MSNBC’s O’Donnell: Veterans are a Greater Threat of Terrorism Than Those Crossing Over Border

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell is under fire this week for using the terrorist attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans to attack the United States Army as a greater threat than those crossing our Southern border. The statement is a vintage example of why many are turning away from legacy or mainstream media, including MSNBC (which has lost nearly half its audience since the election).

O’Donnell has long maintained his show as something of a safe space for the left, including declaring that no Trump supporter would be allowed to speak on his show because they are all “liars,” a label that now applies to a majority of American voters in the last election.

Yet, this statement stands out for many in its unhinged effort to spin the tragedy into a more favorable liberal talking point.

O’Donnell declared:

“The simple fact is, this country has suffered more deadly terrorism at the hands of American-born citizens who are veterans of the United States military than people who have crossed into this country at the southern border. It is very clear from the evidence that if you want to worry about terrorism in this country, the United States Army is a much bigger problem than the southern border.”

There are two curious elements to O’Donnell’s comment. The first is that Army training somehow makes veterans greater threats of terrorism. The military also tends to instill patriotism and public service in its members. Moreover, O’Donnell was referencing the fact that Shamsud-Din Jabbar served in the Army, even though he was largely trained as a human resources and information technology expert. His attack was not a McVeigh-like truck bomb, but the use of the truck itself — an unfortunately common terrorist method that hardly speaks to any Army training.

Second, O’Donnell makes reference to those crossing the Southern Border as opposed to others who have either crossed any border or have entered this country legally. Again, the suggestion is that there is something about military training worthy of special concern. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Zacarias Moussaoui, Richard Colvin Reid, James T. Hodgkinson, Thomas Matthew Crooks, Darrell Edward Brooks Jr., and others may beg to differ.

O’Donnell made specific reference to Timothy McVeigh, the domestic terrorist behind the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995:

“Timothy McVeigh parked a truck outside that building loaded with explosives in an act of homegrown American terrorism. Timothy McVeigh’s hatred of the American government was not tamed in any way by his service in the American military. So, too, with America’s latest terrorist attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve, with an American military veteran driving a pickup truck through a crowd to murder 14 people.”

Ok, McVeigh and Jabbar became extremists after they served in the military. However, all terrorists make such a turn — often in a sharp departure from their prior history and upbringing. What does that prove? It is the ultimate example of why correlation is not causation. It is a little better than the Latin corollary cum hoc ergo propter hoc (‘with this, therefore because of this’).

This is not to say that military service cannot produce PTSD and other forms of mental illness related to service. Rather, the effort to portray veterans as a greater threat than those crossing our borders illegally is specious. Indeed, the concern over the lax border controls (including but not exclusively at the Southern Border) is that we simply do not know who many of these individuals are. There are obviously many people (and countries) in the world who want to harm the United States. While they would previously attempt to get through airports and other entries, they are now far more likely to do so across an open border. Terrorists can be rational in their means even if they are irrational in their ideology and criminal acts.

Some on the left have picked up on O’Donnell’s spin, often citing a CBS News analysis of the data showing 26% of mass shooters over six decades have had military service or training. That is higher than the less than 10% of the population that has served. However, again, that is correlation not causation. Notably, that is less than a quarter of the mass shooters. What of the remaining? There are other correlations, such as religion or mental illness, that have equal or greater correlations. Any of them are capable of driving a truck into a crowd of people.

Moreover, the point seems to be that the concern over terrorists crossing the borders is overblown. There has been growing alarm over people on the terrorist watch lists who have been apprehended at the border. However, the great concern in Congress is the number of “gotaways,” which may now be in the millions.

The O’Donnell spin is ultimately more telling in terms of the media than it is the military. In the immediate wake of this horrific attack, the effort was to emphasize that the culprit was a veteran and not an undocumented person. It shows a certain mania in the media. We should be looking for patterns in these attacks. However, false causal connections drawn for political purposes will undermine not advance such efforts.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”