posted
This weekend, during the Oklahoma-Kansas State football game, a student killed himself with a suicide bomb outside OU’s football stadium. OU officials were quick to dismiss the event as the action of a screwed-up kid, not a terrorist.
But... He'd tried to buy Ammonium Nitrate. That's the stuff used in the OK City bombing. Kinda overkill for a simple suicide, don't you think?.
Lastly... He blew up outside a stadium entrance, a stadium he didn't try to get in to. Waiting for the crowd to come out, perhaps?
I've never heard of anybody strapping a bomb to themselves and blowing themselves up in public who wasn't intending to kill more people than himself... has anyone else?
It could be a simple suicide, but things just don't quite add up.
-------------------- "Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for western civilization as it commits suicide." - Jerry Pournelle Posts: 14567 | From: Pennsylvania | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
Plus, his is one of a number of paths, including those of Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Zacharias Moussaoui, which seem to oddly intersect with Norman, Oklahoma.
-------------------- "Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for western civilization as it commits suicide." - Jerry Pournelle Posts: 14567 | From: Pennsylvania | Registered: Jan 2002
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quote:Originally posted by First of Boo: I've never heard of anybody strapping a bomb to themselves and blowing themselves up in public who wasn't intending to kill more people than himself... has anyone else?
Nope - hopefully he changed his mind at the last minute and decided to off just himself.
Ole Pappy's right - it's almost like there was a news blackout. I just read about it yesterday & posted it here. Guess everyone's too worried about Tom & Katie or Nick & Jessica.
-------------------- No man has a right in America to treat any other man "tolerantly" for tolerance is the assumption of superiority. -Wendell L. Willkie Posts: 3833 | From: Virginia | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
I've been following this on Free Republic, which is interesting in and of itself. The intial thread had over 4000 posts. Obviously, most of the early posts assumed that the bomber was an Arab, and there were some immediate calls for "mass deportations."
Unfortunately, Joel Henry Hinrichs III was a white, American, engineering student. Now attention is focused on his roommate(s?), apparently a Pakistani, who may or may not be available for questioning (Information out of Norman is very bad).
There is a leak from the police that Hinrichs had "Jihadist materials," but these seem to be primarily bomb-building information, and do not link him with any specific group.
As with Oklahoma City, it is morbidly interesting to watch how predictable our fears are, and how hypocritical we become when they're wrong. No one is going to call for a mass deportation of engineers.
Posts: 330 | From: New Haven, VT | Registered: Sep 2005
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Sara at home
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
-------------------- Assume that all my posts will be edited at least once. Dyslexic -- can't spell, can't type, can't proofread. Posts: 8317 | From: Reading, PA | Registered: Mar 2004
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zakor
The Red and the Green Stamps
posted
quote:I've been following this on Free Republic, which is interesting in and of itself. The intial thread had over 4000 posts. Obviously, most of the early posts assumed that the bomber was an Arab, and there were some immediate calls for "mass deportations."
Every now and then I read FR, isn't it nice to see all those nice people and read their posts. Such wonderful loving Americans.
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quote:The bomber has not been identified to the press. Unconfirmed reports circulating on the Internet allege that he was a resident of Parkview Apartments, which are a short distance from the Mosque.
What "Mosque"? Well, it don't matter. Not only is teh gay contagious -- teh moslem is too. Don't go anywhere near a mosque or you'll feel an urge to blow yourself up!
Em "I'd better seal my door with duct tape, my next-door neighbors are Muslims" Dash
Posts: 1251 | From: Michigan | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by EthanMitchell: ... No one is going to call for a mass deportation of engineers.
Good thing he wasn't a lawyer. Who would object to a mass deportation of lawyers?
Posts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
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Sara at home
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
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quote:Originally posted by Em Evil-Eye Dash: What "Mosque"? Well, it don't matter. Not only is teh gay contagious -- teh moslem is too. Don't go anywhere near a mosque or you'll feel an urge to blow yourself
The Muslim Student Association/Islamic Society of Norman is located a block or two from the apartments mentioned. There is a Masjid or Mosque there.
-------------------- Assume that all my posts will be edited at least once. Dyslexic -- can't spell, can't type, can't proofread. Posts: 8317 | From: Reading, PA | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
DH & I have been talking about this. Specifically that if you're going to just commit suicide, a bombs a long way around to do it, so to speak. It's much 'easier' to shoot yourself, jump off the top of a building or take a ton of pills. And I've wondered how they were able to rule it a suicide so quickly. I've heard nothing of a note or anything.
