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.
The mistake you make Tom, in my view, is that you are electing the revolution of 79 as the starting point of the timeline. it would be akin to starting the timeline of the Israeli -Palestinian conflict in 48, not in 44 and not including the holocaust..
And before 79, there was the forced exile of khomeni, from where he was creating the emotional and political atmosphere that would be concretized in 79.
it is true that without the revolution, perhaps Iran,and the world would be better off, but we cannot know that with any measure of certainty.
We can similarly argue that had the coup of 53 not happened, iran, and the world would be better off, which seems actually more likely.
The shah’s domestic and international policies would have caused a coup at some point, but by that time, all the resources of the country would have been given to the british for a song. And when the coup happens, the West would have gotten involved in order to protect their interest.
obviously I do not know, I can only go based on the lessons of history, which reveal that whenever a puppet leader is put in place, especially after a coup, there are great consequences to it.
I can say with some certainty however that had we not enforced sanctions on Iran for that long, the iranian society would have opened up to the west a great deal faster, and the Mullahs’ power would have eroded naturally.
And as for a baathist dictatorship alongside a secular dictatorship in Iran living peacefully side by side…I doubt it. As long as there are western interests to be built or protected in either country, it is unavoidable that those two would wage war against each other.
Additionally, the ONLy means of sustaining a dictatorship, whether religious or secular is to repress the population, to shut down any dissent and to respond harshly against pluralism, as we see in Saudi Arabia and in Syria. And it is unavoidable that oppression and repression would lead to revolution or civil war, as in syria and soon in Saudi Arabia.
regarding WMDs, all that we know is the official narrative, which is shadowed by the fact that, as revealed by those in the inside, the Bush heads knew there were no new WMD’s. None!
Even the torture program was put in place primarily to coerce someone into spilling non-existent beans.
.
Trying this one more time…
Mose Allison Trio 1968 ~ Everybody Cryin’ Mercy
Po, “hildeguard, my standard thing is to show that whatever we assign to one group, is commonly found in other groups.” Amen to that.
@Tom Nash
1, December 5, 2015 at 8:23 pm
“It seems inconsistent to me to approve the removal of one secular dictator… the Shah, then criticize the removal of another _Saddam- …when both removals were negatives with respect to regional stability.”
Tom, aren’t you overlooking the rather important difference that the Shah of Iran was overthrown by the Iranians, themselves, whereas Saddam was overthrown by a foreign government, the same foreign government, by the way, that had orchestrated the coup against the democratically elected leader of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, in 1953?
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/19/politics/cia-iran-1953-coup/index.html
Whoah! So many of my comments not showing up. What’s up with that, moderator?
I’m sorry but am I to believe that there are people here who believe the official Osama Bin Laden raid story? Oh my word, ya’ll have some real catching up to do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYYKaOIh9aw
Let me guess. Those who dispute this video either didn’t actually watch it or have something against the messenger or simply cannot imagine our government being capable of such fakery. As “luck” would have it just just about every other version of this video has been taken down.
“conspiracy theorist”; Someone who questions known liars.
Ken,it was me, I obviously knew it was not Iraq, happened that Iraq was on my mind.
When people usually refer to “invaded wrong country”, they mean Iraq…hence my mistake.
Just to clarify, I mistakenly entered”2009″ twice in reviewing the chronology of Bin Laden’s post 9-11 movements.
Obviously, that should be 2001, not 2009.
Po…..I think there were 3 major parts of the “recipe” for the current “Shia-Sunni conflict”, especially with respect to Iraq and Iran.
First, the Iranian Revolution of 1979. A secular dictatorship overthrown by an Islamic revolution.
There goes the Shah, there goes the period of stability in the Iraq-Iran area.
As I mentioned, Kohmeni’s call for a Shia uprising in Iraq motivated Saddam to attack Iran.
No need to review the details of that war.
An uneasy peace followed, then Saddam gets his head handed to him after he invades Kuwait, and refuses to leave.
He actually had sime face saving “outs” to leave Kuwait, and it was clear that Bush 41 was going to elect him militarily if he refused to leave.
So Saddam’s weakened, Kurdish and Shia uprisings are crushed, and Saddam acts like he win the Kuwait war.
By the mid-1990s, Saddam is jerking around the U.N. arms inspectors. Those incidents and the inspectors complaints are well kniwn and well documented, so I won’t list them here.
The U.N. inspectors pull out completely in 1998, I think. There are dire bipartisan warnings from Bill Clinton, later Sen.Hillary Clinton, many members of Congress, etc. about Saddam’s hidden WMDs, and his continuing WMD programs.
That was THE CONSENSUS until Gulf War II. There were widespread recriminations againsr Bush 41 for “not going to Baghdad and finishing the job”…..i.e., toppling Saddam’s regime.
