A Hollywood casting crew is coming to the Twin Cities looking for Somali actors and extras for a movie about the kidnapping of an American by Somali pirates that ended with U.S. military snipers killing the Somali kidnappers. Tom Hanks is going to play the kidnapped American.
Now, why doesn’t Tom Hanks make a movie where he portrays the “U.S. soldier convicted of killing Afghan civilians for sport” (Pioneer Press, 11/11)? If all is fair in using snipers to put bullets through the heads of individuals who are unjustly holding someone at gunpoint, then U.S. forces who illegally took Iraqis into custody should have been fair game.
But no, no one can do that to Americans no matter what crimes Americans commit. Somalis, however, are open season.
A November 22 USA Today article listed seven recent “Terror suspects who go it alone.” On this list were individuals like Farooque Ahmed, who did not kill anyone but was said to be planning on it. But not on this list was a terrorist who did “go it alone” and did kill six people and put a bullet through Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ head.
The fact that Jared Lee Loughner did not make this list of recent “lone wolf” terrorists arrested on U.S. soil (and only Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood had killed more than Loughner) shows that the “war on terror” is only focusing on people of color who are Muslims. No matter how awful the crimes that White terrorists commit, the “war on terror” is reserved for people of color only.
And lastly, a Massachusetts man has been accused in a plot to strike the Pentagon…with drones, yes, the Pentagon’s own recent weapon of choice. The accused “was presented with multiple opportunities to back out of his plan,” opportunities given to him by undercover FBI agents, including being told that his “attack would likely kill women and children.”
Does that tell us that he’s really evil, since he did not back out of his plan when told he would likely kill women and children? How is it possible that FBI agents could use this type of approach when their employer, the U.S. government, never backs out of their plans to attack Afghani, Iraqi, Yemeni, Somali and Pakistani targets with drones, even after they have killed women and children many times with drone strikes?
I guess only American women and children matter.
Frank Erickson lives in Minneapolis.
