It's plausible, and I do believe the ties should be looked into. I just don't consider it very likely, and some of the rhetoric coming from earlier in this thread - that we should kick all the Muslims out, etc, seems a little excessive given that there's zero subsantiated evidence pointing toward terrorism.
Get your head out of the sand! Remember Sept. 11!
All Muslims that are in this Country illegally should be deported and those here legally, should be investigated.
If we learned anything from last year, we should limit access to this Country. Americans should be protected first!
It's absolutely POSSIBLE it's Muslim terrorism. And it's absolutely possible it's some white redneck who really likes guns. Or possible it's something completely different.
My problem with MOST of the Muslim terrorism theorists is that they're "concluding" it's a Muslim terrorist, or that it "has to be" Al Quaeda. And they seem almost offended that any other possibility could be considered.
And they'll say "after my extensive analysis, blah blah blah, it clearly is Al Queda." What bothers me is that they won't admit the MAIN portion of their analysis is that they WANT it to be Al Queda...DESPERATELY WANT it to be. I have, however, actually seen a couple people in threads openly SAY they want it to be Muslim terrorism...that's at least to their credit.
It's sort of like the mainstream media; it's not that they're biased to the left that so bad, it's that they won't admit it.
Actually, there are two biases at work here; wanting it to be Muslim terrorism, and REALLY wanting it not to be a non-Muslim white guy who likes guns and shooting; I think a lot of FR posters are more terrified of the shooter being a person like that...like Thomas Dillon, and the media coverage that would ensue if the shooter turned out to be such a person...than of the shooter killing more people.
If one clears one's mind of biases, and looks at the evidence objectively and THEN try to form a conclusion, it's impossible to say with any confidence at all whether it's Muslim terrorism at all. But we've seen literally thousands of posts where people reach their conclusion FIRST that it's AL Quaeda, then they "mine" or even fabricate any evidence they can find to support their conclusion. That's backwards thinking.
You have a very short memory. Is 9/11 not enough reason to start deporting Moslems in serious numbers? Not the Cole? Not the embassy bombings? Not the LAX shooting? Not the shooting of the Marine in Kuwait? Not the bombing of the French oil tanker, nor the earlier likely sabotage at a fertilizer plant in Toulouse? Not the bombing in Bali? It that not warning enough? We have to wait until we convict one or more Moslems of this sniper attack, and attacks outside our borders don't count?
The POINT of deporting as many Moslems as possible is to prevent these kinds of attacks by reducing the supply of terrorists and their support networks. Prevent. Not respond to. PREVENT.
Think about how we can PREVENT or reduce the impact of the next attack. Oh no! By your reasoning, we should just wait.
Oh, and to anticipate your response, the Amish have not been active terrorists overseas, either.