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Deseret News hits "ultraconservative" websites for suggesting Salt Lake shooting was jihad-motivated
JihadWatch.org ^ | 15Februrary 2007 | Robert

Posted on 02/15/2007 9:59:22 AM PST by NraFreedom

In "Vitriolic e-mails zero in on 'Muslim,'" Elaine Jarvik and Deborah Bulkeley in the Deseret Morning News (thanks to all who sent this in) do not deign to consider the possibility that the Salt Lake mall shootings were jihad-motivated. Instead, the onus is on those with the poor taste to suggest such a thing:

On ultraconservative Web sites like littlegreenfootballs.com, the story of Monday's shooting rampage at Trolley Square has been reduced to one fact: "Salt Lake City Killer Was a Muslim." "Ultraconservative" = "bigoted, racist, evil."

"The media did everything they could to avoid mentioning it, but it's confirmed today that the mass murderer who terrorized a mall in Salt Lake City was a Bosnian Muslim," reads the intro at littlegreenfootballs.com. That's simply a statement of fact. Most news stories about the shooting don't mention this.

At MichaelSavage.com, the Muslim connection is a running-banner headline. At jihadwatch.org, the story begins "Sudden Jihad syndrome? Maybe."

Maybe, i.e., possibly, not certainly. But will Elaine Jarvik and Deborah Bulkeley consider that possibility, and look at other cases in which evidence pointing in this direction has been discounted? Of course not. To do so would be "ultraconservative."

The online stories, as well as Tuesday's and Wednesday's stories in the Deseret Morning News, have resulted in a barrage of vitriolic e-mails to the News from people either angry at the paper for not mentioning the religion of shooter Sulejman Talovic in Wednesday's Web edition, or certain that because Talovic is Muslim that he must be a terrorist. See? Only angry, vitriolic people think this way, and rush to certainties where no certainties can be found. Oh, and never mind that "maybe" at Jihad Watch. Let's sweep it aside with a flood of "vitriolic emails."

There is no record that Talovic attended any of the mosques in the Salt Lake area, according to both Tarek Mosseir, a spokesman for the Islamic Society of Greater Salt Lake, or Bobby Ravish of Muslim Forum. Mosseir noted that many Bosnian Muslims are more secular than religious. "Having lived under Soviet Union rules for decades, where religious freedom was not an option, a majority of these people" are not practicing Muslims, he added. "What I hear is that he came a couple of times at most, to Eid prayers, but I can't confirm that he came."

"There is no record" that he attended. "He came a couple of times at most." Even if these men are telling the truth, this doesn't establish what Elaine Jarvik and Deborah Bulkeley want it to establish. It is unfortunately possible that he could never have gone to the mosque at all and still be jihad-motivated. Consider, for example, that an Al-Qaeda manual directs operatives to "avoid visiting famous Islamic places (mosques, libraries, Islamic fairs, etc.)." Am I suggesting that Talovic was an Al-Qaeda operative? No, I am not. I am suggesting that it is at least a possibility that someone planning a jihad attack would avoid the local mosque.

Although Salt Lake City police have not yet established a motive for the shootings, a handful of Bosnian refugees were verbally harassed at their workplaces on Wednesday, according to the Utah Consortium of Multicultural Groups. Local police report no incidents of violence against Bosnian or other refugees. Here we have the predictable shifting-of-focus which has occurred after countless jihad attacks: from Muslim-as-mass-murderer to Muslims-as-victims. Several people were shot dead in the mall, but never mind that: some Muslims were "verbally harassed"!

"Why dont (sic) you guys just come out and say this was a terrorist attack because he was MUSLIM," wrote one e-mailer to the Deseret Morning News. "There is no doubt in my mind that this young man was carrying out Islamic jihad," wrote another. And another: "Why is it that when I heard about a mall shotting (sic) I thought — Muslim? Sure enough. Are you people in Utah that clueless?" Note the "sics." The message here is that only idiots could possibly think this way.

"He was a Muslim terrorist and you know it you deceitful, cowardly liar," wrote a man with "MD, PhD" after his name. Why, how absurd! How could a right-wing Islamophobic bigot possibly be a doctor with a PhD!

"Welcome to my world," said Ibrahim Hopper, communications director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C., about the angry e-mails. "I get tons of it every day." At least we get your name right here, Mr. "Hopper." Anyway, note that Elaine Jarvik and Deborah Bulkeley show no sign whatsoever of looking into the background of Mr. Hooper's organization.

Anyway, the bottom line is this: in light of the fact that there have been several attacks similar to Talovic's committed by Muslims in the last year, as I detail here, and that in each case authorities have discounted the possibility. All I am asking is that the possibility that such attacks are motivated by the jihad ideology, even in the absence of an institutional connection to a group like Al-Qaeda, be duly considered. Is that too much to ask?


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; US: Utah; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: jhadi; muslim; trolleyjihadislam
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To: Earthdweller

No, but my OLDER uncle went down with a razor blade inserted in his shoe the next day.

