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?
IF the media would just tell the truth conservatives wouldn't get so mad.
"This part of the article is just plain dumb because it shows either that the author is twisting passages to suit his agenda or he just doesn't understand why the "sics" were used the way they were." I say it is the latter.
Correction: sltrib.com - 2/15/07
"Because of this need to isolate, these immigrants congregate into the low income areas of the West and take these areas over. The area of Salt Lake that the shooter lived in is low income and filled with gangs, drugs and so forth. This gives a Muslim an opportunity to find fault with the “wickedness” around him. Just the location that the Muslim chooses sets him up for dissatisfaction with the world around him. The isolation becomes more acute and the dissatisfaction grows; it is a vicious cycle.
As this young man grew up, he obviously spent his time of isolation reading the Qur’an."
At this point no one really has a definitive answer even to the shooter's motivation.
Certainly blasting innocent bystanders in a mall is an act of "terrorism"..I surely would have been scared out of my pants.
What is this "need to isolate" you speak of...???
You don't have to TRY to isolated in this country if you speak a foreign language, look different, or hail from a different culture.
Speaking from the standpoint of being of Polish descent, I can assure you that there have been times in this country when LEGAL immigrants haven't been treated very well....even if they made every effort to assimilate as my ancestors did.
Polish was not ALLOWED to be spoken in the home by the children and my aunts and uncles were all honor roll students and FIVE of my uncles on one side were in WWII simultaneously, etc.
Still, that didn't stop good ol' WASPish union thugs from beating up my uncles when they tried to feed the family. They weren't allowed INTO the unions and the ONLY job-seeking status they could have had was as "SCAB"s.
Fast forward to today...
With many foreigners feeling NO pressure to assimilate they simply stay isolated....no effort is required. Add to that the usual peer pressure situations for a teenager who's an "outsider" and you get alienation....or "alien nation"...but in any case the POSSIBILITY of "fitting in" is quickly stripped away. It's not very difficult to imagine a kid from such a set of circumstances being harassed until he felt it necessary to strike back.
That, of course, doesn't make it "right". But there are various explanations for his acts that need not include religion, the lack thereof, or membership in a sleeper cell.
Now, ALL of those things "could be" true...but are meaningless speculation at this point in time.
What I DO object to is both the government AND the media being too quick on the trigger to declare that "no terrorist connection" exists.
Remember the flight that went down shortly after 9-11...???
The wreckage wasn't even all located and the denials were on the air.
Same with the electrical grid failure in the Northeast.
Even MORE galling are the same sort of denials in situations where the perpetrator SAYS he's done it "for alllah" and STILL we're told there's no connection.
Secondly, I'm not so "sure" we "know" that this kid spent ANY time reading the Koran, in "isolation" or otherwise.
My point is that there's PLENTY of jumping to conclusions to go around on this one.
I do NOT, in ANY manner, "excuse" the shooter's acts.
It does run deep. In fact the leader of those Muslim Waffen-SS was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem - who had a nephew we knew as Yasah Arafat.
Let's look at this from the newspaper writers' side. It's certainly their option to edit the responses they're commenting on and correct simple spelling/grammatical mistakes. You can't tell me this is never done. The fact that they didn't edit and chose to use the "sic" makes it likely to me that it was their agenda to show the e-mail writers in as poor a light as possible, and it is perfectly legitimate for the author of the article to point this out.
The mufti of Jerusalem, Husaini (Arafats "uncle") had command of a waffen SS division made up of Albanian Muslims, which slaughtered about 40,00 Serbs and about 100,000 Jews from the region.
Then, Clinton goes and bombs the wrong side. You don't see meia and the anti-war left pointing out that atrocity and calling for America to get out of Bosnia.
Seems the RATS and media are completely on the side of Islamic jihad.
Bump for a later look
The writer is quoting emails...WRITTEN words, not spoken...and using the sics to note that the spelling and punctuation errors are as written by the original writer; not typographical errors introduced by the newspaper.
That is the one and proper use of sic.
The implied message of the article writer is that only poor spellers, who also do not use proper grammer and punctuation, think in such un-PC terms.
The usage of the sics is correct, but they also are used to send the more subtle message, in that the writer could probably have used other examples that did not need any sics added for publication.
Started a lot earlier, if you include Black Muslims of the "kill whitey" radical separatist persuassion.
Remember Malcolm X and his friends and imitators?
I vaguely remember that incident but couldn't find anything in a quick search.
Is there anyone here who can copy that video on the link at the tv station? I'm afraid the station will take it off before we can get it to as many Americans as possible. I've just emailed the link to everyone in may address book. Yelling “Allah-hu akbar” pretty much tells me what this guy was up to.
Sounds like to me that you need to study up on Islam and its beliefs. Taking a look at what is written about Islamic immigration in Europe will also be of great help to you.
I notice the pattern and the cycle because it is there and is cited by multitudinous writers in voluminous books that I have read on these subjects.
Case in point: Muslims do very little in their isolation than read or recite the Qur'an.
I'm just curious...
How do YOU know what this kid did or whether he was in fact "isolated".
You can hate whoever you want...I just ask that you DOCUMENT your "facts".
Furthermore, you OBVIOUSLY didn't read my entire post. I don't "need" any help. I believe anyone of Polish descent should be familiar with the history of oppression that culture has faced over the last several HUNDRED years.
You simply don't like being called upon to substantiate your glib position.
Oh, and it's no surprise to ME that folks like yourself are all "up to date" on European and Islamic history but know NOTHING of your own country in the 20th century. Like for instance how my family members were literally HUNTED HERE by German immigrants who thinly veiled their NaZi leanings.
All I'm saying is that you are NOT "sure" of this kid's background unless there's something YOU are not telling us.
Yes, they could be true, and possible if he was a normal immigrant.
Most normal immigrants never had a religious blood cult telling him to never befriend an infidel (Christian or Jew) and that Jihad was of utmost importance, a main pillar of Islam and his sworn duty and obligation. That if he didn't fulfill his obligation he was going to die a hypocrite and burn in hell forever.
Noble Qur'an:2:190 Footnote: "Jihad is holy fighting in Allah's Cause with full force of numbers and weaponry. It is given the utmost importance in Islam and is one of its pillars. By Jihad Islam is established, Allah's Word is made superior (which means only Allah has the right to be worshiped), and Islam is propagated. By abandoning Jihad Islam is destroyed and Muslims fall into an inferior position; their honor is lost, their lands are stolen, their rule and authority vanish. Jihad is an obligatory duty in Islam on every Muslim. He who tries to escape from this duty, or does not fulfill this duty, dies as a hypocrite."
I know all about the difficulties Polish/Ukrainian immigrants faced,(since I come from such a family) but we never lashed out shouting "allahU snak bar" shooting infidels. On the contrary, faith and the church community made life more bearable for the newcomers, and the children assimulated into the mainstream quite well.
Leftists are not "Anti-Religion", they are anti-Christian. They just use the claim of the establishment clause as a bludgeon over the head of Christianity. All other religions get a pass.
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