Syed Rizwan Farook was looking for a wife. On at least two online sites, he posted details for prospective brides. “Religious but modern,” he apparently wrote on one. He made a point of noting his American citizenship on another.
How he ultimately made contact with Pakistan-born Tashfeen Malik remains unclear. But family members said Farook traveled to Saudi Arabia, where Malik was living, and that they returned to Southern California as a couple and began a life in quiet Redlands, an area of ranch houses and once lush lawns now browned by drought.
Wednesday morning, they dropped off their 6-month-old daughter with Farook’s mother, according to family members. Sometime around midday, police say they donned masks and armed themselves with assault rifles and handguns before storming a holiday party hosted by the county health agency where Farook worked. At least 14 people died. Hours later, 28-year-old Farook and 27-year-old Malik were dead by police gunfire just two miles from the massacre site.
It certainly sounds like Farook was radicalized. That sure didn’t take long. He wanted a woman who was religious but modern. I struggle to understand why someone wants us dead because of Allah. It makes no sense.
Details about the lives and views of the two suspected assailants are still incomplete. But as authorities stitch together the events surrounding the latest U.S. mass shooting, two disparate portraits emerge — one of American suburban stability and the other of immigrant reinvention — that seem to intersect somewhere in the Pakistani diaspora.
Also still puzzling investigators is what drove the two suspected attackers to turn the holiday party into a killing zone. It is extremely rare for a mass shooting in America to have multiple perpetrators — and even more so for one of them to be a woman.
“We have not ruled out terrorism,” said San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan.
Ya think? What does it take to call out something as terrorism? I believe the spree killing at Planned Parenthood was terrorism. I believe we also don’t know the motivation of many of the spree shooters because they do suicide by cop before we can interrogate them as to motive.
According the Crime Library:
According to the United Nations Security Council, terrorism is described as “any act intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act”. But what are the actual components of terrorism? There are several aspects involved:
Fear: This is perhaps the most crucial factor. The goal is to strike terror into the minds of a victim. Terrorism is often thought of as a psychological warfare because it is done to intimidate people and cause them to cooperate out of fear of further retaliation. That is why terrorist acts tend to be done on a large scale – to impact as many people as possible.
Violence: The threat of harm or death is an essential factor in terrorism. The danger presented is most often to people and property. Most incidents of terrorism at least involve the possibility of a significant loss of life.
Political or Religious Cause: Some people argue that terrorism is done strictly for political reasons. The overthrow of current leadership or the destruction of a political enemy is commonly at the root of a terrorist attack. Many feel that terrorism is often motivated by religious beliefs as well. Militant groups who believe that other religions are heretical may use violence to try and destroy their followers.
Civilian Targets: Unlike in standard warfare, terrorism is generally aimed at civilian targets. This is one of the reasons fear is so involved, the general populace is not safe from a terrorist attack. The goal is to send a clear message that the political or religious beliefs of the people will not be tolerated, and to motivate their leaders to succumb to the demands of the terrorist organization
It sounds like many of our recent shooting sprees certainly fill the bill and are indeed terrorism. What do you all think?
Yes I think both San Bernadino and Colorado were acts of terrorism, one Islamic and the other Christian.
I agree but I am not willing to say that Mr. Dear was a Christian. He was mean as a snake and mistreated animals and people. He was a redneck thug terrorist who quoted scriptures but didn’t live them.
@Starryflights Did Mr. Dear identify as a Christian? Did he yell something about killing in the name of Christ, something like the Muslim “Allahu Akbar”? Has anyone in his circle said anything about him even going to church? I might have missed something.
What actual evidence led you to that conclusion? Just curious.
About a week ago or so, they had one of their almost routine weekends in Chicago courtesy mostly of the street gangs on the Southside and Westside. 7 dead and a couple dozen wounded, as I recall. No word that the Chicago perps might be Muslim or practicing Christians. Probably atheists. What do you think, Starry?
You dare not use the words “radical Christian terrorist” in describing Mr Dear. You have your own brand of political correctness. I agree with Moon. Dear is no more a Christian than Farok is a Muslim.
My, my.
Says Mr Magoo.
Touchy today, aren’t we?
Say, I’ll bet that, if we did a study of ALL murders in this country during any selected period of time, we would find that a totally overwhelming percentage of them were committed by people who have no belief whatsoever in The Creator or probably just don’t care. Sounds politically correct to me.
I wonder if such a study has been done. That actually is a very interesting question. However, I understand that most people undergo some sort of religious experience once in prison.
Wolve, snoop around and see what you can find out about this question in your internet travels.
Come to think of it, that would also encompass most (but not all) of the international terrorist groups I went head to head with back in the day. They were Marxist.
