@coralbrook: my condolences. This is so heartbreaking.
Bloomberg: “Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel had grown a beard eight days before the attack and had explained he did it for religious reasons, Molins said, citing another witness. The prosecutor also added that the man recently had a “clear interest” in jihadi movements and had made several Internet searches about the Koran since the beginning of the month.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-18/nice-killer-ate-pork-took-drugs-before-recent-religious-turn
@coralbrook - I’m so sorry for you and your friends. What a terrible loss.
In other words, exactly the sort of person whom Daesh is hoping to inspire to commit terrorist acts. (Or, until the last couple of years, recruit to come fight for the Caliphate. Now that their territorial expansion has been reversed, they’re telling such people to stay home and commit mayhem there.)
I guess the guy didn’t get far with the Q’ran, given that right before the attacks he reputedly was out drinking. This obviously is someone who was an angry, messed up thug, the real question here is would he have continued on with what he had been, a violent person who beat his wife, got into fights in bars and such, without being exposed to ISIS and what it preaches? FWIW, I don’t think that his anger issues would have led him to do what he did, I think that without the influence of ISIS (which last I read seems to have happened when a couple of his acquaintainces got him interested in it) and its preachings, he would have remained a low level thug, not a mass murderer. To try and deflect from this by claiming he did this as a misfit, angry person and saying it wasn’t terrorism is to overlook what made him do the specific acts he did. Sure, if he hadn’t been an angry loser it is likely that ISIS wouldn’t have appealed to him, but that is like saying that the early converts to National Socialism in Germany, many of whom were angry losers and the like, who later became its leaders, did what they did because they were angry losers, not because of what National Socialism preached.
The 9/11 hijackers reportedly spent some of their last days drinking in bars and going to strip clubs. Are you saying those 20 jihadis were not motivated by their religious beliefs?
The guy was an angry looser. Without ISIS, nobody outside of his immediate contact would have known he existed. With ISIS, about 100 people are dead who would otherwise be alive.
Again, the fake narrative implying that if one is not following every tenant of a religion, then one is not serious about the religion. Silly narrative. He knew about the drinking, but just chose to ignore. However, he accepted the killing of apostates part. Not difficult to understand.
Case-in-point, my squash partner in grad school was a Saudi Muslim from a high ranking family. Very devout in just about every aspect, except that he always insisted on paying the tab at the bar when we went out. We always joked that he paid us as a payoff, so we do not tell on him. Yep, we would deny it if asked - that is for sure. Always paid cash too. Kind of a tip-off he was hiding something. Oh, by the way, he knew the Koran inside out.
We’ve (the US has) experienced both the good and the bad of free trade/globalism/open borders: cheaper goods, but lost jobs; the added benefits of multiculturalism, but the stubbed toes of it also; etc.
In terms of immigration, if only we, and others, could let in only the good while keeping out the bad, we’d do it. So maybe what we need is a very accurately selective fence. Boring, but safe and efficient.
But humans make mistakes, so that ain’t coming any time soon.
In the end, we have to live with each other. Given our faulted condition, that gets difficult at times and leads to tragedy and heartache. But there’s also plenty of beauty, enjoyable and noticeable precisely because we are also submitted to the hard events and times.
I joked in a similar “tragedy” thread about spraying a liquid form of Valium over all of us, and some places in particular. That might take away some of the violence, but it would also numb us to the wonder and happiness of human life.
All that said, it would, I think, behoove us (as the plural, developed West) to use some common sense in an effort to defend Life, Liberty, and Property: we would like to welcome everyone, but we shouldn’t welcome those who would harm us. So let’s step up security and, pardon me, put PC - at least as it pertains to inflammatory populations - on the back burner.
@Zinhead and @awcntdb :
That was said sardonically (which the net doesn’t do well), what I was saying was he accepted the rants of the garbage at ISIS that killing people was part of being a Muslim yet he apparently didn’t know that the ‘perfect’ Islam ISIS preaches forbids drinking…obviously, I think that he was influenced by ISIS.
ISIS itself is not exactly observant, I don’t think the Q’ran allows people to have sex slaves, and from what I can tell the members of ISIS drink, smoke and do a lot of the other things that you aren’t supposed to do shrug.
As far as the Saudis go, they are the biggest bunch of frauds out there. The whole W’habbi religion that the Saudi’s enforce in their society and spread around the world is very strict, but the Saudi ruling family and the upper classes there don’t practice it, they are about as devout as I am (which is to say not at all), it is the classic case of do as I say, not as I do.
That depends on which version you are subscribing to.
