ISIS is Bombing (2016Sep19)
Monday, September 19, 2016 7:26 PM
ISIS is Bombing (2016Sep19)
29 people were injured by a bomb in NYC — another was found two streets away, before it could go off. The Marine Corps marathon in NJ had a late start, so no one was hurt when a bomb there exploded. Another IED exploded while bomb-squad robots tried to defuse it. Unexploded devices allowed investigators to identify and hunt down a suspect — and, as of now, it appears that he was acting on his own.
All in all (and with sincere sympathies for the 29 wounded in New York — and the NJ police wounded during his apprehension) this was an excellent terror attack — a complete and utter failure to engender unease, much less terror. Our police and other agencies acted professionally, quickly, and successfully. It’s really little more than a campaign talking point, 72 hours after the event.
Americans do not terrorize quite so easily — certainly not anymore. And with top ISIS leaders being taken out day after day in the field, a laughable flop of a domestic terrorist attempt is only made more ridiculous by the knife-wielding Jihadist in Minnesota (again, with sincere sympathies for the wounded in that mall) — if they’re going to take us out hand-to-hand, they’ve picked the right country — come and get me, nutjobs.
Still, we must remember that school-shootings, mass-shootings, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the Anthrax mail-hoaxes of the past — all were carried out by the mentally disturbed — and even if we wipe terrorism from the face of the earth, violence will always lurk in the dark spaces of the mind. And we should remember that, outside of the buzz of current politics, these radicalized people are also mentally disturbed.
The will to violence is not so common as the media might suggest — if it were, we’d have people popping off every ten yards. The rare individuals that perpetrate bombings or shootings — even in the name of an organization — are still being culled from the ragged edges of our society. Most of us are too busy trying to get along — too busy living — to trouble with violence.
And that is why it is so important to uphold our ideals and our inclusion — every time someone is excluded or marginalized, they are pushed in a dangerous direction. When these people act out, there is a failure, too, in those around them — those who didn’t enclose that person in the security and comfort of community. Those who overlook the under-served, the troubled and the stigmatized only put off trouble, and allow it to grow into a greater problem.
