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New Year, Same Old Culture War
At least 10 killed in New Orleans after driver ‘intentionally’ rams into crowd on Bourbon Street (CNN)
Apparently, "FBI Special Agent Aletha Duncan said the Bourbon Street attack is 'not a terrorist attack' in comments delivered after the mayor spoke." But then, later:
New Orleans mayor declares 'terrorist attack' on Bourbon Street, FBI confirms investigation (Fox)
Coulter's Law appears to be in force. As a reminder:
And indeed, this was a shooter, who died in a gunfight with cops... but so far it appears the ten deaths and dozens of injuries were vehicular, not firearm-related. Over on 8
chankun (warning: images of death) it's claimed that "FBI Director Kash Patel states killer was 'Middle Eastern Descent'" but I don't see a link to direct evidence of that. I will be interested to learn whether it is a disinformation thing, or whether 8chankun is just better at reporting news than multiple multi-million dollar corporate news media outlets. Can a failed shooting preceded by successful vehicular homicide be used as ammunition (hah) in Second Amendment debates? Probably! Apparently at least one "explosive device" was also found?There is something to be said for "wait and see," and indeed I expect to hear much more about this attack in the near future (unless, of course, we simply don't). Though clearly Special Agent Aletha Duncan did not seem to think there was any reason to "wait and see" when declaring, contra the mayor, that this was not a terrorist attack.
In unrelated news, Stocks just did something they haven’t done in nearly three decades--and in case you are unimpressed with CNN's clickbait headline,
Everything old is new again.
If the latest news from the past few minutes is accurate, the driver indeed turns out to have a Muslim-sounding name, and online Noticers were correct in identifying the wrapped up flag as an ISIS one:
There’s also at least one photo of the man lying dead in the street, and he does appear brown (or black American convert, as some commenters claim?) and bearded.
Right on cue is a Reddit comment to the tune of “that’s what upsets me most about an Islamic truck-ramming, backlash against peaceful Muslims”:
Roughly +15 net upvotes. A pesky wrongthinker asks:
Someone else replies:
I’m not sure I can figuratively roll my eyes any harder.
And, of course, lots of seething about Trump, Vance, racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, MAGA, Fox News, etc. in that thread.
Rather amazing that after supporting jihadism since 2003 the US hasn't been hit harder than it has. The US meddling in Syria and the war in Iraq are directly to blame for ISIS, especially combined with operation timber sycamore with the US arming jihadists.
These terrorist attacks have nothing to do with middle eastern conflicts, although I know leftists are desperate to draw connections between the two in order to say Americans deserve it somehow
Seriously, how does some guy driving a car into a crowd end up being connected to some resistance groups being given guns? If anything the jihadists would be grateful to America, if they weren’t under the influence of a monomaniacal death cult
How would fighting multiple wars in the middle east not be connected to blow back? Having large well organized and well equipped jihadist groups can very well cause terrorism in other countries. 9/11 wouldn't have happened without the CIA-asset Bin Ladin, multiple attacks in Europe have been conducted by people trained in the middle east. The ideological inspiration, propaganda and connections between jihadists in the middle east and the west do exist. Terrorism increased markedly in Europe during ISIS hay day in Syria.
The neo-con project, mass immigration and terrorism are intertwined.
There is quite literally a direct line of causality between deBaathification in Iraq and ISIS. Purging the Iraqi military and public service resulted in thousands of professional soldiers and officers as well as otherwise peaceful professionals like graphic designers, accountants, intelligence analysts, etc being unemployable overnight and so they joined up with fledgling ISIS and that's how it became such a competent organization so fast. This was even predicted by US analysts and foreign policy writers at the time, but Rumsfeld et al proceeded any way and only rescinded after most of the damage was done.
So "otherwise peaceful" but now unemployable Baathist graphic designers, accountants and intelligence analysts just naturally sign up with ISIS because, well, what else would they do?
Shouldn't we be thinking of people like this in similar terms as we might view southern Confederate sympathizers during and after the American Civil War?
Why don't you try to consider it from their perspective? Almost overnight, their careers are ended and are made unable to support themselves and their families and their own government and fellow people subjected to tremendous violence and destabilization more or less for no good reason. Why wouldn't that radicalize a person?
This was both the anticipated and actual outcome of deBaathification.
You mean we should have extended them a blanket pardon conditional on an oath of loyalty? Yes, I think that would have been the ideal outcome and may have stopped Iraq from sliding toward Iran puppet-state status by having continuity and more robustness in its institutions.
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