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Massacre at the Inland Regional Center
Dec. 3rd, 2015 09:55 amThe San Bernardino shootings were just very odd.
I mean, all mass shootings are tragic and horrible – though statistically irrelevant, you understand, in terms of any culling effect on the population – but the perp is usually a practicing paranoid schizophrenic, often on some kind of ideologically motivated mission.
This one had all the hallmarks of a gangland-style execution.
I went to bed thinking, “Mexican cartel.” Mexico’s in the midst of a civil war, which – for whatever reason – the U.S. media continues to mischaracterize as a disagreement over drug distribution routes.
I woke up to find the dead suspect is someone called Syed Rizwan Farook. A very religious Muslim.
That popping noise you hear?
It's the sound of The Donald’s poll stats going up and up and up.
###
A very strong argument can be made that Barack Obama’s policies are directly responsible for the rise of ISIS.
In 2012, Obama received a report from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA.) (The DIA is kind of like the military’s version CIA, and its employees are mostly civilians.) This report analyzed the core constituencies of the Syrian insurgents fighting Bashar Assad in great detail. The report concluded that the Syrian insurgency was dominated by fundamentalist Islamic militants who were committed to the emergence of a Salafist principality – what we now seem to be calling the ISIS caliphate – and strongly recommended not funding them. The CIA and the State Department concurred with this recommendation.
Obama ignored it.
“Salafist” is what Wahhabis like to call themselves. It’s the most orthodox branch of Sunni Islam. Salafists believe in the literal truth of Qur’anic scripture, which apparently includes all sorts of grisly execution methods, forced breeding, heads on stakes etc etc. There is some room for flexibility, though, since I’m fairly sure a strict interpretation of Qur’anic scripture would come down hard on social media, and ISIS likes social media.
All fundamentalists are dangerous, of course. But I think Islamic fundamentalists are exponentially more dangerous than their Christian counterparts. If that makes me a blowhard bigot, so be it.
Anyway, apparently Obama’s inner circle advised him to give these Syrian insurgents a pass because it would help his campaign for reelection. Plus, you know, it would build on the momentum started by gunning down Bin Laden.
(Obama also counted on this strategy to drive a wedge between Iran and any Arab nations that might be sympathetic to Iran – although in the wake of the recent Iran treaty, this is a totally moot point.)
I get the emphasis on gunning down Bin Laden, but, you know – by the time that Navy Seal got to him, Bin Laden was a toothless old man in the final stages of kidney failure, ordering herbal Viagra over the Internet. The star of The Real Housewives of Waziristan. It would have been much smarter to parade him in front of a warcrimes tribunal at The Hague.
That DIA report was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch – I believe just last May.
Hugely important story.
But no one was listening.
###
These days, I’m inclined to think that Obama has been a complete disaster as a chief executive.
Worse than Dubya Bush? That’s a hard one. Dubya started a completely unnecessary war that utterly destabilized the Middle East, and he lied about his reasons for starting it. Even at the time, it was completely obvious to me that he was lying – I remember there was some big to-do at the time when some mucketymuck called him out on that, was publicly humiliated, and forced to apologize, and I thought, Huh? But it’s so obvious Bush is lying.
But just as Dubya justified the Saddam Hussein takedown by saying, He’s a despot! He must go!, so Obama keeps trying to justify a Bashar Assad takedown: He’s a despot! He must go.
Truth is that despots work in that part of the world.
Maybe democracy will work in that part of the world a hundred years or so from now. I don’t know. I think Islam would need to go through its own version of Christianity’s Reformation for democracy to work in that part of the world. But what do I know? I’m just a mite crawling up a wall many, many miles away. I’m irrelevant. Cassandra, the prophetic cockroach! Whom nobody would listen to even if they knew of her existence.
###
Anyway, my thought now is that Syed Rizwan Farook may have been part of the San Berdoo radical Islamic cell. And that the cell’s actual target would not have been a Regional Center for the developmentally disabled, but an airport or some big LA-based public event. And that Syed Rizwan Farook got into some big argument at that Christmas party over Jesus or the absolute superiority of Yahweh to Allah. (Wait! Do they call God Yahweh in the New Testament?) And knew he had this big stash of guns at home, so decided to get a head start on taking out the infidels.
Or maybe the wife was the brains behind the operation.
Mail order radicalization!
Syed Rizwan Farook grew up in a relatively secular home and described himself as religious but modern: i.e. espousing Western values. But then he encounters this woman online and goes to Saudi Arabia to meet and marry her. Don’t forget: Saudi Arabia is like Wahhabi Central.
The wife turns him.
Hey! I am a fiction writer.
Anyway, if I were the San Berdoo police or the FBI, I’d be looking for other cell members in those mountains 60 miles east of LA.
###
Of course, in another sort of way, this incident is like a replay of that Colorado Planned Parenthood shooting last week.
