The massacre in San Bernadino, California is as baffling as it is chilling. I am very familiar with the Redlands and San Bernadino areas since I would spend summers in the area growing up and still have relatives there (including one of the officers responding to this shooting). What is so chilling is the lack of any indication of such an act from a couple that seemed to be living the American dream with a good income and new baby . . . and highly supportive colleagues who they proceeded to slaughter.
For me, the three most chilling facts are the following.
First, Syed Farook, 28, had a good work relationship with these people (he made $51,000 a year as an environmental health specialist for the county) and sat at an office party shortly before killing them. It appears that he may have gotten into an argument with with colleague Nicholas Thalasinos (right), a Messianic Jew who was one of the victims. Thalasinos was known to write caustic comments about Islam on the Internet. (His wife says that Thalasinos often wrote about radical Islam but was friendly with Farook). The argument discussed in the media may have occurred a couple weeks before the party and it is not clear whether the argument had rekindled shortly before the shooting. (One account has Farook telling Thalasinos that he “will never see Israel.”) However, it is clear that these two murderers were planning for terrorism based on the search of their home. A witness said that when Farook disappeared just before the photo session at the party, someone asked, “Where’s Syed?”
Second, both he and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 27, dropped off their 6-month-old girl with his mother Wednesday morning, claiming he had a doctor’s appointment. So these two were willing to abandon their baby in some pursuit of paradise — attaining glory through the slaughter of innocents.
Third, these were not strangers. Not only had these victims worked at Farook’s side, but they actually threw a baby shower for this couple who later slaughtered 14 people (and wounded 17).
Both were devout Muslims who appeared at the party (after Farook left) in dark tactical gear and masks with assault rifles and handguns. From their profiles, these two people would be viewed as well adjusted and well grounded in society. Farook actually called himself a “modern Muslim” on social media to distinguish himself from more traditional Muslims. On his dating profile before he met Malik he said that he was “living life to the fullest” and that he wanted a woman who was interested in “snow boarding, to go out and eat with friends, go camping, working on cars with me.” Indeed, Farook is quoted as telling his colleagues that Americans do not understand Islam and then proceeds to confirm that worst stereotype of Islam by critics.
Farook recently went to Saudi Arabia and may have been radicalized while in the Kingdom (a hotbed for extremism). He traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2013 to meet Malik’s family (who are from Pakistan), and then again in July 2014 to marry her. He would later be in contact with known terrorist figures according to police.
At their home, police say that they found an IED factory and 7,000 rounds of ammunition for assault rifles, 9-mm. handguns and .22-caliber rifles. So whatever the argument may have done, there was clearly planning for an attack if these accounts prove accurate. The argument may have triggered the massacre but the arsenal suggests that a massacre may have been in the works. What is clear is that both of these individuals were powder kegs before any argument with a co-worker.
The greatest question however remains the road to radicalism. We have seen this pattern before of men visiting Saudi Arabia or Syria and coming back radicalized and unstable.
Thanks Darren
Paul C. Schulte
1, December 5, 2015 at 6:09 pm
po – if the people of Iran are being held hostage by the mullahs, how can they be relatively happy? We have been told over and over that you cannot have happy hostages.
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Paul, forgot about the Stockholm syndrom?
happiness is always relative…to general vs personal circumstances, to wishes vs reality… you, me, we are all hostages.
ninianpeckitt says:
If American Muslims do not support America and do not demonstrate this I would predict serious public disorder in the same way that there was public disorder in the Islamic World when Westerner actions crated fury. This is what IS wants in order to consolidate their position as they see it.
ninian, the issue I see with the above is there is no way to satisfy the lust for finger pointing that drives islamophobia. We just can’t win. Muslims have denounced in overwhelming numbers ANY instance of islamic terrorism, which is NOT reported by the news outlets, which in turns, is put upon Muslims to basically have to make every single american be aware that they denounced the act.
And when we point out the denunciation, we hear, but you don’t really mean it, you are just trying to trick us.
The worse part however is this:
Why is something asked of Muslims that is/was never asked of any other group?
i have never met farook, never saw him, never even knew he existed, but when he does something, I am to denounce it.
