TERRORISM

I’ve been reluctant to say this till now, but it’s my belief that what the D.C. sniper is now doing is terrorism. I don’t mean he’s a member of any specific group necessarily or even a person who might call himself a terrorist. I mean someone – a criminal – whose goal, whose purpose, is purely terror. I can see no other pattern to the shootings. The crazy Tarot card business and the fact that the sniper seems to be getting bolder point in the direction of a more typical serial killer. But other things don’t. I’m struck by how these killings are public murders. They’re designed to make the citizenry feel unsafe in its outdoor activities, its public life. I’m also struck by the lack of pattern. In fact, I think the pattern is that there is no pattern. No one is therefore safe. Isn’t that what terrorists rather than crooks try to accomplish? And then there are things like this:

One difference this time was the added touch of cruelty of shooting Ms. Franklin as her husband was a step away, unseeing and powerless to help. They were in a mundane, off-guard moment – another of the sniper’s now-clear preferences – putting purchases in their red convertible, shelving to be used in a move they were planning this month from the Washington area.

That’s an attack on our simple normality, the ease in even the most harrried life, the snatches of freedom that we all enjoy in a free society. That’s his target; that’s what he wants to kill. Again, I’m not saying we have al Qaeda or some other group here. I have no idea. I mean merely that the method is terrorism. The motive could be nihilism, or craziness or fanaticism. It could be some new hybrid of a serial killer mimicking terrorists. But its method is terror nonetheless. And it’s aimed directly at all of us.