Charging this kid with using a Weapon of Mass Destruction invites blowback. (And we should take note of the tortuous legal definitions and history of the deliberately ill-defined concept of WMD’s.)  In what ways are such acts of classification and naming NOT an invitation to escalate? Does this not give incentive to malcontents, whatever their background or intent? Now you too can be on the same footing as a Saddam Hussein or, more recently, a Bashar al-Assad.

This charge of using a WMD strikes me not as threat prevention but, rather, as threat propagation. And, in this sense, charging a 19 year old boy for making a WMD with ingredients that could be bought at any Walmart is a fitting and consistent continuation of this pattern, where militaristic escalation drives both a ‘war on terror,’ as well as defending the security of a ‘homeland.’