There are about 2 million muslims in the US, blacks, white, asian, hispanics, some local, some foreign…we are the most diversified group one can imagine.
Some of us never stepped into a mosque, others never leave it. some pray, others don’t…and somehow we are all subscribing, supposedly to the same misconceptions of our faith.
One of my buddy, a jew, converted to Islam, does that mean he is requited to denounce Farook?
Does that mean he, from one day to the next, feels differently about his allegiances to his country?
The established islamic view is that the laws of a country are to be obeyed. I do not have the right to move here and try to force people to change their laws to accommodate me. That was never an issue until the fervor about shariah law took hold of Fox news viewers.
I mean, we have Muslims in congress, and Muslims in the army…people need to do their homework, and stop forcing others to prove the unprovable.
But I agree with your conclusions.
po – just as every priest has to answer for the pedophile priests, every Muslim has to answer for Muslim terrorists.
As for sharia law that all jumped up with honor killings and genital mutilations. That got the feminists riled up. You don’t want those liberals going after you. They are worse than the Inquisition.
Paul C Schulte to Po: These are good analogies of Muslim and Christian abuses. You are showing real insight…
Tom Nash
I suspect what is happening with replies now is the system is now placing replies next to the comment they were directed toward. It is something with WordPress not a setting of which we have control.
In light of this it might be worthwhile if you desire comments to appear chronologically to omit the Reply function and just post a comment in the regular manner.
Darren – that is exactly what is happening. Been happening for a couple of days. Surprised more people didn’t notice it. 🙂
Tom Nash
1, December 5, 2015 at 12:43 pm
Po……. I did wonder why you did not mention the 1979 Khomeni takeover and the subsequent devastating Ian-Iraq War. That was a clearly a major factor in the regional Sunni-Shia conflict.
Do you view the overthrow of the Shah as a positive or negative development? In terms of regional stability, and in terms of the lot of the Iranian population?
I did, Tom. [Khomeini, one man, a revolutionary, came to power and sought to change the status quo].
Also we can’t really talk about the khomeini revolution without referencing the previous coup of democratically elected Mosadeqq in 1953 that imposed the shah upon Iran. Everything we now dislike about Iran can be traced directly to that event.
The overthrow of the shah was a positive event, because it allowed Iranians to regain control of their country from the crutches of the British oil companies whose interests the shah represented.
I certainly do not believe in the Iranian theocracy, nor do a great many/most Iranians, but I do understand how it came to be.
In terms of regional stability, it is difficult to say. Having some sort of parity in power in the region is valuable, as it allows the areas that resist western imperialism to coalesce around a block. Lebanon, Syria, Hamas and some of Yemen; by having a champion, they can dare choose their own path.
The downside is however that it spurred more conflict by making those western powers more adamant in exacerbating the conflict in order to impose their will upon the whole of the region.
Think about this way, if saudi Arabia developed a backbone and refused to play along, the west would have no way into the middle east other than through Israel.
In terms of population, I have yet to meet a practicing Iranian Muslim. The only practicing Iranians I met were Christian. I don’t think Iranians are particularly religious. I suspect most are very lackadaisical in their practice.
They are also obviously held hostage by the Mullahs and the attached security apparatus. They however see it as something of a necessary evil. The 1953 coup and the Iran-Iraq war has created some sort of nationalistic fervor and attached paranoia that is reminiscent of the Israeli kind.
However, in spite of the sanctions against iran, the economy is pretty stable and people are relatively happy.
po – if the people of Iran are being held hostage by the mullahs, how can they be relatively happy? We have been told over and over that you cannot have happy hostages.
kenrogers
….clarity and directness are not always there in discussions with Ninian.
It may be the ol. “Two countries divided by a common language syndrome”.😊
If I may translate….Ninian is critical of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and has repeatedly said we “invaded the wrong country”.
He evidently feels that we should not have invaded Afghanistan, were Bin Laden was bases in the late 1990s into late 2001, but should have invade Pakistan instead, were he was ultimately tracked down ten years later.
The fact that the Taliban roled out the red carpet for Bin Laden, his followers, and hosted his training camps/base of operation is apparently not enough justification of the U.S. invasion for Ninian.
