Duke Thompson (22:13)
All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying. Which brings us to my take. So one thing I've learned after doing this job for a little while is that criticizing people from the sidelines and with hindsight is exceedingly easy. I mean, it is incredibly, very, very, very easy. So was FBI Special Agent Alethea Duncan wrong to declare definitively that this attack was not a terrorist event in the immediate aftermath? Yes, she was. This had the hallmarks of terrorism. It was clearly intentional. It was done in public. It was designed to maximize damage, and it involved political images, that is in this case, the ISIS flag. And there was no obvious marker to justify ruling terrorism out so quickly, which of course is why the FBI changed their tune just hours later. But Duncan was also addressing a panicked public in a city hosting a major sporting event that day, the College Football Playoff game, and trying to assuage concerns about ongoing threats. Her transparent effort to calm the nerves of the public was at least understandable, if a bit misguided. Still, what people in her position need most from the public is trust, and this statement did not help her credibility. Similarly, a lot of media organizations got ribbed for not calling this what it was, or rather not calling it what it appeared to be in the immediate hours after the attack. Yet claiming an attack is terrorism prematurely may actually be more dangerous than prematurely denying it. Places like Fox News, CNN, or the New York Times have rules for reporting on events like this. Even with trustworthy on the ground accounts saying that the suspect had an ISIS flag on his truck, media outlets still can't definitively state that the attack was terrorism. First they have to confirm those details themselves. Then they have to suss out a motive. Then they have to confirm the suspect's identity, track down that suspect's family, and then their Internet history and friends and past bosses and records. And then they have to try to confirm all of that information with law enforcement, who may not yet have answers themselves, and make sure releasing it won't interfere in an ongoing investigation. It is simply impossible to do all of that in a matter of hours, and when you try to move too fast, you make mistakes. In this case, Fox News initially reported that the suspect came into the US From Mexico two days before the attack. However, Fox had to retract that claim after it learned that the vehicle Jabbar rented had come in from Mexico, a reminder that things aren't always what they seem. And Jabbar was a US citizen and army veteran who grew up in Texas. But it was too late. President elect Donald Trump, members of Congress, and thousands of social media users had already run with the claim that the suspect was a migrant of some sort who had come across the poorest southern border to commit terrorism. As natural as it feels to draw conclusions that confirm our assumptions, motives often aren't understood in the immediate aftermaths of attacks, even and sometimes especially, when the attackers leave what appear to be obvious signs. For instance, we still don't know why the shooter who nearly killed Trump in Pennsylvania in July pulled the trigger. And we may never figure it out. Of course, all of this is made more difficult by the fact that we don't have a great working definition for terrorism. Oxford defines it as the use of violent action in order to achieve political aims or force a government to act. The FBI defines domestic and foreign terrorism differently. It defines domestic terrorism as violent criminal acts committed by individuals and or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial or environmental nature. And it defines international terrorism as violent criminal acts committed by individuals and or groups who are inspired by or associated with designated foreign terrorist organizations or nations. State sponsored. Pretty much every definition includes violence against civilians for some broader ideological purpose. In America and the west, we mostly apply these definitions to Islamic extremists. Plenty of people have tried to apply the terrorist label to states like Israel for killing civilians in the pursuit of political aims, or individuals like Luigi Mangione, currently being charged with terrorism in New York. Both cases use terrorism as an exemplifier that I don't think adds clarity or understanding. Personally, I'm more interested in seeing plainly what took place and then identifying patterns so we can prevent events like this from happening in the future. So here are a few patterns that I'm seeing. First, the ISIS threat is still real globally, and it's alarming to see someone potentially radicalized by the group committing an attack here in the us. The New York Times has a list of all the ISIS organized or inspired attacks over the past five years, and it's longer than you might think for a group that has purportedly been wiped out. Second, it's long past time for a real conversation about how to prevent current or former US military members from being radicalized. Both Jabar and the suspect in the Las Vegas car explosion, which happened on the same day, were U.S. military veterans. This is part of a disturbing pattern of mass killings or radical political acts committed by ex service members. In 2023, a U.S. army reservist committed a mass shooting in Maine that killed 18 people in 2020. An active duty airman killed two police officers in 2009, and perhaps the most well known event of this kind, an army major and psychiatrist killed 13 people and injured more than 30 others in an attack at Fort Hood. Meanwhile, many current or former military members are being radicalized and recruited into armed militia groups or foreign extremist organizations like it appears Jabbar was. Even the most basic efforts to study the association between military service and extremism have been stymied by allegations of starved funding and misleading reports. And third, the erroneous Fox News report notwithstanding, it is also fair to ask questions about our own border security when discussing the general threat of terrorism. The federal terror watch list casts a notoriously and sometimes dangerously wide net, but hundreds of people on it cross into the US through the northern or southern border in the last fiscal year. The Department of Homeland Security has warned that in 2025 they expect dangerous groups and organizations to exploit high rates of migration and try to enter the US. None of these are new threats, and frankly, we are still pretty safe in the post 911 war. Foreign terrorist attacks in the US have been pretty rare, but for better or for worse, we've sacrificed a great deal of personal liberty in exchange for safety or the appearance of it. Yet it seems obvious to me that our biggest national security threat is not foreign invaders, but domestic radicalization. Sometimes that radicalization is inspired by foreign actors. Sometimes it is inspired by domestic politics driven by racism or anti government sentiment, or exasperated by mental health issues or easy access to guns. But the uncomfortable truth is that most, not all, of these killings involve American citizens who have been compelled to commit violence. This has been true since 9 11, it was true in 2016, and it has been true for the last nine years. For the sake of reducing and eliminating these frightening public events, which take a massive toll on the psyche of Americans and invite more encroachment on our personal freedoms, we need to at least talk honestly about who and what we are dealing with. Yes, groups like ISIS are still a threat. Yes, there have been a few examples in the last 10 years of attacks by foreigners. But the biggest threat is an ideological war, one that invites US citizens and often veterans like Jabbar to a cause and to find purpose through violence. These are the scenarios we see again and again, and the ones we most need to find a way to address. All right, that is it for my take today. I'm going to send it back to John for the rest of the podcast and I'll see you guys tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace, Foreign we'll be right back after this quick break.