Individuals who think their violence is justified by their God.
I mean, all mass shootings are tragic and horrible – though statistically irrelevant, you understand, in terms of any culling effect on the population – but the perp is usually a practicing paranoid schizophrenic, often on some kind of ideologically motivated mission.
This one had all the hallmarks of a gangland-style execution.
I went to bed thinking, “Mexican cartel.” Mexico’s in the midst of a civil war, which – for whatever reason – the U.S. media continues to mischaracterize as a disagreement over drug distribution routes.
I woke up to find the dead suspect is someone called Syed Rizwan Farook. A very religious Muslim.
That popping noise you hear?
It's the sound of The Donald’s poll stats going up and up and up.
###
A very strong argument can be made that Barack Obama’s policies are directly responsible for the rise of ISIS.
In 2012, Obama received a report from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA.) (The DIA is kind of like the military’s version CIA, and its employees are mostly civilians.) This report analyzed the core constituencies of the Syrian insurgents fighting Bashar Assad in great detail. The report concluded that the Syrian insurgency was dominated by fundamentalist Islamic militants who were committed to the emergence of a Salafist principality – what we now seem to be calling the ISIS caliphate – and strongly recommended not funding them. The CIA and the State Department concurred with this recommendation.
Obama ignored it.
“Salafist” is what Wahhabis like to call themselves. It’s the most orthodox branch of Sunni Islam. Salafists believe in the literal truth of Qur’anic scripture, which apparently includes all sorts of grisly execution methods, forced breeding, heads on stakes etc etc. There is some room for flexibility, though, since I’m fairly sure a strict interpretation of Qur’anic scripture would come down hard on social media, and ISIS likes social media.
All fundamentalists are dangerous, of course. But I think Islamic fundamentalists are exponentially more dangerous than their Christian counterparts. If that makes me a blowhard bigot, so be it.
Anyway, apparently Obama’s inner circle advised him to give these Syrian insurgents a pass because it would help his campaign for reelection. Plus, you know, it would build on the momentum started by gunning down Bin Laden.
(Obama also counted on this strategy to drive a wedge between Iran and any Arab nations that might be sympathetic to Iran – although in the wake of the recent Iran treaty, this is a totally moot point.)
I get the emphasis on gunning down Bin Laden, but, you know – by the time that Navy Seal got to him, Bin Laden was a toothless old man in the final stages of kidney failure, ordering herbal Viagra over the Internet. The star of The Real Housewives of Waziristan. It would have been much smarter to parade him in front of a warcrimes tribunal at The Hague.
That DIA report was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch – I believe just last May.
Hugely important story.
But no one was listening.
###
These days, I’m inclined to think that Obama has been a complete disaster as a chief executive.
Worse than Dubya Bush? That’s a hard one. Dubya started a completely unnecessary war that utterly destabilized the Middle East, and he lied about his reasons for starting it. Even at the time, it was completely obvious to me that he was lying – I remember there was some big to-do at the time when some mucketymuck called him out on that, was publicly humiliated, and forced to apologize, and I thought, Huh? But it’s so obvious Bush is lying.
But just as Dubya justified the Saddam Hussein takedown by saying, He’s a despot! He must go!, so Obama keeps trying to justify a Bashar Assad takedown: He’s a despot! He must go.
Truth is that despots work in that part of the world.
Maybe democracy will work in that part of the world a hundred years or so from now. I don’t know. I think Islam would need to go through its own version of Christianity’s Reformation for democracy to work in that part of the world. But what do I know? I’m just a mite crawling up a wall many, many miles away. I’m irrelevant. Cassandra, the prophetic cockroach! Whom nobody would listen to even if they knew of her existence.
###
Anyway, my thought now is that Syed Rizwan Farook may have been part of the San Berdoo radical Islamic cell. And that the cell’s actual target would not have been a Regional Center for the developmentally disabled, but an airport or some big LA-based public event. And that Syed Rizwan Farook got into some big argument at that Christmas party over Jesus or the absolute superiority of Yahweh to Allah. (Wait! Do they call God Yahweh in the New Testament?) And knew he had this big stash of guns at home, so decided to get a head start on taking out the infidels.
Or maybe the wife was the brains behind the operation.
Mail order radicalization!
Syed Rizwan Farook grew up in a relatively secular home and described himself as religious but modern: i.e. espousing Western values. But then he encounters this woman online and goes to Saudi Arabia to meet and marry her. Don’t forget: Saudi Arabia is like Wahhabi Central.
The wife turns him.
Hey! I am a fiction writer.
Anyway, if I were the San Berdoo police or the FBI, I’d be looking for other cell members in those mountains 60 miles east of LA.
###
Of course, in another sort of way, this incident is like a replay of that Colorado Planned Parenthood shooting last week.
Individuals who think their violence is justified by their God.
