Hate Crimes and Terrorism

Matt Rosenberg at Sound Politics talks about yesterday's shooting in a post called Yes, It was Terrorism:

It's insufficient to simply condemn the murder of one and the wounding of five at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle by Pakistani gunman Naveed Afzal Haq, who said he was a Muslim-American angry at Israel. Robert Jamieson is reminded of Tel Aviv detonations, but can't broach the "T" word regarding this specific incident. It was terrorism - let's get our heads around that. Today's Seattle Times update leads with a possible "mental illness" explanation for the suspect's alleged actions, but then notes the shooting came a day after "Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon and al-Qaida's second in command urged that the war raging in the Middle East be carried to the U.S."

You know what this reminds me of? It reminds me of when folks on the left used to try to emphasize hate crimes as a special breed of crime that needed to be dealt with more forcefully if we were ever going to combat racism. Rosenberg is doing the exact same thing here. Yesterday's shooting doesn't look terribly different at this point than what happened in 1999 in Los Angeles, when a man named Buford Furrow shot 5 people at a Jewish Community Center.

Furrow is apparently an adherent of Christian Identity, a sect that preaches the globe must be swept clean of satanic forces—Jews, homosexuals, blacks and other minorities—in order for Christ to return to Earth.

Haq, who is clearly an individual with mental problems, is no more a representative of Muslims than Furrow was of Christians. And my opinion of Muslims will not change because of Naveed Haq, just as my opinion of Christians didn't change because of Buford Furrow. Haq and Furrow may have arrived at their hatred of Jews via different avenues, but there are no degrees of severity in killing the innocent. It's the most severe crime you can commit, and those who commit those crimes should never be allowed to walk free again.

The post ends with this:

A recent Washington Post op-ed which ran in the Seattle Times discussed the growing advocacy of "individual terrorism" by jihadist opinion leaders. That is precisely what Haq, based on his own words and his reported actions, perpetrated in Seattle yesterday. Whether he drew inspiration from online jihadist preachers is of interest, but not necessarily crucial to the definition of individual terrorism.

How Haq is prosecuted - what punishment is sought, what excuses are made and accepted for his violence, and the outcome after all appeals are exhausted - will speak loudly to our society's true tolerance for terrorists in our own midst.

I can only guess at what he's getting at here, but I would imagine that most poeple want Haq to be prosecuted the same way that Buford Furrow was. If Matt Rosenberg doesn't think that's sufficient, I'd be curious to know why he thinks that a person in this country should be treated differently in the criminal justice system solely because of their political beliefs or their religion.

UPDATE: A few re-wordings...