We need to invade Pakistan, I guess, or not invaded anybody and issued warrants for Bin Laden’s arrest.
I previously pointed out to Ninian that there could be “a failure to appear issue” by going with the arrest warrent route.
Anyway, I hope this “translation” helps you, and that I’ve accurately described/quoted Ninian’s positions.
Tom Nash: I must correct you. There wasn’t any evidence Bin Laden was in Afghanistan but Afghanistan was invaded on the pretext that Bin Laden was there.
He wasn’t
This is the basis for my stating that the wrong country was invaded. My language is plain English unadulterated by the width of the Atlantic Ocean.
I have never suggested that Pakistan should have been invaded but I do think that the circumstances around the invasion were odd in the Pakistani Police and Army did not investigate the gunfire. So I don’t think all is what it seems to be. And I don’t believe the Pakistani authorities didn’t know he was there. I think the opportunity to capture and interrogate Bin Laden was too good a chance to miss and that his killing was foolish. So I don’t think the truth has come out of this business.
The business of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq being able to be ready for delivery in 20 minutes was fraudulent and was the excuse for a disastrous war which created the ISIS Powerbase.
American Foreign Policy has been a disaster and has contributed to the complete destabilisation of the region and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. It has been a magnate for dissent and has brokered recruitment for ISIS and guerilla activity in Europe, USA Africa and Australia. There has been no attempt to understand the background to the problem; American ignorance is spectacular and is confounding the disaster. There is absolutely no insight into this from the American side as the body count mounts up at home and the government dishes more out if the same when years of fighting hasn’t achieved anything other than tarnish the American Image abroad. American and British Soldiers have been seen torturing prisoners and they have come out of this so far as anything but the good guys.
Now bombing is being escalated when a year’s bombing has done nothing to protect America from ISIS operatives already in the United States. It is the strategy of sheer stupidity and everyone knows it.
If you are going to fight a war you must fight to win, not just the military victory but for all the other things.
The degree of ineptitude is just mind boggling.
In the words of Sir Max Hastings a well known UK journalist the decision to bomb without a coherent strategy and ground troops support is “lunacy”.
And he is right…..
@ninianpeckitt
1, December 5, 2015 at 5:11 pm
“Ken Rogers: I can see you are unwilling or unable to understand anything I am talking about so I will terminate the conversation.”
In view of your unwillingness or inability to express yourself coherently or to even answer questions that would clarify your previous assertions, your decision to terminate the conversation is understandable and probably well advised.
Ken Rogers:
If you say so….
kenrogers2015
“Invading the wrong country looking for Bin Laden is a classic mistake…”
To what country are you alluding?
IRAQ
How is looking for “weapons of mass deception” a mistake or bad political choice, and by whom was it committed?
<Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al… it was just an excuse to invade Iraq. It was no mistake however, it was deception pure and simple. We are paying for it.
ninianpeckitt
1, December 5, 2015 at 3:59 pm
“There are those who will argue, for their own reasons that this is a conflict of civilisations, but it isn’t.”
This is what Dr. Paul points out in the video. What, then, is your disagreement with what he says in it?
“Invading the wrong country looking for Bin Laden is a classic mistake…”
To what country are you alluding?
How is looking for “weapons of mass deception” a mistake or bad political choice, and by whom was it committed?
Your responses to my original and follow-up posts seem to reflect your being quite unfocused, if not actually confused.
Ken Rogers: I can see you are unwilling or unable to understand anything I am talking about so I will terminate the conversation.
Yeah, it is confusing right now. I missed Tom’s questions until now, and it feels like we are holding different discussions at once.
Tom, will return to answer your questions.
hildeguard, my standard thing is to show that whatever we assign to one group, is commonly found in other groups. Some call it apologism, some call it moral equivalency, some call it justification…
I am very consistent in that view that when it comes to people, there is no black and white, everyone is various shades of grey, along with being responsible at different degrees.
Some here don’t like it, hence the abuse….
Why is the chronology of comments mixed up?
@Nick: “Why is the chronology of comments mixed up?”
In the past remarks appeared in chronological order.
Recently, in some cases, it appears a reply is placed immediately following the remark of interest – regardless of how many hours elapse before the reply is made.