The Senate vote authorizing Gulf War II was about 77-23, I think.
Virtually nobody challenged the belief that Saddam was hiding WMDs and WMD program’s…..I don’t think anybody seriously believed that Saddam would be friggin stupid enough to PRETEND that he had WMDs.
Bush 43 basically said to Saddam that “you have one final chance to comply with the inspections, and other U.N. resolutions he’d been violating.
Head inspector Hans Blix hedge about Saddam’s cooperation in the tenewed inspection….Bush said that’s it, we’re going in.
( I never doubted _then- that he had WMDs. I thought it was a mistake to invade because I did not believe that Bush, Cheney, Gen. Powell etc. had shown Saddam to be a major threat to U.S. national security…..there were VERY flimsy attempts to show possible Saddam-Al Queda links, etc.)
Many with more selective memories now say they” knew all along Saddam did not have WNDs” ……in fact, damn few people were saying that prior to Gulf War II. One need only kook at contemporaeneous statesments from back then to confirm this.
Now you’ve got A. The Shah Booted out in 1979, Saddam booted in 2003, and an occupation that can not control the sectarian violence Saddam’s removal unleased.
Where I disagree with you, Po, is your view that the Shah’s removal was a positive. In fact, I think subsequent events showed that the fall of the Shah’s selecular dictatorship was as key as the fall of Saddam’s regime in 2003.
It can’t be said with certainty that a continuing Shah( monarchy, Revzoni? line regime and a continuing Saddam/Bathist regime would have indefinately continued a relatively stable, peaceful, Iraq-Iran region.
But I look at what followed the Shah’s removal, then Saddam’s removal, and an ineffective post-Saddam occupation, as all being THE key factors causing the current mess.
It seems inconsistent to me to approve the removal of one secular dictator… the Shah, then criticize the removal of another _Saddam- …when both removals were negatives with respect to regional stabilty.
The positive results of tge surge, later pissed away, can be discussed sone other time.
@po
1, December 5, 2015 at 7:43 pm
“Ken, what are you missing in ninian’s posts, he seems clear enough to me…then again English ain’t my first, or second language.”
po, may I call your attention to the fact that, because of his imprecision in expressing himself, you thought ninnianpeckitt was alluding to Iraq when he asserted that “the US invaded the wrong country”? And when I asked him to specify what country he meant, he laughably accused me of being unwilling or unable to understand him.
I’ll leave it to you to decide how much responsibility you have for your mis-reading of his meaning, and how much he needs to take for expressing himself so ineptly.
That’s because Ken hasn’t realized yet you are always offbeat!
po – I don’t just have my own drummer, I have a whole damn orchestra.
No wonder, paul, makes a great deal of sense now, fire your conductor…
Ken, what are you missing in ninian’s posts, he seems clear enough to me…then again English ain’t my first, or second language.
po – it is clear then that you and ninian march to one drummer and Ken and I march to another.
Ken Rogers
1, December 5, 2015 at 6:36 pm
@ po
1, December 5, 2015 at 5:25 pm
Who ever claimed (besides you and ninnianpeckitt) that Iraq was invaded in 2003 for the purpose of finding Osama Bin Laden?
I stand corrected, ken, you are right. I said as much in the second part of that post.
But I do agree with ninian that OBL being in Afghanistan was the official narrative, however, we have no reason to believe that other than the fact the government said it..
@Tom Nash
1, December 5, 2015 at 5:42 pm
“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’.”😊
Tom, your offered explanation doesn’t account, I’m afraid, for his refusal to answer simple, clarifying questions regarding what he’s trying to say.
He just doesn’t seem to want to exert himself to clarity and coherence in his writing.
Paul C. Schulte
1, December 5, 2015 at 6:21 pm
po – Stockholm Syndrome is good for some but not all. So you are contending that all or most of Iran is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?
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Nope, am saying that only the 1% is free from stockholm syndrome, as they are the kidnappers.
we are all hostage to their policies and their hidden and open scheming.
Paul C. Schulte
1, December 5, 2015 at 6:17 pm
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.
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paul, the fallacy is found in the false equivalency between every priest has to answer for the pedophile priests and every Muslim has to answer for Muslim terrorists..
Had you said every christian has vs every Muslim has, or every priest vs every imam (whatever imams do)…but you didn’t.
Unless you are saying that every Muslim is the equivalent of every priest?????? Are the priests the ones committing the mass shootings on the christian side? I didn’t think so!
As for shariah law, how many honor killings happened here?
As for genital mutilations, how many happened here?
Fun trivia: more genital mutilation happens in Christian nations than in Muslim nations.
po – fun fact, you keep losing the thread.
hahahaha, Paul, spoken by the one who can’t seem to pin me.
Frustrating, eh?
these African guys, they have an answer for everything 🙂
Ninian….I’m not sure where some of your fantasies come from, or how strongly wedded you are to them.
