Progressive Democrat Issue 99: TERRORIST ATTACK IN IOWA IGNORED BY MEDIA AND GOVERNMENT

And speaking of religious extremism, a terrorist attack occurred on 9/11/2006 in Davenport, Iowa, on the 5th year anniversary of the terrorist attack on the city where I live. And I heard nothing about it. And Homeland Security seems to have ignored it. Why?

Simple: the attack was done by a right wing white guy targeting a woman's health clinic.

From the Quad Cities Times:

A Michigan man described as a bookworm by relatives has wandered the Midwest since August, looking for a medical clinic to attack with his 2004 Saturn compact car, authorities said.

It was dawn Monday when David Robert McMenemy approached Edgerton Women’s Health Center in Davenport, which he mistakenly believed provided abortions.

He entered the center’s driveway off East Rusholme Street and then took a few moments to turn and configure the car to face straight into the lobby, Davenport Fire Marshal Mike Hayman said.

The 45-year-old crashed the Saturn into the central lobby, coming to rest at the counter. When the car did not immediately burst into flames as he may have expected, police said he took gasoline that he had poured into a Gatorade bottle and spread it over the interior. “I lit it,” McMenemy told investigators, and he exited the structure to surrender himself to startled Davenport firefighters....

He faces a charge of second-degree arson because first-degree arson requires that the building be occupied. There are no additional charges that are appropriate, including terrorism, Davis said, but he noted the case could be taken up by federal authorities.

No further charges. The case COULD be taken up by federal authorities.

What if he'd been Muslim? Can you imagine how fast he'd be swept away to Guantanamo with no due process? But he's white, Christian and he attacked a woman's clinic. So all it is is second degree arson. This is disgusting! But Homeland Security is doing nothing and I bet few of you out there heard about it at all!

From the Boston Phoenix:

On September 11, 2006, the fifth anniversary of the terror attacks that devastated our nation, a man crashed his car into a building in Davenport, Iowa, hoping to blow it up and kill himself in the fire.

No national newspaper, magazine, or network newscast reported this attempted suicide bombing, though an AP wire story was available. Cable news (save for MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann) was silent about this latest act of terrorism in America.

Had the criminal, David McMenemy, been Arab or Muslim, this would have been headline news for weeks. But since his target was the Edgerton Women’s Health Center, rather than, say, a bank or a police station, media have not called this terrorism — even after three decades of extreme violence by anti-abortion fanatics, mostly fundamentalist Christians who believe they’re fighting a holy war.

Since 1977, casualties from this war include seven murders, 17 attempted murders, three kidnappings, 152 assaults, 305 completed or attempted bombings and arsons, 375 invasions, 482 stalking incidents, 380 death threats, 618 bomb threats, 100 acid attacks, and 1,254 acts of vandalism, according to the National Abortion Federation.

Abortion providers and activists received 77 letters threatening anthrax attacks before 9/11, yet the media never considered anthrax threats as terrorism until after 9/11, when such letters were delivered to journalists and members of Congress.

Contact the media and ask them why they and the federal government are ignoring terrorist attacks right in the American heartland? And if you live in Iowa, write your Congress Critters to demand that they confront Bush and Homeland Security and demand that these right wing, Chirstian extremist terrorists be brought to justice.


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