1
1
1
It’s a good thing that the DoD has removed this question. But there remain a number of concerns here.
First, how do even violent demonstrations constitute “terrorism?” Linking the two together permits authorities to claim with impunity that they had to act with arrests and maybe more (!) because they feared that the demonstrations might or were showing some signs of becoming violent and therefore “terrorist.” This is what in fact was done to the RNC Welcoming Committee at the 2008 RNC convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Authorities carried out pre-emptive raids upon peaceful protesters prior to their even peacefully demonstrating and charged them with “domestic terrorism.” In the course of this, at least one of the arrested US citizen activists was brutalized in a fashion that comes alarmingly close to torture.
Second, the DoD exam question sought to define “low-level terrorism.”
It was not intended to distinguish peaceful and legal protest from “illegal, violent demonstration.”
Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Les Melnyk’s account for what was wrong with the question/answer choices – that the problem was that the question/answer did not distinguish between legal protest and illegal protest – is, therefore, not entirely convincing or truthful.
The Fox story goes on to say that Melnyk “added that many Defense employees work in countries where violent demonstrations are regular occurrences.
“’In those situations, that anti-Americanism might be taken out on an American in the crowd,’ Melnyk said.”
This is also not entirely convincing or truthful.
The original question includes as answer choices actions that occur in both foreign locales and/or within the US, so it can’t accurately been said that the DoD had in mind only foreign locations.
Obviously an attack on the Pentagon has to happen within the US.
I.E.D.’s are used outside of the U.S.
Hate crimes against racial groups can and do occur both within the US and outside of the US.
Protests occur within and outside of the US.
Since the “correct” answer according to the DoD was “protests” = “low-level terrorism,” they cannot accurately say that they had in mind only violent protests in foreign lands because their answer choices included activities that occur within the US.
The correct answer should have been “none of the above.” Third, the question and answer choices were obviously deliberately designed to lead the exam taker/DoD employee to choose “Protests” as an example of “low-level terrorism” inasmuch as the other answer choices are all obviously not low-level acts. All of the others are very violent attacks.