Sometimes having the two remarks together makes it easier to follow the discussion, in other cases maybe not so much.
Of course it all might all be a random malfunction of the system. I will bet there somewhere is a sys admin who knows what is going on.
@JT
“Second, both he and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 27, dropped off their 6-month-old girl with his mother Wednesday morning, claiming he had a doctor’s appointment. So these two were willing to abandon their baby in some pursuit of paradise — attaining glory through the slaughter of innocents.”
Based on the evidence currently available, this strikes me as being more than a little presumptuous regarding the motivation(s) of the (alleged) perpetrators of this crime, and may reflect and certainly has the potential to reinforce the “war of civilizations” meme being promoted by those with a desire to politically and economically profit from that meme.
In the video below, Ron Paul addresses the genesis and implications of the meme:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/ron-paul-clash-civilizations/
Ken Rogers: Ron Paul demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding in this clip.
From an historical perspective the creation of a Caliphate and it’s Caliph is crucial in the understanding of recruitment to ISIS or to Islamic State. It is clear that he does not understand the significance of this and how it affects Islamic thinking.
If a Caliphate exists this becomes the global political Base for Islam and it’s Leader or Caliph has absolute control on the political direction of Islam. Muslims have a religious and political obligation to follow him and his instructions. This doesn’t work like a global democracy. Once the Caliphate exists with its Caliph Muslims are obliged to follow the policies made and this includes waging Jihad.
In this case however an educated Muslim majority have refused to cooperate and have called into question all sorts of issues. Clerics have pronounced that ISIS members are Kharijites (historically the ones who broke away to fight guerilla wars) and will not follow them for this reason.
I think it is clear that many Americans haven’t the first idea about this problem and this explains the really bad political choices of the past.
America needs to go back to school on this – and maybe then will start to formulate policies and strategies that have a chance of success.
Putting people on TV who haven’t the faintest idea of what they are talking about is not the answer…… but it improves the ratings.
@ninianpeckitt
“Ken Rogers: Ron Paul demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding in this clip.”
“In this case however an educated Muslim majority have refused to cooperate and have called into question all sorts of issues. Clerics have pronounced that ISIS members are Kharijites (historically the ones who broke away to fight guerilla [sic] wars) and will not follow them for this reason.”
Are you asserting, then, that notwithstanding the rejection of ISIS by “an educated Muslim majority” there is, contrary to what Dr. Paul says, a “war of civilizations” in progress?
You write, “I think it is clear that many Americans haven’t the first idea about this problem and this explains the really bad political choices of the past.”
What is “this problem,” what are one or two examples of “really bad political choices of the past,” and who made them?
Ken Rogers: The wars in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan are civil wars with Muslim fighting Muslim with input from allied forces. Western countries involved in the conflicts have been targeted. There are those who will argue, for their own reasons that this is a conflict of civilisations, but it isn’t. It’s another Islamic Civil War. The problem with American commentators is that many play to the audience in order to mould opinion rather than to objectively report the News.
As far as bad political choices are concerned I covered this in reply to Hildegarde. Invading the wrong country looking for Bin Laden is a classic mistake which takes some beating. Looking for “Weapons of Mass Deception” is another.
Po: There has always been tensions between Sunnis and Shias going back centuries and which still exist. There is no solution and their radicals will always engage in conflict from time to time.
Like the Protestants and Catholics who have been killing each other for centuries.
The West will use this friction to their political advantage whenever this is required and the Islamic groups will mirror this in return. This is the way of politics.
If American Muslims do not support America and do not demonstrate this I would predict serious public disorder in the same way that there was public disorder in the Islamic World when Westerner actions crated fury. This is what IS wants in order to consolidate their position as they see it.
Meanwhile the majority of people everywhere have no interest in politics and are manipulated by the few who do.
Les….My guess is that, ultimately, the U.S. will come to a decision about the lesser of two evils, from the viewpoint of which side poses the greater national security threats to the West.
I think ISIS, and possibly ISIS-friendly nations, will be targeted….it’s already underway, and I think the West will increase combat operations against ISIS.
les, the west has ALWAYS been engaged on the Saudi side. And before that on the Iraqi side.
