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Post by xyrn on Sept 30, 2014 21:33:53 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2014/10/01/us/oklahoma-man-charged-with-murder-in-beheading-of-co-worker.html?_r=0So this guy kills a co-worker but this time there is a twist. He didn't shoot up the place, he used a knife and he cut someone's head off, which is a much more 'up close and personal' kind of murder. Furthermore, he recently converted to Islam and had very violent things on his Facebook and I think another personal website, including an image of a different severed head, and this killing took place 3 days after an ISIS leader called for lone wolf attacks by radical sympathizers. I haven't read all the available stuff about this case, but my first kneejerk is that he wasn't doing this due to a political motivation, he rather had a personal gripe with a specific person and carried out his attack with what he had available and in a manner similar to recent terrorist acts, but that he isn't technically a terrorist. Now, the Ft.Hood shooter, that may be a little closer to what we generally think of as terrorism, but I think there was a large component of pure mental illness involved there. What I'm mulling over in thinking about this, is it better or worse to label some of these lesser defined acts as terrorism, does it muddy the waters or clarify the problem? Kind of like hate crime legislation, I mean, if I shoot you because you're such and such, does that make it worse than shooting you cause you stole my girl? Anyway, these are confusing times in which we live.
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Post by Village Idiot on Sept 30, 2014 21:55:13 GMT -5
It's a sad thing. There are crazy people who claim to be Christian, and there are crazy people who claim to be Muslim, while neither religion suggests anyone acting in any violent sort of way. The idea that the guy claimed to be a recent convert to Islam means nothing in terms of what he did or in terms of the stated religion. He's just nuts.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 30, 2014 22:07:50 GMT -5
Bullets and bombs make much more mess of people's heads but for some reason people are not so startled.
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Post by Russell Letson on Sept 30, 2014 23:20:08 GMT -5
What would the commentariat be saying if instead of ISIS videos he had been fascinated by slasher flicks and really violent video games? Or if, he had, say, a complete set of Dexter DVDs that had been played over and over?
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Post by xyrn on Sept 30, 2014 23:45:29 GMT -5
Those are all good points.
I think where some pundits and radioheads are getting off track is by somehow equating whether or not what this guy did was terrorism - with whether or not there is terrorism going on in the US.
Some I heard on the radio today were getting really hot and bothered when a caller stated that this wasn't terrorism - and going off on them saying that they were somehow a terrorism denier and that they have their head in the sand about the assumed fact that there is indeed terrorism on our shores.
I think that bombing an abortion clinic is terrorism.
Tim McVeigh was a terrorist.
The Boston Bombers, well, I don't know what their political aim was, but that, IMO, was terrorism.
This current guy? I think: Just plain nuts.
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Post by theevan on Oct 1, 2014 4:47:53 GMT -5
I suppose in his own mind it could have been some grand terrorist gesture.
In his own mind, mind you.
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Post by jdd2 on Oct 1, 2014 5:28:49 GMT -5
Some things I did in high school (and earlier) could now be classed very differently, probably with the words terror or terroristic included.
Once in the army, someone tossed a red smoke grenade in the company orderly room. (That kind of thing was just kind of bouncing around in the back of trucks.)
At mail call the next day, everything was pink. I think it melted some linoleum, too. They never did find out who did it.
The MPs also left their jeeps running just outside one of the restaurants on base. Someone grabbed one of those once and relocated it to another part of the base.
Beer was 10 cents/can then.
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Post by coachdoc on Oct 1, 2014 5:48:10 GMT -5
I in Stand on Zanzibar, they were called muckers. They had 'run amuck.'
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Post by fauxmaha on Oct 1, 2014 6:44:09 GMT -5
Remember when the nutjob shot the congresswoman in the head in Phoenix?
The national media went into a multi-day feeding-frenzy pinning his actions on Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, the Republican Party, the Tea Party, etc, all based on an absolute (to this day) lack of information that Loughner had ever read so much as a single "irresponsible, inflammatory" word from any of them.
Now this guy in Oklahoma (in a current-events context where the nation has just been brought back into war in Iraq based on two instances of radicalized, Western Islamists beheading Americans) beheads a woman in the precise same fashion. His writings are choc-a-block with radical Islamist stuff indistinguishable from that produced by the ISIS guys. He has second and third degree associations with some of the most dangerous radical Islamist leaders in the world. He has openly called for global jihad, etc, etc, etc.
