And that previous attack, did we start thinking it was road rage?
Personal vendetta?
I don't think we did, it was obviously a targeted attack on soldiers.
And it was called terrorism.
So a Muslim man uses vehicle to target and kill a soldier, terror attack. No problems.
Muslim man shoots and kills a soldier in a targeted attack, and then runs to the hill. Terror attack, no problem.
Non Muslim man uses vehicle to target Muslims out on a walk...
Maybe it was road rage?
This isn't terrorism, why call it terrorism?
Virtue signaling!
Wait for a investigation!
Too soon to say!
I understand where you're coming from Altair, genuinely. But respectfully, I think you might be jumping the gun a bit?
In the case of Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the entire situation seemed clearly pre-meditated from the very beginning. Attacking and killing a soldier at the National War Memorial, and then proceeding to Parliament Hill where he was engaged in a firefight with police.
His actions, which included killing someone in cold blood, and then quickly leaving the scene to go to Parliament Hill & ended up in a shoot out with the police -- I don't think anybody could look at that and question whether it was pre-meditated, planned, etc. It clearly was.
It was an act of terrorism, and I believe this is too. No doubt in my mind now, as I read up today on further details of the accused.
I THINK the only distinction was that in THIS CASE, while everything indicated it was a brutal hate crime/terrorism, it wasn't completely confirmed. It was 99% confirmed, but not 100%. As of today, the speculation regarding "Well, maybe this, or maybe that" - is no longer required, as that remaining 1% seems to have been filled in.
I can only speak for myself here...
I was
hoping that maybe it was something else. I really was. With the suspect being 20yrs old, I was hoping maybe it was actually some hit & run scenario where he didn't mean to kill them. Or stole the truck and hit them while fleeing. The body armour was because he just robbed a 7-11, and this happened during his getaway. Something. I was just HOPING that the 1% was something else. He seemed to have friends that have ethnic backgrounds, no interactions with law enforcement, no known connections to hate groups, etc. I hoped that meant this wasn't what it appeared to be.
Race doesn't factor into it for me, regardless of what skin colour the attackers/victims are. School shootings are acts of terrorism too, in my eyes anyways. Skin pigment doesn't matter in the slightest. (It matters about as much as the pigment in someone's hair.)
However, turns out this POS is even worse than I thought. Asking the cabbie to call the police, laughing as he's taken into custody, basically bragging about what he had just done.
On the one hand, I try to be a practical minded person. With him laughing about it, wearing body armour, bloody truck, etc - a big part of me is instinctively saying "I don't want to waste any more taxpayer money on this a****** than needed. Take him out back, end it, and carry on with the day." But, under the circumstances of hearing him laugh about it - I actually do want him to suffer & be locked up for the remainder of his life. (I don't know if it's wrong for me to think that way? But death is too kind for some people.)