The weapons of mass destruction we went looking for? Guess who helped Iraq build the program and use it against iran?
they are now betraying Assad as they betrayed Sadaam.
The sunni/shia is being used by the west to further its program to divide and conquer, the typical colonist skill.
Now we know that the forces that started the syrian revolution were supported by Saudi arabia, US and Britain.
We know now that turkey, a US ally, has been supporting ISIS through access, weapons and buying of the stolen oil.
roland Dumas, the French ex-foreign affairs minister says that as far back as 2006, the British told him they were present in Syria trying to foment a revolution.
Guess who is supporting Saudi Arabia’s burying on Yemen?
Without our constant involvement, supporting some against the others while selling weapons to both, the sunni/shia would not be the issue i is today.
The sunni/shia split has been and is today at the core of the several middle east conflicts. Syria and Ymen are the current side-shows. Ultimately Iran and its allies will engage with the Saudis and their allies. Should the west be involved (on the Saudi side) and for what reasons?
Po….when Khomeni took power in Iran in 1979, he urged the Shia majority in Iraq to rise up against Saddam Hussein.
This in turn caused Saddam to invade Iran…..I can’t claim to have a good knowledge of the history of the Shia-Sunni conflict, but it started well before the 1991 Gulf War.
You make my case, Tom. Khomeini, one man, a revolutionary, came to power and sought to change the status quo, which suggests the status quo was one of co-existence. Iraq, with a majority shia still was a peaceful, stable country.
Even during the Iran-Iraq war, the shia population in Iraq did not rise up, nor were they sectarian violence between the two groups.
So my point is not that there was never any tensions between the two (every 2 groups that claim divine truth will conflict), my point is the current divide has more of a political bent than a religious one.
The role of Iraq as western stooge against iranian influence is now manned by Saudi Arabia.
While Iraq, armed and supported by the west, had the means and ambition to engage directly iran. Saudi Arabia, even while armed and supported by the west, has neither the means nor the moral strength to engage Iran but by proxies such as isis.
Po….without question, Gulf War II and the removal of a fairly secular Iraqi dictator greatly accelerated the Sunni-Shia violence.
The assurances of many Iraqis, and Iraqi “experts”, that ” we are all Iraqis and will come together after Saddam” were obviously dead wrong.
But I did wonder why you did not mention the 1979 Khomeni takeover and the subsequent devastating Ian-Iraq War. That was a clearly a major factor in the regional Sunni-Shia conflict.
Po…do you view the overthrow of the Shah as a positive or negative development? In terms of regional stability, and in terms of the lot of the Iranian population?
*living…feels like bambam
BAM BAM post on Islamic “frustration” goes to the heart of the matter. He also said “Islam does not co-exist”. They apparently also have great difficulty negotiating, if ninianpeckitt’s history lesson on the schism between the two main branches of Islam is correct. When a person/group cannot live with an existing situation except in perpetual anger and cannot negotiate a solution, what do they do?. Nianpeckitt argues for western accomodation to Islam. In other contexts this is called submission. I do not think the US is ready for this solution although any western European countries, with Britain well in the lead, have taken this path. There is another. It is called exile.
We are so conveniently forgetting the fact that Shia and Sunnis have co-existed peacefully for most of their existence. Most of the middle east had shias and sunnis populaions leaving together and intermarrying. hard to find a family that doesn’t include both sides in it.
The current breach? traced directly to iraq invasion. we removed sunnis from power and elected shias and supported them in targeting sunnis. Al Qaeda came into the vacuum, followed by ISIS to fight shias.
saudi Arabia steps in to counter Iranian influence in Iraq (yes, we took Iraq away from sunnis and gave it outright to Shia iran…????)
No different from what Belgium did in Rwanda between the christian hutus and christian tutsis.
no different from what the british did in Ireland between christian catholics and Christian Protestants.
There is nothing specific to Islam that has not defined other groups/religions.
Po; I admittedly haven’t read all your posts, but what I have read doesn’t seem to warrant the kind of backlash you’re getting here.
Ron Paul in 1999: Blasts Clinton on Iraq and Wars, Predicts Terrorist Attack
People killing over religion is nothing new. It us our problem currently. Religion poisons everything.