And the national media narrative is either "workplace violence" or "lone nut-job".
As I said some years ago, its all a matter of who's ox is being gored.
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Post by millring on Oct 1, 2014 7:13:23 GMT -5
Bullets and bombs make much more mess of people's heads but for some reason people are not so startled. I would be surprised if there was even a sizable enough minority to count who didn't feel that the method of killing implied a difference of mind and barbarism. Yeah, dead is dead. We're not observing the result. We're observing the human behavior of the criminal. And we're honestly observing the huge difference in state of mind it would require to manually kill someone as opposed to pushing a button, or even standing off twenty feet and not "getting one's hands dirty". |
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Post by jdd2 on Oct 1, 2014 7:26:22 GMT -5
There are lots of diseases (w/deaths) that exceed the present ebola count. They're so common/ongoing, tho, that they don't make the news.
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Post by jdd2 on Oct 1, 2014 7:43:49 GMT -5
Bullets and bombs make much more mess of people's heads but for some reason people are not so startled. I would be surprised if there was even a sizable enough minority to count who didn't feel that the method of killing implied a difference of mind and barbarism. Yeah, dead is dead. We're not observing the result. We're observing the human behavior of the criminal. And we're honestly observing the huge difference in state of mind it would require to manually kill someone as opposed to pushing a button, or even standing off twenty feet and not "getting one's hands dirty". "Off with their heads!" |
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Post by jdd2 on Oct 1, 2014 7:58:17 GMT -5
A guillotine would allow you to stand off a ways (3 meters or much more) and just push a button. Not too different than those injection methods.
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 1, 2014 8:16:05 GMT -5
A guillotine would allow you to stand off a ways (3 meters or much more) and just push a button. Not too different than those injection methods. And that has a whole lot of relevance to a guy who uses a knife to cut off a woman's head in broad daylight. Nonetheless, thanks for the tip. |
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Post by Lonnie on Oct 1, 2014 8:35:13 GMT -5
In order for lone wolf attacks to achieve their intended purpose, we need to know why they were done in order for us to be filled with the proper sort of... well... terror. Lacking a statement of intent, this guy is not a terrorist.
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Post by RickW on Oct 1, 2014 8:49:05 GMT -5
I'm not sure it much matters what you call it. The only thing the term does is allow the media and the citizenry to run around squawking madly about terrorism.
It's not important. The important questions:
Did he have any contact with anyone in the terrorist organizations overseas, and are they recruiting people here?
Is he alone, or is there a group of them?
I'm pretty sure the fact that he had "recently converted to radical Islam", is something that police authorities are keeping a bit of an eye on, as much as they can. But being as you can't ban "radical Islam," as it has no real definition, you can't ban hate speech, you can barely push back on someone uttering threats, then what we have is an asshole who is going to be put away for the rest of his life, either in prison or a mental institution, or will be executed. They'll investigate the above questions, but the rest of what is going on is arm waving.
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Post by Hobson on Oct 1, 2014 9:22:54 GMT -5
Terrorist? He probably thinks that he is. And so he is. Nut job? Without a doubt. Unfortunately, violent nut jobs can identify themselves with "radical Islam" and somehow feel justified. But if he was really fighting for the cause, it would have been more public, not in the place where he just got fired.
(BTW, the congresswoman who was shot was Gabriel Giffords in Tucson, not Phoenix. A fair number of Republicans had crossed over and voted for her.)
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Post by mccoyblues on Oct 1, 2014 10:02:23 GMT -5
He's a nut job but the media likes to use the "terrorist" label because it makes it easier to sell the outrage. The 24 hour news media survives on sensationalizing the stories they cover. It's really easy to hate a terrorist, it's pretty hard to hate someone who's mentally unstable. They don't want us to feel anything but anger for the perpetrator.
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Post by Doug on Oct 1, 2014 10:23:28 GMT -5
Proper term for one who wants to change his government is revolutionary. Terror just being a vehicle.
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Post by Marshall on Oct 1, 2014 14:35:33 GMT -5
If he's a certifiable nut-job, . . . , can we make him a moderator of our forum ? ? ? ?
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