Newspapers / Elon University Student Newspaper / Oct. 31, 2018, edition 1 / Page 8
Part of Elon University Student Newspaper / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
I ijnKQ 11 OCTOBER 31, 2018 VIOLENCE AT HOME AND MOAD CHEATSHEET EACH WEEK THE PENDULUM BREAKS DOWN COMPLEX EVENTS BY INTERVIEWING RELEVANT EXPERTS Pipe bomb packages threaten political climate ACTUAL ESTIMATEa ADDED F^C.^ CHK FfttTS 253^00 «6,00§ ^ iSeovJnership KfLL°YOUR^ENEMY AND IH^^folrorGATORS Cesar Sayoc Jr.’s van is pictured in Oakland Park, Florida on Thursday, Oct. 18. PHOTO COURTESY OF TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE After the danger, professor breaks down the bomb threats Victoria Traxler Elon News Network 1 @victoriatrax The United States faced a matter of domestic terror ism last week when 14 pipe bombs were sent to Demo crats around the country and CNN. Damion Blake ism IS defined by the F.B.I. as “Perpe trated by individu als and/or groups inspired by or associated with primarily U.S.-based movements that espouse extremist ideologies of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental na ture.” These attacks and threats come at a time of highly polarized political agen das. Damion Blake, an as sistant professor in political science and policy studies who specializes in Nation al Security, gave Elon News Network his analysis of the situation. Q: What do you think these pipe bombs mean for the state of the American govern ment right now? A: The pipe bombs indi cate or suggest that there are groups or individuals within the American state that are unhappy with one political side or the other. It seems to me that the political narra tive, because we are at a very polarized political moment in Americas history right now, and the pipe bomber has tapped into this very par tisan, polarized environment that we are at and somehow has found motivation for the kind of vision that he has for America. It is an outcome of the political polarization that we have right now. Q: Would you define this as domestic ter rorism? Al It absolutely is domestic terrorism. If you go off of the definitions of terrorism, terrorism is the act of vio lence or the use of the threat of violence, so it doesn’t have to be actual violence, but the threat of violence. And there is an ideology here as well, a partisan politicized ideology that you’re seeing happening. There is the somehow mobilization of political ob jectives. What you do have here are the targeting of one side of the political spectrum, and so there is a political ob jective - all the ingredients in terms of the definitions of homegrown or domestic ter rorism. Q: What would be an other example of do mestic terrorism in recent U.S. history? A: Recently, if we go to the 1990s, we can think about Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombings who had a political objective, who was again inspired or radicalized by some anti-gov ernmental ideologies. There were some religious things mixed in with that. That’s one that we could talk about a wide scale, perpetrated by a lone-wolf type terrorist in the Oklahoma City bombing. (^: What do you think the correct govern ment response should be? A: It’s very difficult to tackle a counter-terrorist, especially the lone-wolf, homegrown type. But I think the first or der of business is to de-es calate the polarized political narratives because people are tapping into that and co-opt ing it for their own extremist ends. BOMB TARGETS George Soros Democratic donor; One package delivered on Monday, Oct. 22; New York Bill and Hillary Clinton Former president and former secretary of state; One package delivered on Monday, Oct. 22; New York Barack Obama Former president; One package delivered on Wednesday, Oct. 24.; Washington, D.C. CNN and John Brennan News organization and former CIA director; One package delivered on Wednesday, Oct. 24; New York Debbie Wasserman Schultz Democratic representative from Florida; One package delivered on Wednesday, Oct. 24; Florida Maxine Waters Democratic representative from California; Two packages delivered on Wednesday, Oct. 24; California and Washington, D.C. Robert De Niro Actor; One package delivered on Thursday, Oct. 25; New York Joe Biden Vice President; One package delivered on Thursday, Oct. 25; New York Cory Booker Democratic senator from New Jersey; One package delivered on Friday, Oct. 26; Florida James Clapper Jr. Former director of National Intelligence; One package delivered on Friday, Oct. 26; New York Kamala Harris Democratic senator; One package delivered on Friday, Oct. 26; California Tom Steyer Democratic donor; One package delivered on Friday, Oct. 26; California Reacting to the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi PHOTO COURTESY OF TRIBUNE NEWS Smiff Protestors demonstrate at the entrance of Saudi Arabia consulate over the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul on Tuesday, Oct. 9. Ahmed Abdullah Al Fadaam Former war correspondent tries to makes sense of murder Joe Heck & James Mitchell Eton News Network | @elonnewsnetwork On Oct. 2, Saudi jour nalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared from the Sau di Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Eigh teen days later, the Saudi gov ern ment a n nounced his gruesome death. The specific details of what happened the day the jour nalist went missing remain unclear due to different ac counts from the Saudi gov ernment and from Turkish officials. Assistant professor of communications Ahmed Abdullah Al Fadaam offers his perspective as a fellow journalist. Q: What was your re action, as a journal ist, to Khashoggi^s death? A: Actually, I was shocked about the way he was as sassinated — inside his country’s consulate, this never happened before — but, I don’t find it strange because we all know about the human rights violations in Saudi Arabia. Their con stitution is based on Shari ah law, and if you check the kind of punishments they have, it includes beheading, it includes hand chopping. Some of these punishments are considered by other countries as barbaric, so this also tells us that they tend to get rid of their op ponents in an ugly way. Q: What steps should news organizations and individual jour nalists take to ensure their safety? A: Unfortunately, in re gions like the Middle East, there are no guarantees. I covered the war in Iraq for almost 10 years, and during these 10 years, I received multiple death threats from armed groups in Iraq. I was treated poorly by the Iraqi police and the Iraqi army. People used to say that it is dangerous to say anything about Saddam, but after 2003, it became dangerous to say anything about any one. They claim that they have democracy in the Middle East, but apparent ly, it’s a fake expression — there is no democracy in that part of the world. (1: What would you tell aspiring jour nalists, who are now afraid of reporting in dangerous areas? A: If you go to the Mid dle East to cover any of the events there, you have to be very careful about what you say and what you do. When covering the war in Iraq, I was very careful about everything because they won’t hesitate to use any mean to get rid of you if you’re a threat to them. Does this mean that jour nalists should stop doing their jobs? I don’t think so, no. This is who we are, this is what we do; our job is to inform the world on what is happening. Q; How do you feel that the United States and news publica tions should move on from this death? A: This is something I have been wondering about. What is so special about Khashoggi’s death? - If you look at what Saudi Arabia is doing in Yemen, for example, they’ve been bombing this country daily since 2014.... But nobody is talking about it, why’s that? If you look at what’s hap pening inside Saudi Arabia, all the human rights viola tions they’re doing against their own citizens, nobody is talking about that eitlier, why is that? In the case of Khashog gi — and this is my opinion — because it became the focus of every other media organization in the world, the American government couldn’t ignore this any more, even though it was committed by Saudis. If you check the statements from President Trump, he first said that maybe it was a rogue killer and that may be we’ll dig into it, now af ter the Saudis admitted that Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate, this is when President Trump changed his tone and said that if the Saudis were behind it there would be some severe pun ishments. What does this tell you? Before looking at the polit ical relationships between Saudi Arabia and the Unit ed States, take a look at the economic relationships be tween the two countries Follow the money. Saudi Arabia is an oil producing country — remember what happened in 1973 when the Nixon administration decided to help Israel in their war against the Arabs, and oil exports to the United States were cut. this caused the U.S. economy to collapse in 15 days. It’s not something the United States wants to do when it comes to oil. Ifyoj check what Mohamme Bin Salman has threatene to do, if there are any pufj' ishments from the U.S., J to stop the oil flow. Its ail connected. Yes, what hap pened to Khashoggi is ^ heinous crime, but are we giving the Saudis whatW deserve?
Elon University Student Newspaper
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Oct. 31, 2018, edition 1
8
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75