Call It Terror, Not Mental Illness

Why do so many government officials and media outlets seem so quick to blame what could be instances of radical Islamic terrorism on “mental illnesses?”

It happened again last week when news of a 19-year-old Norwegian Muslim of Somalia descent stabbing an American woman to death in London began circulating. Zakaria Bulhan wounded five others during the attack that killed Darlene Horton, 64. Bulhan’s neighbor described him as an “impressionable” teenager, susceptible to Islamic State propaganda.

“The news of his mental illness is completely new, we never heard that. Honestly, I think his mental health problems are a scapegoat.”

So what tune did the media and government officials sing? “Mental health issues.”

“Whilst the investigation is not yet complete, all of the work we have done so far increasingly points to this tragic incident having been triggered by mental health issues,” Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said, according to the International Business Times.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan added, “There is no evidence at all that this man was motivated as a consequence of Daesh [Islamic State] or similar sorts … of groups. It does appear to be somebody who had mental health problems, according to the police.”

But Bulhan’s neighbor, Parmjit Singh, reported otherwise.

“The news of his mental illness is completely new, we never heard that,” Singh said, according to The Daily Mail. “Honestly, I think his mental health problems are a scapegoat.”

In their efforts to distance radical extremism from its native ties to Islam itself, the political correctness police are often quick to pursue all alternatives to the terrorism label.

“For some time, the knee-jerk reactive explanations for jihadist acts of war has been the mental illness defense by government official spokespeople. These people see their role as Islamic apologists,” Bachmann said.

“Authorities have ascribed jihad terror to mental illness on numerous occasions,” Robert Spencer, an author who writes for JihadWatch blog and has written books on Sharia law and jihad, told WorldNetDaily. “What could account for this global outbreak of mental illness that always manifests itself in similar ways?”

WND writer Leo Hohmann, who spoke with Spencer, went on in his article to list 24 attacks across the U.S. and Europe over the past several years that authorities and media personnel initially ascribed to “mental illnesses,” but were later discovered to be instances of radical Islamic extremism.

“For some time, the knee-jerk reactive explanations for jihadist acts of war has been the mental illness defense by government official spokespeople. These people see their role as Islamic apologists,” former Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann told WND. “On what basis are these spokespeople so confident in their psychiatric diagnosis? Since when did communications specialists become on-the-spot psychiatrists?… Somehow, they always rule out the obvious Islamic motivation for terror.”

This dismissal and deflection from the threat of “radical Islamic terrorism” recalls Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s spat with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama over ascribing blame for the June 12 Orlando shooting. The massacre, which took place at a gay nightclub and resulted in the deaths of 49 victims, was immediately heralded by Obama and Clinton as a “hate crime” — but not so for Trump.

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“Last night, our nation was attacked by a radical Islamic terrorist,” Trump said in a statement the day after the shooting. “President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words ‘Radical Islam.’ For that reason alone, he should step down. If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words ‘Radical Islam,’ she should get out of this race for the presidency.”

Although both Obama and Clinton eventually uttered the phrase, neither was particularly happy with Trump’s emphasis.

“So there’s no magic to the phrase ‘radical Islam.’ It’s a political talking point,” Obama said during a press conference that month, adding, “This is a political distraction.”

“It is increasingly clear, however, that the killer took in extremist information and propaganda over the internet,” Obama noted. “He appears to have been an angry, disturbed, unstable young man who became radicalized.”

But these concessions always seem to come after the “mentally unstable” and “mental illness” labels have been tossed around.