Everyone's Trying Really Hard Not to Call the Germanwings Co-Pilot a Terrorist

My take - When a white guy intentionally crashes an airplane, killing himself and hundreds of others, the question of "why" gets brought up. But no one is willing to call this sociopath a terrorist. Why only when Muslims (mostly non white) do such things are they terrorists ? People kill themselves everyday. But not everyone takes hundreds of innocents with them. Andreas Lubitz was a suicide bomber, a murderer, and a filthy terrorist.

http://m.mic.com/articles/113896/ev...-to-call-the-germanwings-co-pilot-a-terrorist

Disturbed? Yes. Mentally ill? Probably. A troubled outcast? Of course. But "terrorist"? That term is reserved for a special type of person, someone with brown skin, a foreign-sounding name, roots in the Middle East or North Africa and a progressively anti-Western Internet history — probably typed in Arabic.

Terrorists, we're told, are Muslim. And if anything happens to disrupt that notion, we have a really hard time explaining it.

Details are still emerging in the case of Andreas Lubitz, the 28-year-old Germanwings co-pilot who allegedly locked his captain out of the cockpit and ran Flight 9525 into the French Alps on Tuesday. We don't know his motive. We know very little about him at all. Yet the media coverage and testimony around his actions suggest something remarkable: a clear, almost desperate effort to avoid calling Lubitz what, for a Muslim in his position, would likely be a foregone conclusion.

 

Strange when it was found to be intentional i said it was terrorism.. Terrorism doesnt mean Muslim... Not sure what your point is.

 

He may have just been a spiteful, petty little man who took 150 people with him.

But i call BS on the phony narrative of terrorists being all brown. Why make this a race issue? Was the unabomber a terrorist? The okc bomber? I have not heard any conservatives claim that only brown muslims are terrorists. That is a false narrative used only to smear political opponents.

 

The terrorist label assumes that there is a political goal behind the act. At the moment nothing we know points in that direction.
Breivik is definitely a terrorist. So was Timothy McVeigh or the members of the German RAF.

But I agree that if it turned out Lubitz was of a muslimic background, the screams of "Terrorist!" would be deafening.

 

Terriorism is associated with an act meant to terrorize to accomplish an agenda. Not sure if that applies here....he may have just felt evil power over his control of life and death.

 

You don't think the 8 min free fall was terror for the others on that plane ? And "he may have just felt evil power" is a cop out. He chose to murder and was a terrorist.

 

Bravo Sierra on your claim that all terrorists are brown skinned Muslims. Wtf kind of accusation is that and against who specifically??

 

'terrorist' implies an agenda.. a socio/political/religious one... mentally disturbed people are not terrorists, even if they commit horrific acts. Just because the end result is the same, does not mean the motives for committing them are the same.

We do not have enough information to definitively call him a 'terrorist'. He is a murderer. but we do not know his motivations, yet, so cannot make an informed conclusion.

Of course, that does not stop speculations or false narratives. People can make up 'hands up, don't shoot!' as a phony narrative, & it can go viral. That does not make it true, however.

 

That's my point. The media has avoided calling this pilot a terrorist.

 

that is a good thing. Labels should not be tossed about irresponsibly by the media. We should wait for the evidence before distorting it.

 

So what you're saying is that from now on, everyone that murders a certain amout of people in a terryfying way should be considered a terrorist?

 

Probably the idea is to soften the term... 'terrorist!' sounds so harsh.. if we can get that label applied to pathetic, disturbed, or pitiful people deserving of sympathy, perhaps the term can be useful in the orwellian language redefinitions. It can become 'someone who is confused or bullied & doesn't know what they are doing'..

 

Of course he was a murderer.
But words like "terrorist" exist because there is a certain connotation to it that gives us more background than just "someone who killed people". And Lubitz was not that kind of murderer.
The media is not trying downplay the quality of his deed, they are just using terms the way they were meant to be used.

 

Terrorism is an attack on a group over an ideology or belief. Crashing a plane to kill one's self and taking people with you because of mental or physical disorder is not terrorism. Regardless if it is a white guy or anyone else. There have been several times that someone committed suicide and takes other with him or her. Just because you feel terror doesn't make it terrorism it is about the effect on a particular group that is targeted.

I think someone earlier showed the difference with clear acts of terrorism by white people like McVeigh. What we see here is a disturbed man who wanted to go out in a way that people would be talking about him. He is not unlike a serial killer who ends his run with suicide by cop or worse by doing it in a way that takes out others.

 

It wasn't a free fall, it was a slightly faster than normal descent. So normal that if it wasn't for the pilot kicking and shouting at the locked door they might not have noticed. The screaming didn't start until the last few seconds. A terrorist terrorises to promote or coerce a political agenda. He didn't.

 

Prove political motive. choosing to murder doesnt making you a terrorist. If i kill my neighbor that murder, if i kill a politician that would be assassination.

 

When you figure out a political angle on his motives, let us know.

 

Yes, he was a terrorist.

 

Stupid and unsound. His actions don't fit the definition or the history.

 

Terrorism is about using fear and violence to forward an agenda, usually religious or political. This maniac was not promoting anything. He was a murderer, in fact a mass murderer, but not a terrorist no matter what color his skin is.

 

Because we don't know if in fact his goal was to commit an act of terror. Now, did he terrorize those innocents? Hell yeah, I can only imagine. Was it a malicious act? Of course, but we can't bring people back from the dead to charge them. We can't even get the complete truth of this incident because he's dead. If you believe in a higher realm, and a God who presides over it. You can take comfort in the likelihood that he's getting judgment for how he lived and ended his pitiful life.

 

When a serial killer kills---the victims are in terror. But they are not classified as a terrorist. Not all murderers are terrorists.

 

I find the ignorance displayed in this thread really frightening. Channe must be a terrorist.

 

So much ignorance so little time. Terrorism must involve a political component this has none ergo he wasn't a terrorist he was merely crazy at least until you can find a political component.

 

Don't know why people here are so obsessed with labeling everything.