TruthNews Commentary, October 20, 2002

I was in Israel during the second week that a sniper was busily killing people at random in the Washington suburbs. It was interesting to tune into CNN and to see the newsreaders talking, not about violence in Israel, but about the sniper attacks in Washington. Even the BBC picked up the story, reporting that the sniper had killed a woman at a "petrol" station.

Now that I'm back in Washington, and the sniper is still at large, it's amazing to see the paralysis that this lone killer has brought to the nation's capitol. Schools are shuttering their windows and keeping the kids inside during recess (one of the sniper's victims was a kid on his way to school). Sporting events are being canceled. People are afraid to stop at the gas station or go to the store. And news, or non-news, about the sniper is aired on TV several times a day. Last weekend resulted in a major headline just because the sniper didn't strike.

Meanwhile, the only progress the keystone cops are making is to arrest a witness for allegedly fabricating a description of the sniper. The killer drives either a white minivan, or a small white truck van -- pictures of both have appeared in the press. So all we really know is to watch out for white vehicles. The police in Maryland reportedly found a tarot card at the site of one of the attacks with the words "I am God" scrawled across it (why would God need a tarot card, anyway?). Which means that the killer is either crazy or wants us to think he's crazy. Of course there's a third possibility -- some other loon, which Washington has no shortage of (although the number has temporarily decreased by 535 since Congress declared a recess) dropped the tarot card at the scene. Maybe it's the same witness the cops arrested for claiming the sniper was "olive-skinned." If the police spent less time giving traffic tickets and more time fighting crime, they'd be better prepared for this sort of situation. But then, fighting crime does little to fill the county's coffers.

With Washington averaging more than a murder a day, it would seem that the nine murders committed in a little over 2 weeks by the crazed capitol killer would barely make the local news. But this killer, crazy though he may be, had the cunning to strike in the suburbs (maybe he didn't want to fight the traffic inside the beltway). The liberal news media virtually ignores the murders committed in the inner city, but when white people start getting killed, the news is flashed around the world.

What makes these murders particularly stressful is that no one knows where the killer will strike next. When some deranged killer goes into a MacDonald's or post office, kills a dozen people, and then blows out his own brains, people are shocked, of course, but not in fear of their own lives. The killer, after all, is already burning in hell. The Washington sniper is more like Chinese water torture. He kills one person, disappears, and then a few days later kills another.

Maybe all of this will make us more empathetic towards victims of terrorism in other countries like Israel and less willing to tolerate terrorism of any form. When a Palestinian sniper takes a gun and kills a couple of Israeli civilians on their way to the store, nobody cares. The news media calls the sniper a "militant" and is perfectly willing to see Yasser Arafat give the killer refuge. I wonder -- if the Washington sniper turns out to be an Al Qaida terrorist, will the Washington Post call him a "militant"? If he escapes to Ramallah, will we call on our military to show "restraint" to make sure that we don't harm a hair on the head of Yasser Arafat? Will we just sit back and let the sniper keep killing innocent civilians in hopes of negotiating a "peaceful solution" with Al Qaida? Will we say that these Americans deserve to be killed because America is committing aggression toward Iraq?

For those who say that the situation is different between Washington and Jerusalem, my response is that terrorism is terrorism whether committed against Americans, Israelis, Hindus, or Muslims. The end does not justify the means, and in fact the end is sullied if the means employed is terrorism. Just as the Irish sullied their goal of Irish re-unification by their despicable resort to terrorism, so the Palestinians have sullied their goal of independence with their suicide bombings and sniper attacks.

Even if the Washington sniper turns out to be an "ordinary" crazed killer and not a terrorist, he's sure to have some crackpot justification for his despicable attacks, assuming he survives to tell. Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber both justified their murders by claiming a lofty cause (states' rights and the environment, respectively). But the sixth commandment does not say, "Thou shalt not kill unless thy cause justifies it." Rather it says simply, "Thou shalt not kill." No exceptions. No situational ethics.

Just as we did not accept McVeigh's or the Unabomber's claims of a righteous cause as being justification for their despicable acts, so we will not accept the Washington sniper's claims of "the end justifies the means." And similarly, we should not accept the Palestinians' justification for their resort to terrorism.