THAT guy was "lucky".

The OTHERS got a visit from some old ITALIAN family friends.

My Mom used to work [10 years old] for a "rich" family down the block who ALWAYS seemed to have enough, even in the depression. Nobody ASKED. One time [this was before air conditioning] she was paid to wave a fan [like cleopatra] over a body at a wake.....got to take the scraps home.

Italians had GREAT wakes.

TRUE stories.


121 posted on 02/15/2007 4:41:37 PM PST by JB in Whitefish
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To: Earthdweller

I would agree with much of what you say.

However, ""America was founded by the original liberals!""

I think you meant "radicals".

Which is where I fit into the spectrum.

I have my own reasons for being there, but oddly...it's been that way since I was in High School. I don't know if renegade=radical, but in my case BOTH are true.

Most people are LUCKY not to really know what the "mean streets" are like. I'm NOT asking anyone to "envy" me for having had the experiences I've had. I just don't claim to be toeing any "party" line or to fit neatly in the typical pigeon hole mentality many employ in order to make sense of what is actually quite chaotic more often than "calm".

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty." –Thomas Jefferson

I have NEVER had the luxury of a calme or "timid" existence.


122 posted on 02/15/2007 5:08:03 PM PST by JB in Whitefish
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To: drpix

Thank you for your efforts. I have heard those words in so many different video and audio clips that I picked them out. Thank you again.


123 posted on 02/15/2007 5:09:48 PM PST by NraFreedom (Mr. Clinton, and John Kerry, should be charged, convicted and shot for the crime of Treason.)
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To: drpix

Please feel free. I am too new to the site to be able to do all of that. I do not care who gets the credit; you may as well have it since you did the work. I must get some software that does what you did. I still need to learn how to post it all on here and that will take time.


124 posted on 02/15/2007 5:13:14 PM PST by NraFreedom (Mr. Clinton, and John Kerry, should be charged, convicted and shot for the crime of Treason.)
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To: Plutarch
I understand your reasoning; however, you will find that Islam is a religion that claims the only way to get the true meaning of the Qur'anic text is in Arabic. The whole religion is practiced in Arabic. Hence, the Arabic words being used when one is about to die. Allahu Akbar means literally "Allah be praised;" but, it is also the war cry of Islam, used when attacking for Allah and Mohammad His Messanger.
125 posted on 02/15/2007 5:21:22 PM PST by NraFreedom (Mr. Clinton, and John Kerry, should be charged, convicted and shot for the crime of Treason.)
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To: NraFreedom

Correction: the meaning of Allahu Akbar is "God is Great."


126 posted on 02/15/2007 5:22:58 PM PST by NraFreedom (Mr. Clinton, and John Kerry, should be charged, convicted and shot for the crime of Treason.)
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To: JB in Whitefish

Sounds like Polish-good, Italian-bad, huh?

But I bet you don't have any bias or anything like that...


127 posted on 02/15/2007 5:47:56 PM PST by editor-surveyor
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To: editor-surveyor

I think your reading comprehensive skills need remedial treatments.

It was, by the way, largely IRISH union goons that were causing the problems.


You got a PROBLEM wit dat...???


I don't.

I wasn't even BORN at the time.


128 posted on 02/15/2007 8:35:12 PM PST by JB in Whitefish
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To: Nathan Zachary

They are.


129 posted on 02/15/2007 8:58:23 PM PST by sport
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To: Beckwith

Good post thanks


130 posted on 02/15/2007 11:37:46 PM PST by Steve Van Doorn (*in my best Eric cartman voice* ?I love you guys?)
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To: JB in Whitefish
"I have NEVER had the luxury of a calme or "timid" existence."

My family on my father's side is French. They came here before the Revolution. I'd say after the bell tower incidences things looked pretty rosie for that line. My mother's Irish side is a different story. They came here during a famine to the port of New Orleans during a pandemic just before the Civil War. Worked as stone masons for "the man"...after that, a long line of hard laborers and police officers. All the while the woman taking second jobs like doing people's laundry to make ends meet. In my Irish Great-grandfather's time, there were many "brawls" from what I understand between those competing for the few good jobs. They made it through the depression because one of the cousins owned a butcher shop and he would give the family the parts no one wanted.

That line did not move out from the inner city until the 70's. I was the first one from that line to obtain a college degree. Although my father's side was afforded a "traditional" life with most of the amenities provided to the first families from the beginning of the founding of the country, my mother's was not.

The kicker...my Dad died when I was two and left my mother with myself and my brother to raise on her own.

I had to work to pay for my education because no one was afforded to me. I worked and paid for ALL my children to attend college....and now they are business owners and professionals as well.

The moral of the story...don't tell me you are a rarity in that you had it rough. There are many of us here that have pulled ourselves up from our bootstraps and will be damed if anyone will ever take it away from us!!..the left just doesn't want their sheeple to know about it.

