Terrorism, American Style

An excellent op-ed by Paul Krugman recounts the story of William Krar, a terrorist who was discovered in April 2003 in Texas. (Krar was sentenced to 11 years in May, a point that Krugman forgot to make…)

According to Krugman, “In the small town of Noonday, Tex., F.B.I. agents discovered a weapons cache containing fully automatic machine guns, remote-controlled explosive devices disguised as briefcases, 60 pipe bombs and a chemical weapon [a cyanide bomb] big enough to kill everyone in a 30,000-square-foot building.”

This is big stuff, and the American media has been remarkably silent about it — especially when you consider the front-page coverage of Jose Padilla, the accused “dirty bomber” who didn’t have either radioactive dirt or a bomb. (Proof: Google for William Krar and you’ll get about 2000 hits, while Google for Jose Padilla and you’ll get more than 50,000.

So why the double-standard? Why does an Islamic millitant get put all over the newspapers while a white supremacist gets barely a mention?