Google “BIN LADEN MOVEMENTS AFTER 9-11”,IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN FACTS.
Ninian…..I found, then lost your most recent response to me. I’ll shuffle thru the 200+ comments here, and elsewhere if necessary.
I believe you said thar Bin Laden was not in Afghanistan on 9-11. He was in fact in Afghanistan, had been based there for years with the blessing of the Taliban, and was there at least into Nov. 2009.
From most indications, he was nearly trapped at Tor Bora in late 2009. This was a campaign issue in 2004, with Kerry saying repeatedly that Bush and the military blew it by over reliance on local warloads’ troops, and not calling in the 10th Mountain Division as the U.S. special forces at Tora Bora requested.
If you had different intel, you should have passed it on to the coalition forces.
Once he slipped the noose at Tora Bora, Bin Laden was thought to have crossed into Pakistan. For years, the consensus seemed to be that he was holing up in caves in the Warziristan area of Pakistan.
He was, of course, later found to be hiding in plain sight in the Pakistani town that had a stong presence of the Pakistani military.
Tom Nash
● I have not said anything about the whereabouts of OBL on 9/11
● There is no evidence he was in Tora Bora during the battle. It was tenuously alleged that he was heard talking on a radio. But they had to say something to justify the invadion, so why not that? That is the basis for the American case for him being in Afghanistan.
● There is evidence he lived in Pakistan following the invasion for around 10 years whilst the Americans searched caves in Afghanistan looking for him.
All that has happened is that America has invaded a country to find Bin Laden; didn’t; didn’t leave when they say they found him elsewhere; and made him a martyr in the eyes of Al Qaeda when they say they did find and kill him in Pakistan.
America has fought the longest war in its history in Afghanistan and has only achieved making the situation worse. Not slightly worse – but much worse.
If you look to history, Afghanistan has never been conquered. Not by the British in the nineteenth century in the so called “Big Game” for control of the North West Frontier, and not by the Russians in the 1970/80s.
So what makes America think it could do the business? Well it has to be a combination of inherrent self belief, arrogance, stupidity and miscalculation. Whatever it was, it has been a complete and utter disaster that in the end will see America and allies leaving the area with tails between their legs.
So the case I am making is that America invaded the wrong country, because the evidence points to Bin Laden living in Pakistan for at least 10 years post invasion. And that’s where they say they found him.
But what is strange is that he was not taken alive for interrogation and trial. What is strange if that US troops were on the ground for 40 mind and nobody came to see what was going on. Pakistani police and Army stayed in barracks despite one helicopter crashing and gunfire. This is not normal. The Pakistani authorities must have been in on what happened. They must have known OBL was there if not in their custody.
Same sort of situation in Iraq. No WMD invasion (brilliant initial military campaign by Norman Schwartzkopf saving thousands of allied lives). Second Gulf War Saddam toppled and rise of ISIS.
Civil War in Syria ignored by West. ISIS allowed to become powerful in region. West act in token gesture with totally inadequate strategic planning described as lunacy by informed critics.
Back home Americans talk about how the war was “won”….. How we “beat” Saddam and Al Qaeda and all the other stuff.
What planet are you from?
@ po
1, December 5, 2015 at 5:25 pm
Who ever claimed (besides you and ninnianpeckitt) that Iraq was invaded in 2003 for the purpose of finding Osama Bin Laden?
Bin Laden’s presence in Afghanistan was the official US Government excuse for invading that country, not Iraq, and that was despite the fact that the Taliban offered to turn him over to US authorities if the latter could provide evidence that Bin Laden had had a hand in the attacks on the US on 9/11/2001. No such evidence was ever provided, and when asked why Bin Laden wasn’t on the FBI’s 9/11 Wanted List, FBI spokesman Rex Tomb responded as late as June 5, 2006 that “The FBI has no hard evidence connecting Usama Bin Laden to 9/11.”
“http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13664.htm
The official excuse for invading Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed “weapons of mass destruction” (not of “mass deception”), as though that justified an invasion that was clearly illegal under international law. Many countries possessed weapons of mass destruction in 2003 (except for Iraq), but that would hardly have justified invading and occupying them, in the absence of an eminent threat from them to the invading country.
Ken Rogers needs to read my postings. I have not said the things he alleges. I used the term “weapons of mass deception” deliberately because it was a deception. It was the only means available to start military action. The American and British Public were delibetately misled. This war created a disaster of great magnitude and has destabilised the Middle East and the countries of the Western Allies. It was a crass and stupid decision that was completely avoidable. It has alienated America from potential allies and caused untold misery.
And many Americans are blissful in total ignorance of what has been done in their name.
po – Stockholm Syndrome is good for some but not all. So you are contending that all or most of Iran is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?