But, whatever you do, don’t say anything about Muslims which might be construed by some bureaucrats in the bowels of the DOJ as being an “edge” toward anti-Muslim violence. No official list has been issued yet with specifics on banned words or expressions, so you have to be extra careful lest the Attorney General Lynch mob descends on you with a warrant and cuffs.
Do you really think that the United States should be singling out various religions to go toe to toe with, based on the religious content of those practicing the religion? That is a real slippery slope. Cuidado. Its that rascally establishment clause that always makes us tread a little lightly here.
Well, now, it looks like the late female terrorist in the San Bernardino attack was vetted for a K-1 “fiancee” visa by the FBI and DHS. The media is now reporting that she gave a fake home address in Pakistan (ABC News) and that she was connected to the “Red Mosque” in Islamabad, one of the most notoriously radical mosques in Pakistan (Daily Mail). But, by golly, she was vetted by the USG.
Here you go:
For Robert Dear, Religion and Rage Before Planned Parenthood Attack
CHARLESTON, S.C. — The man she had married professed to be deeply religious. But after more than seven years with Robert L. Dear Jr., Barbara Micheau had come to see life with him as a kind of hell on earth.
By January 1993, she had had enough. In a sworn affidavit as part of her divorce case, Ms. Micheau described Mr. Dear as a serial philanderer and a problem gambler, a man who kicked her, beat her head against the floor and fathered two children with other women while they were together. He found excuses for his transgressions, she said, in his idiosyncratic views on Christian eschatology and the nature of salvation.
“He claims to be a Christian and is extremely evangelistic, but does not follow the Bible in his actions,” Ms. Micheau said in the court document. “He says that as long as he believes he will be saved, he can do whatever he pleases. He is obsessed with the world coming to an end.”
On Friday, according to officials, Mr. Dear entered a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, killing three people and wounding nine others with a semiautomatic rifle. The attack, which ended with his surrender to the police after a harrowing nationally televised standoff in the snow-dusted Western city, was a brutally violent and very public chapter in a life story whose details are not fully known.
But in court documents and interviews with people who knew Mr. Dear well, a picture emerges of an angry and occasionally violent man who seemed deeply disturbed and deeply contradictory: He was a man of religious conviction who sinned openly, a man who craved both extreme solitude and near-constant female company, a man who successfully wooed women but, some of them say, also abused them. He frequented marijuana websites, then argued with other posters, often through heated religious screeds.
“Turn to JESUS or burn in hell,” he wrote on one site on Oct. 7, 2005. “WAKE UP SINNERS U CANT SAVE YOURSELF U WILL DIE AN WORMS SHALL EAT YOUR FLESH, NOW YOUR SOUL IS GOING SOMEWHERE.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/us/robert-dear-planned-parenthood-shooting.html?_r=0
The man certainly considered himself a Christian
Albeit a very bad example of one.
Thanks, Starry.
Based on this NYT article, I would say not only a “bad example” but an outright fake and mental case who would have been expelled from any Christian church I have ever known.
Do churches really expel people? I thought their job was to minister to the worst of the worst. I think this guy was maybe not the worst of the worst but just bad to the bone.
I agree. He certainly isn’t my idea of a good Christian.
What I am concerned about is how Lynch and Company think they have the power to define words and expressions which they believe “edge” toward violence. Openly advocating violence against another person or group certainly warrants acute legal attention. But what is the definition of “edge,” and who gets to try to ask the courts to nullify the First Amendment? I call that a “slippery slope.” Actually, I am hoping this is just another poorly considered comment by someone in this administration and not some DOJ excuse for going after media, blogs, blog posters, and tweeters who disagree strongly with policy.
Also makes me wonder how Louie F. of the Black Muslims gets away with openly calling for a Black army to go out and kill Whites. Maybe AG Lynch should be asked some pointed questions in her next press conference.
I don’t understand why Louie F keeps coming up in conversation. I am sure he is watched like a hawk. He steps up to the edge, I will agree. But you can’t arrest on incendiary language. I think he is a toad puke but to my knowledge, he doesn’t actually do anything illegal.
Why are you spending any time on him at all?
BS
@Moon-howler
Louie F per se is not the point. Nor is it whether violent action has actually been taken. The point is AG Lynch promising US Muslims that DOJ would go after anyone who tends in public speech to be edging toward anti-Muslim violence. So, a question one has to ask is why Louie F’s public speech not long ago calling for an army of Blacks to kill Whites is not found to be an “edge” toward violence. Bit of a double standard, I would say.
I can’t answer that question for 2 reasons. I don’t know what Louie has said. I don’t listen to him. Secondly, I don’t know that DOJ doesn’t have him under surveillance. I would think that they would.
@Starryflights
I agree. Louie is BS.