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US Mass Murders Smack of Social War

By Ismail Salami

13 August, 2012
Countercurrents.org

The ongoing brutal mass killings which have recently begun to erode the very fabric of American society are to be seen in the light of a deeply felt hatred infused by the US ruling elites within the souls of the young white supremacists in America.

On August 5, Wade Michael Page, a man who was neither a psychotic or borderline personality, went on a shooting spree and opened fire in a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, killing six worshippers and injuring three. Stars and Stripes reported that Page was “steeped in white supremacy during his Army days and spouted his racist views on the job as a soldier”.

Pete Simi, an old friend of Page’s, says he was a white power musician who had served in the military specializing in psychological operations.

According to Simi, “Page started identifying with neo-Nazi beliefs during his time in the military [through] individuals who were active military personnel that were already involved in white supremacist groups. At the time that I had met him, he felt like his involvement in the [white power] music scene really gave him a lot of purpose in terms of how he could contribute to the larger white-supremacist movement. And in fact, that is what the [white power] music scene does."

Page had told Simi that his stint in the US Army (1992-1998) helped burgeon his ideology, “both because he met at least two fellow troops who were white supremacists and because the Army struck him as anti-white. Page was discharged for a pattern of misconduct.”

As Page saw it, "whites were punished while blacks got coddled," Simi said. "The deck was stacked against whites in the military, and he realized all of society was structured that way."

It may prove futile to try to figure out why Page decided to murder some Sikh worshippers. Some commentators have pointed out that the Sikhs might have become the target of Page’s hatetivism because they wear turbans, have long beards and bear some resemblance to the Muslims. However, it may be surmised that he just felt the urge to spew out his racist and religious hatred on a group of people who were distinctive from others.

Mass murders in the US are technically classified as hate crimes and are unfortunately on the increase in the US and Europe. In another incident, the hate criminals set a mosque on fire with the intention of killing the worshippers. However, the arson reportedly failed to claim any lives.

The incident took place on August 6 when a mosque in Missouri was completely destroyed in an arson attack. The Jasper County Sheriff's Office said the fire at the Islamic Society of Joplin was reported around 3:40 a.m. (0840 GMT) on Monday.

"The building was completely destroyed," said Sharon Rhine, a spokeswoman for the office, noting that no injuries were reported and that no charges have been filed.

"No one was apprehended. They don't want to call it a hate crime without information or knowledge of having someone to charge," Rhine added.

Local community members say it is part of the ongoing attacks on their mosque since it was founded in 2007.

"Since the establishment of the mosque, we've been constantly under attack," said former mosque board member Navid Zaidi, adding that "Our sign has been burnt ... Our mailbox was smashed multiple times. We had bullets shot at our sign."

Hate crimes are not limited to temples and holy places but are carried out in a wide range of locations where there is a large crowd of people and where there is a bigger chance of human losses.

On July 20, a gunman in a gas mask and body armor went on a shooting rampage, hurled a gas canister into the theater and killed 12 people and wounded 59 others at a midnight premiere of ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ movie in a suburb of Denver. He was armed with an assault rifle, a shotgun and a pistol. A statement released by the University of Colorado says the attacker James Holmes is a PhD medical student who was in the process of dropping out of a graduate program in neurosciences. His lawyers announced that Holmes suffers from a mental illness during a suburban Denver court hearing. Whatever excuses the defenders may find to exonerate 24-year-old Holmes and the likes of him will not change the reality that Holmes is just the product of a society which is generating the likes of Holmes every day.

In a recent incident (August 9), 22-year-old Ryan Clark Peterson opened fire at people in the Alabama nightclub on Thursday night and killed three people and injured one. He was arrested on Friday in the woods half a mile from the shooting site.

The Alabama nightclub carnage is the third mass shooting the United States has seen in recent weeks.

What deserves due contemplation in this regard is the fact that the murders in all cases kill in cold blood and that they go on shooting rampage with no regard for race, religion, and communal affinities. The implication is that the mass murders basically take place out of utter hatred promoted from the outside and legitimized within.

The US government has ravenously waged wars in different parts of the world, spent inexcusable sums of money from the common purse, relegated the decent middle class society members to the deplorably destitute creatures, hauled the poor into the abyss of misery, shown no respect for human dignity either abroad or at home and executed the souls of the young generation hoping for a bright future.

A world thus created by Washington and so dramatically removed from spiritual values has naturally spawned felons and mass murderers who are the least pleased with the society and who manifest their anger and spite by way of spilling blood, especially the blood of those in whom they have been taught to see the source of their frustration. Figuratively speaking, these mass murders are to be interpreted in the name of a social war, and a kick in the teeth of a degenerated society.

Dr. Ismail Salami is an Iranian writer, Middle East expert, Iranologist and lexicographer. He writes extensively on the US and Middle East issues and his articles have been translated into a number of languages.




 

 


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