Engagement of the Disengaged

The recent news that 6 men have been arrested in a terror plot against Fort Dix, a military base in the United States is certainly discouraging and potentially dangerous. The men are Muslim, had Jihadist influence, and are immigrants from various parts of the world. Because of these factors, this event has immediately been framed as part of “The War on Terror” by the American media, law enforcement officials, and politicians.

For example, United States Attorney Christopher J. Christie commented, “This is a new brand of terrorism where a small cell of people can bring enormous devastation.” J. P. Weiss, special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Philadelphia office added: “We had a group that was forming a platoon to take on an army. They identified their target, they did their reconnaissance. They had maps. And they were in the process of buying weapons. Luckily, we were able to stop that.”

Clearly, we are at war.

But wait. As the story unfolds, it becomes more and more clear that these 6 people had no foreign connections to Al Qaeda or any other terrorist organization. Tony Snow acknowledged this at a press conference this morning. In fact, they had been in the United States for quite some time, and went to public school in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

To me, Cherry Hill sounds a lot like Littleton, Colorado, where 2 students are infamous for their attack on Columbine High School. In fact, the tapes of the alleged attackers sound very similar to the tapes released of Seung-Hui Cho: angry (specifically towards American society), isolated, and strange. But the Columbine attack and the Virginia Tech “massacre” were not framed within “The War on Terror,” although many may argue that school shootings are a scary form of domestic terrorism.

Nonetheless, whether we are talking about foreign terrorists or domestic school killers, both share a common feature: they are disengaged from their surrounding society and will do whatever it takes to harm it. This is clearly a challenge that needs to be addressed, but it does not fit within the current context of “The War on Terror.”

Framing our challenges solely in the context of “The War on Terror” does not address the crux of the problem of which we are talking: disengagement from American society.

Instead let us start a new mission: “Engagement of the Disengaged.”