Propaganda. I’ve noticed a trend with those type shows where if we could only just discard civil liberties we’d have the sonovabitch that’s clearly guilty as sin nailed inside the first five minutes.
2 Likes
how about: OMG PEOPLE ON A WATCHLIST CAN’T GET ON A PLANE, BUT CAN OWN MULTIPLE DEADLY FIREARMS?!!??!
there’s cognitive dissonance here, but BB isn’t the source, just the receiver.
8 Likes
Something to consider. It’s not a gun thing, it’s a Saudi born, Wahhabism thing:
#1 According to the Director of the FBI, Mateen had “links to al-Qaida, Hezbollah, and the Islamic State“.
#2 Mateen’s father has openly expressed support for the Taliban on YouTube.
#3 Despite those links to terror organizations, Mateen was allowed to work “as a security guard at a local courthouse“.
#4 Mateen wasn’t directly hired by the courthouse. Instead, he was officially an employee of the largest security services company in the world.
The Orlando nightclub terrorist who pledged allegiance to ISIS worked almost a decade for a major Department of Homeland Security contractor, raising alarms that ISIS sympathizers and agents have infiltrated the federal agency set up after 9/11 to combat terrorists.
Officials say Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, an Afghan-American who held two firearms licenses and a security officer license, was employed by the security firm G4S Secure Solutions USA Inc. since Sept. 10, 2007. The Jupiter, Fla.-based company merged with the Wackenhut Corp. after 9/11 and assumed federal contracts.
#5 It turns out that this U.S. subsidiary of G4S is a company that works very closely with “the Department of Homeland Security, the US Army, and federal and local law enforcement.”
http://www.infowars.com/clinton-renews-attack-on-second-amendment/
#6 Mateen’s ex-wife says that he would repeatedly beat her while they were married.
Maybe some one here should learn to journal fact; not opinion. Would you like me to help you dive into Wikileaks?
The main area of concern RE: the FBI is that they seem to be falling into the “If everyone is ‘known to the FBI’, the fact that someone is ‘known to the FBI’ means nothing” trap.
It isn’t clear that they missed anything(though why a guy whose first marriage dissolved because of domestic violence sailed past G4S background checks and weapons permitting processes is a more troubling question…) related to ‘terrorism’; and it’s not like you need an international network and some shadowy sponsors to afford a killing spree; but one gets the impression that “Known to the FBI; but not in a way that leads anywhere” is something that you can probably just assume about such a large group of people that the FBI’s focus cannot be being helped.
2 Likes
As someone who knows practically nothing about Islam… That still doesn’t make sense.
Hezbollah is Shi’a. ISIS and Al-Qaida are Sunni. From what I’ve heard, those guys hate each other, and have inflicted much more damage on each other than either has on the West.
8 Likes
Don’t doubt it for a second.
Those who shoot other humans are no more representative of gun owners than the Orlando shooter is representative of Muslims.
2 Likes
Because G4S are comically incompetent and always have been.
4 Likes
No argument there; though apparently this level of ineptitude wasn’t expected, with a 5% drop in share prices after the news emerged that their hiring practices continue to be exemplary.
1 Like
It’s safe to say that we’re all very thankful nobody limited his access to firearms
The violent bigot wasn’t bright enough to understand the ideology that he had found to justify his hatred. Not very surprising, really.
2 Likes
I dunno… those guys were all sort of well educated, upper middle class, engineers, no? Do you think there was a class motive there? From Bin Laden himself, who came from the upper crust of Saudi society, right? Or were these groups looking to exploit anger on a number of fronts within Islamic majority countries, some of which could be class based or maybe they were seeking to deflect class animosity and redirect it away from the ruling classes in the middle ease?
So I don’t know. There are some many overlapping motivations in this Orlando case and nothing seems particularly clear yet. Was it some virulent strain of Islamic theology, was it that he was in the closet and his culture kept him from coming out, was it anti-Americanism, was it some sort of class anger and feelings of social inadequacy? Could be all or none of them? Was the guy just a psychopath?
I do find it funny how little we focused on them individually and their motivations (the 9/11 guys). Maybe it was because there was a organization and an institutional structure to 9/11 and that makes it easier to ignore whatever individually prompted their actions?
I think we can all look at the world we live in and see how it’s not fair and how resources are not evenly distributed (sometimes even basic resources). And I do know that the communist experiment of the 20th century was seen as a failure (for good reason). And those who oppose the capitalist order and those looking to exploit discontent within the modern world are looking for a new language to oppose the US led world order (which is far from solid, I think), and a return to a sort of purified religion is one such language. You can see that here in the US, with some of the Christian dominionist groups. But that doesn’t mean class can’t play a role, if even a silent role in all of this.
So, I don’t know, really, is probably the answer to your question! I sometimes wish I were much smarter (and far better with languages) and working on this kind instead of my little pop culture stuff. Since I’m not quite so clever, I’ll probably just continue to make comments on this message board instead! 
5 Likes
Holy crap! Welcome back?
7 Likes
So I wasn’t imagining it? @teapot is back!
3 Likes
It appears so… I wonder how @teapot handled their time in the wilderness?
2 Likes
Call me crazy, but wouldn’t these sorts of things show up on a background check while buying an assault rifle? Even in wacky Florida, I’d think that being on a terrorist watchlist would disqualify someone from gun ownership more or less instantly. If not, what would? Being Public Enemy #1?