131 posted on 02/15/2007 11:58:29 PM PST by Earthdweller (All reality is based on faith in something.)
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To: Earthdweller
Oh and the icing on the cake for all you leftist lurkers...I'm a woman with a loving Christian conservative husband who treats me like a queen!

Take that to the bank and chew on it you Anti-Christian, New York Times loving feminazi bigots!

132 posted on 02/16/2007 12:42:17 AM PST by Earthdweller (All reality is based on faith in something.)
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To: Earthdweller

I never SAID I "was a rarity"...and several OTHERS have attempted to express their hatred through my mouth.

I was merely trying to illustrate how rough and tumble or truly GRITTY life was right here in the good ol' US of A....

There's a video here:

kutv.com/video/?id=23459@kutv.dayport.com

Of the dazed and confused parents of the shooter. Man, they sure look darn tootin' like theyz a buncha frikkin' murderin moose limbs....or not. I think a lot of people who have posted on the various threads need to compare the REAL WORLD reaction of those involved before they go on expounding on how righteous their existence is and how rotten others are to them.

I'm wondering just how many of the tough-talking posters here who have tried to run me off have actually ever killed anyone. The reason I'm asking is that I'm hearing what I'd imagine would come from the mouths of a lynch mob....and that's a mighty scary proposition.

I only told a smidgeon of my family's personal history to illustrate how the magical melting pot that everybody imagines rarely existed anywhere, any time, any place here.

I wish I could show you the old photos of my Mom's siblings [[14 children] standing there in the depression wearing raggedy hand me downs....she went from selling apples from their farm on street corners to being a "numbers runner" [not a joke] to to playing in an all-girl band at USO performances for returning severely wounded soldiers in WWII...she was in high school then and FIVE of her brothers were in the European theater simultaneously. The girls were choking back their tears, but were told just to play on, give it their best, and to "look pretty" for they guys being unloaded on stretchers with various portions of their bodies missing.

...to my knowledge, not a SINGLE person in my family...and, it's HUGE....ever has referred to themselves as a "Polish-American"......so, SPARE me the lectures.

USN veteran, 1967-70


133 posted on 02/16/2007 1:30:11 AM PST by JB in Whitefish
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To: NraFreedom
Nothing like liberals being in denial about the Religion Of Peace. They're still in denial about 9/11.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

134 posted on 02/16/2007 1:43:32 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: JB in Whitefish
"I'm wondering just how many of the tough-talking posters here who have tried to run me off have actually ever killed anyone. The reason I'm asking is that I'm hearing what I'd imagine would come from the mouths of a lynch mob....and that's a mighty scary proposition."

What a load of crap......because people express on a forum on the Internet that this was most likely a Muslim who did this they are the equivalent to a lynch mob?

I don't know what planet you are on but there is not, nor will there ever be any virtual hangings.

There have not been any lynchings in this country in decades, but believe me...if this person had not been killed at the scene and had done this horendous thing in most any other country in the world the chances of there being a real hanging by a mob would have been ten times greater.

Your slamming of this country is sickening. How you can feel so sorry for yourself and call yourself a conservative is beyond me.

Why don't you take your whining and USA bashing over to DU where someone might appreciate it?

135 posted on 02/16/2007 2:52:12 AM PST by Earthdweller (All reality is based on faith in something.)
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To: JB in Whitefish
Oh and here is a little bit more of history for you troll...

WASP stands for White Anglo Saxson PROTESTANT. The Irish here were and are 90% Catholic. Have a nice day.

136 posted on 02/16/2007 3:25:40 AM PST by Earthdweller (All reality is based on faith in something.)
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To: Vaquero; brityank; All
As it turns out, Allahu Akbar is shouted in two places on this video. The video has a timer on it. At location 1:38 (one minute thirty-eight seconds) or 1:39 the terrorist shouts the Islamic war cry three times (you only hear Allahu of the third time; the Akbar part is covered by a gunshot). At location 1:47 The same voice shouts the war cry once or twice more.

The funny thing about this is that I originally heard it the second time but was not sure. In fact I entered this in my daily journal for yesterday:

KUTV Channel Two local CBS affiliate here in SLC released a video taken by a person hiding in a gift shop inside of Trolley Square during the shootout with the shooter. I listened to it very closely and found the Islamic war cry, Allahu Akbar repeated three times. There are more gunshots and then I thought I heard the war cry another two times; however, I was not sure about the last two times.

Now, others have heard both times in their listening to the tapes; and, I said nothing to anyone about the second war cries! People have been kind enough to use audio editing software to buffer and clean the audio up and have heard it. Many have heard the fist time it is shouted, but few have heard the second time.

The end of the whole matter for me is that it was on the tape and it was not just me thinking I heard it. I really did hear it

137 posted on 02/16/2007 1:41:08 PM PST by NraFreedom (Mr. Clinton, and John Kerry, should be charged, convicted and shot for the crime of Treason.)
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