America's pathological denial of reality - Caroline Glick
How much lower will America sink before it regains its senses?
Wednesday, two Muslims walked into a Christmas party at a community service center in San Bernardino, California where one worked. They were wearing body armor and video cameras and carrying automatic rifles, pipe bombs and pistols. They opened fire, killed 14, and wounded 21.
The murderers, Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik were killed by police. Speaking to the Daily News, Farook’s father said his son, “was very religious. He would go to work, come back, go to pray, come back. He’s Muslim.” Farook’s neighbor told the paper that over the past two years, Farook exchanged his Western dress for Islamic gowns and grew a beard.
These data points lead naturally to the conclusion that Farook and his wife were jihadists who killed in order to kill in the name of Islam. But in America of December 2015, natural conclusions are considered irresponsible, at best.
In an interview with CNN following the shooting, US President Barack Obama said the massacre demonstrates that the US needs stricter gun laws. As for the motives of the shooters, Obama shrugged. “We don’t yet know the motives of the shooters,” he insisted.
Here is the place to note that California has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the US. According to the victims, Farook and his partners were able to reload their weapons and shoot without interruption for several minutes until the police arrived because there was no one to stop them.
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Following the jihadist attacks on Paris on November 13, Obama maintained his insistence that climate change is a graver threat to US national security than terrorism. It could be that this prioritization of concerns is playing a role in the administration’s apparent determination not to seriously fight Islamic State.
In an interview with Charlie Rose last month, former CIA director Michael Morell explained that the administration decided not to bomb Islamic State’s oil infrastructure “because we didn’t want to do environmental damage.” According to the Guardian, Islamic State makes between one to four million dollars per day from oil sales.
Perhaps the shooters in San Bernadino were just mad at their boss. Maybe Farooq suffered from clinical depression or ADD, or PTSD, or something. And maybe Islamic State, with its new colony Sirte in “liberated” Libya, just 400 miles from Italy, is on the run. Maybe as well, Turkey is just a patsy and Russia is really Islamic State’s largest trading partner, or maybe Israel is, or Ireland.
But if facts are to be taken seriously, then the fact is that in December 2015, the US is acting with pathological devotion to ideological narratives that bear no relationship to reality.
[Jerusalem Post via JWR]
In an interview with Charlie Rose last month, former CIA director Michael Morell explained that the administration decided not to bomb Islamic State’s oil infrastructure “because we didn’t want to do environmental damage.” According to the Guardian, Islamic State makes between one to four million dollars per day from oil sales.
Perhaps the shooters in San Bernadino were just mad at their boss. Maybe Farooq suffered from clinical depression or ADD, or PTSD, or something. And maybe Islamic State, with its new colony Sirte in “liberated” Libya, just 400 miles from Italy, is on the run. Maybe as well, Turkey is just a patsy and Russia is really Islamic State’s largest trading partner, or maybe Israel is, or Ireland.
But if facts are to be taken seriously, then the fact is that in December 2015, the US is acting with pathological devotion to ideological narratives that bear no relationship to reality.
[Jerusalem Post via JWR]
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