In a Jan. 2 WorldNetDaily column, WND editor Joseph Farah accuses the media of downplaying reports of alleged domestic terrorism. He lists examples of what he calls “law enforcement officials and the press establishment going out of their way to downplay even the possibility of terrorism.”
Conspicuously missing from Farah’s list is the case of William Krar of Tyler, Texas, who in 2003 was found in possession of nearly two pounds of a cyanide compound and other chemicals that could create enough poisonous gas to kill everyone inside a space as large as a big-chain bookstore or a small-town civic center. Authorities also discovered nearly half a million rounds of ammunition, more than 60 pipe bombs, machine guns, silencers and remote-controlled bombs disguised as briefcases, plus pamphlets on how to make chemical weapons, and anti-Semitic, anti-black and anti-government books.
Yet WND has run only one original article on Krar, a December 2003 article following Krar’s arrest — but nothing since. Why hasn’t WND focused on this case?
Perhaps because it couldn’t find a Muslim connection. WND apparently believes that only Muslims are terrorists and that any Muslim who commits an act of violence is therefore, by definition, a terrorist. In his column, Farah states:
I recall how any possibility that the Beltway sniper attacks were connected with terrorism was dismissed. It turned out they were carried out by two Muslims.
Farah implies that the sniper attacks were terrorism simply because John Allan Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were Muslims, an accusation he has made before (as ConWebWatch has noted). But Muhammad and Malvo weren’t Islamic terrorists; their motivation was apparently money and revenge.
But as we’ve noted, if WND can’t demonize Muslims, it will lose interest in a story.
WND also sympathizes with at least some of Krar’s views. The WND article on Krar notes that he “has not paid taxes since 1988.” WND regularly reports the stories of people who believe that paying income tax is voluntary and not mandatory or who consider the refusal to pay taxes a legitimate form of protest.