@sylvan8798:
It isn’t the Q’ran, it is the branch of Islam and how they interpret it, having read the Q’ran as far as I know they don’t allow for sex slaves, especially underage girls. I am sure ISIS pulls the ‘well, it doesn’t forbid it’, but if they allow sex slaves that likely is old tribal culture they are claiming is the faith, it isn’t any different than those who used the Bible to justify slavery or claims that the Bible supports banning contraception (it doesn’t, never mentions it).
Does this particular “branch” of Islam have its roots, at all, in the medieval split resulting in Shi’a and Sunni? Or is this just a bunch of horny sociopathic losers wanting to have their cake and eat it too?
Isis is a death cult wirh their very own Q’uran. Most of its local followers can’t read, or don’t read anyway.
Keep in mind that local Imams and Mosques received threats from some cells. The situation is apparently common: 'Islam de France ’ imams are threatened, 'religious’young thugs come tell older people they’re miscreants and don’t know anything about religion, a young, charismatic, ‘purity and sacrifice’ preacher comes, there’s a fight between the older imam and the young preacher, old people stop going because who needs the aggravation, and the mosque is taken over.
The current government has closed 3 mosques and deported 80 foreign preachers that used ‘hate speech’.
Remember that the French are pursuing this as BOTH a mass murder and a terrorist act. The fact he was a violent low life doesn’t make him less of a mass murderer and terrorist. However what we know as if now means he wasn’t a typical fanatic. Just a random thug terrorist groups seized upon and turned into a terrorist. That’s why the specialist on French TV stated this was even scarier than the typical terrorist fanatic.
Just a random thug, like there are thousands and thousands.
(Please note that the ‘radicalized’ youth in France often were secular and many came from non Muslim families, often with Christian traditions. Families here are worried any kid of theirs might be sucked into the radical vortex, including a ‘regular ’ nephew who seems to be online 24/7, grunts rather than talks, has zero interest in his current major, not even bothering to check his finals’ results. Immediate worry was 'is he being radicalized online?" And, no, the family’s not Muslim.)
The goal is for us to think that anyone can be a mass murderer - if properly brainwashed/motivated. Not just operatives who fought in Syria. Not just ‘S-form’ radicals. But any of the low level thugs, especially if they have some kind of tie to a formerly colonized territory.
Understanding the new situation is crucial to fighting attacks.
The killer’s profile so far : obsessed with sex, bisexual with lots of lovers, violent, he loved porn and beheading videos. In early July - barely two weeks before he murdered as many as he could and only a couple days before he set his plan into action - he started internet searches about the Q’uran, as well as various attacks from the past year (the police couple who was butchered with a knife in front of their three year old who was then left for hours in his mother’s blood, Orlando).
He called a truck company on July 4th and reserved one for July 11th.
- Hopefully no one I’ll try to argue reading the Q’uran for three days leads to mass murder or we’re in trouble.
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Detectives are trying to figure if this was his own
Plan or if he followed someone else’s plan.
On July 11 or 12 he was turned down for a ‘personal loan’. He seemed to have needed money, tried to withdraw €1,000 but only for 550 from the ATM.
July 12 and 13 he drove on Promnade Des Anglais, was seen by the numerous security cameras, and took pictures of places he planned to hit. July 14 he went back by bike to take selfies at iconic places .
His cell phone is being inspected and all communications reviewed, including erased ones (?)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/armed-attacker-injures-18-german-train/story?id=40678061
Well, on the topic of possible jihad, there was an ax attack in Germany - Afghan teen. 3 badly injured, ax-er (what is the term?) shot by police.
It’s kind of ironic that the next story down is titled “Trump Convention Leads With Fear.”
One-third of the victims of the Nice attack were Muslims. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/world/europe/nice-truck-attack-victims-muslims.html?ref=world
^ yes - as I said before, the FIRST person he chose to mow down with his 19-ton truck, was an obviously Muslim woman, wearing a hijab.
His goal was to kill as many people as possible.
Did he mean something by choosing this first victim (Muslims in France are often considered apostates by Daesh because most support the 'republican values ’ that include and value secularism.)
Or did he mean nothing, hitting randomly?
All 84 people who died have been identified.
70 people remain in hospital, with 19 in critical care, including one child.
The killer does not seem like an ISIS terrorist to me; I have not read any evidence he is. Seems like a very angry and unhappy person out to take as many people with him. The sad thing is there probably will be more of these occurrences. I stopped following news these days.
This report states that the killer had been planning the attack for over a year, and there were multiple accomplices.
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/07/21/attacker-in-nice-had-help-planned-attack-for-months/
The man was every bit the terrorist.
edited …