in stone like ancient civilizations to avoid going down this path again.
There is CCTV image looking down the street. The conflagration was on the opposite side of the street to the camper van.