Thanks for your answer! I did want to challenge you on the idea that class has anything to do with Islamic extremists &&|| jihadis. You probably won’t be surprised that IMNSHO such an idea is a leftover from the days when the USSR was the primary trainer/sponsor/arms supplier for Arab terrorist groups. As with many ideas from the Moscow Center playbook it still has legs. It is still espoused by some on the Western Left as a motivation for terrorist acts. Again you won’t be surprised that I don’t agree with this idea at all.
As for anti-capitalism, same as above. Caliph Al-Baghdadi wears a Rolex and while IS/Hamas/Hizbullah/etc use afformentioned playbook language they do in fact deploy “capitalism within a Sharia framework”.
1 Like
No, I’m not surprised we disagree on that point!
But I’ll stand by my point a bit… or maybe just complicate it a bit more? Rather it was that modernity, instead just capitalism itself (or maybe capitalism is a manifestation of modernity or vice versa) that’s the locus of the struggle we’re thinking about here. The rise of modernity is a reflection of… maybe an ideology, is the best way to put it.
The way that people have been re-conceptualizing the 20th century in history (and especially the Cold War), instead of just a straight forward pro-capitalist vs. anti-capitalist struggle, has been rather a struggle over what a modern state should look like (some historians use the concept of competing modernities or multiple modernities - so there is a capitalist moderntiy and a socialist modernity). In that case, the US and USSR sort of emerge as two sides of a single coin (which sounds counter-intuitive, I know, but bear with me). In both cases, development along the lines of heavy industrialization and finally moving into a consumption based economy/society, with other aspects of life (like religion as an organizing principle in people’s lives) sort of falling away. In some sense, both sides were sort of fighting over who had the correct direction for the Enlightenment. In this case, you get room for other, non-western or non-Soviet actors to have agency. It means that the Non-aligned movement isn’t just a Soviet or American puppet, but had agency in the Cold War. But other factors shaped peoples views and lives, not just economics, race, religion, gender, etc.
So, I agree it’s not just the economy or class struggle, but given how much the shape of the economy shapes many aspects of our life in the modern world, it’s not quite right to leave out class as an analysis either. War and poverty can be powerful recruitment tools, I’d argue, as much as religion or race.
That’s an interesting point, and again, maybe this is a struggle over modernity? If they are down with capitalism, aren’t they still employing some anti-imperialist language, though?
You might be interested in this book, which does address some of these interlocking issues, I’m trying to sort through here:
I also feel the need to push back on your point about the Soviets being the fount of all leftist thinking (as they really weren’t, as socialist thought even goes back to before Marx) and being the only ones to support terrorist groups. Though they tried, they never were able to dominate the left the way they thought they did. Both sides funded various organizations through out the years with varying degrees of success. While the Soviets preferred the more secular, pan Arab movement (and were probably supportive of the Nasser’s revolution particularly), the west supported more religiously oriented movements, especially after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It’s the dynamic of the Cold War which bore the fruit we’re dealing with today. And of course Islamist discourse goes back to before the Cold War itself, and relates more to the relationship to Europe (and later the US), especially in the late Ottoman era. On the Cold War dynamic see:
3 Likes
Systems which are no doubt capitalistic predate anything like modernity or the enlightenment by thousands of years so I dont think thats the right path either.
From a power/influence perspective certainly but dont fall into the typical Western thought trap of “everyone wants the same thing we do/ thinks the same way we do”. Russia is a civilization entirely unto itself regardless of the brief interlude of the USSR.
Mmmm… I see where you are going but not sure I agree. As I read history the Russian urge is really counter to lots of things we’d count as part of the Enlightenment, again USSR not withstanding.
“Class” in the commonly understood meaning is a very brutal lens to view things with. You can fit any situation into that view but I think just as often you end up with the “3 blind men describing an elephant” problem by doing so. Case in point where Islam isnt “just a religion” but a social organizing system, a way to run society, to try and view it through the lens of class might be great in the isolation of the ivory tower but I’ll bet good money it gets things really wrong compared to real life.
“Modernity” as you and I would speak of it doesnt factor into Sharia. There are of course vastly different legal traditions of Sharia but none of them factor “modernity” into a question of law. When we speak of “modernity” were talking about something with a literally secular root which assumes that situations are malleable and that society and the law must bend with the fashion of the times. This is irrelevant to Sharia (or Halacha for Jewish jurisprudence as well) because the fashion of the times doesnt factor into God’s Law.
As for anti imperialist language, Moscow Center Playbook again.
This is an idea that the West desperately wishes were true. See above.
I meant to suggest no such thing. What I do assert is that Moscow Center understood how to use certain ideological trends of the West against itself. They knew very well how to manipulate certain sympathies and core principles of the Western Left to their advantage. This is the root of the apocryphal phrase “useful idiots” after all.
As for Pan Arabism, I’d argue that Moscow Center played Nasser like a fiddle. Moscow’s strength is that it takes the time to understand situations as far as it can within the limits of its own thought system. The comparable weakness of the US is we assume “everyone wants the same things as us”.
Again I dont agree. Yes some of the groups we funded and armed certainly had large unintended consequences later but at the time, there was no urge towards “Islamism” in any sense but a local form which already existed pre-Soviet invasion. The Soviets smashed the Afghani state quite quickly which left nothing but the tribal regional leaders/warlords as opposition forces and they hadnt ever been Westernized to begin with.
If you mean the roots of the Muslim Brotherhood maybe but to assume that ideology has ever been about anything but a return to Sharia governance is a mistake.
I was kind of eager on that until I read the one two star review which pretty well cured my urge to spend $16.23 (WTF is it with Kindle editions being more expensive?!?!)
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