-------------------- I cannot live without books-Thomas Jefferson *~* A child educated only at school is an uneducated child - George Santayana I'm going to pummel you with such zeal, Buddha will explode! *~* Never miss a good chance to shut up - Will Rogers Posts: 6585 | From: Dallas/Fort Worth, TX | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
I don't remember if I saw on the local news or on NBC world news or whatever (doesn't scream news black out to me) but the kid had a history of depression that his dad had hoped he was working his way through. His dad was quoted saying something like, "he just couldn't find and optimism or joy in life." I think suicide, seeing that he detonated outside the stadium when no one was around or likely to be. Eh I could be wrong but it sounds like suicide to me.
P&LL, Syl
-------------------- Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. — Voltaire Posts: 1944 | From: Michigan | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
pssst...sara? Your PM box is full... [that is all]
-------------------- "When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty."--George Bernard Shaw Posts: 19266 | From: Nashville, TN | Registered: Jun 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Sara at home: The Muslim Student Association/Islamic Society of Norman is located a block or two from the apartments mentioned. There is a Masjid or Mosque there.
I figured that much, it's just that the conspiracy theory link referred ominously to "the Mosque" with a capital M without specifying anything else about it, as if the presence of an Islamic entity, however vague, causes suicidal tendencies via bomb.
One of these days I'll get around to using sarcasm tags Posts: 1251 | From: Michigan | Registered: Sep 2004
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Mr. Snake
The Red and the Green Stamps
posted
quote:Originally posted by Em Evil-Eye Dash: What "Mosque"? Well, it don't matter. Not only is teh gay contagious -- teh moslem is too. Don't go anywhere near a mosque or you'll feel an urge to blow yourself up!
Em "I'd better seal my door with duct tape, my next-door neighbors are Muslims" Dash
There seem to be a lot of those kind of people where I live. I think the new term for them is "Islamophobe." It sounds a little too PCish for me, but it seems to fit.
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zakor
The Red and the Green Stamps
posted
I don't think that Sara at home's link got quite the attention that it merits...Here are some exerpts:
quote:Rojan Gunaratna, author of Inside Al Qaeda, is a terrorism expert who testified before the 9/11 Commission. In his book he reports that there was an Al Qaeda cell in Oklahoma in 2001. After 9/11, Norman became famous as the residence of Zacarias Moussaoui for six months, when he was taking flight lessons there. It now appears that Al Qaeda still might be active in the community.
Yes, the boyo that committed suicide has links to Al Qaeda.
Some go even further, claiming that Timothy Mc Veigh has links to AlQaeda.
quote:This is the official website of investigative journalist Jayna Davis who has uncovered compelling indicators of Middle Eastern complicity in the 1995 Oklahoma bombing.
Were Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols recruits for Islamic terrorists? Here is the story behind the headlines.
quote:Review: The Third Terrorist by Bob Cheeks 16 July 2004 Intellectual Conservative.com
In a very real sense Jayna Davis has written the only accurate historical account of what happened at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. She has shown through diligence and hard work that a combination of Iraqi sleeper agents, two “lily white” mules -- Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols-- Ramzi Yousef, then Al-Qaeda’s Philippine warlord, and a number of minor figures conspired under the leadership of the recently established “Armed Islamic Movement,” an organization that resulted from the “foreboding merger between Iran and Iraq,” to strike at America’s heartland.
quote:Wolfowitz Bombshell: Saddam Behind 9/11 Attacks and OKC Bombing Sunday, June 1, 2003 4:01 p.m. EDT
Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, said by some to be the architect of America's war on Iraq, reportedly suspects that Saddam Hussein played a significant role in the three worst terrorist attacks ever on the U.S. - the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
In short, McVeigh, Saddam, Iraq, AlQaeda are all part of a long conspiracy to undermine the USA.
The student who committed suicide is, according to much of the Bush voter base, merely an extension of Al-Qaeda, Saddam, etc...
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quote:Originally posted by zakor: The student who committed suicide is, according to much of the Bush voter base, merely an extension of Al-Qaeda, Saddam, etc...
Really? Wow, I must've missed the poll of the Bush voter base.
-------------------- No man has a right in America to treat any other man "tolerantly" for tolerance is the assumption of superiority. -Wendell L. Willkie Posts: 3833 | From: Virginia | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
It seems reasonable to me that Al Qaeda, which by now seems to be fairly decentralized, might be a major source of information on how to make cheap bombs, etc. Heck, we know that that's the case. But you can get the same information from I.R.A. websites, or survivalist websites, or from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In that sense, tracing Hinrichs to Al Qaeda is going to take more than a few web printouts.
What much of the right clearly seems to believe is that "terrorism" is a sort of contagious mental disorder spread by Muslims and leftists, and that all they need to do is trace the steps that virus spread through, and eliminate them.
Posts: 330 | From: New Haven, VT | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:What much of the right clearly seems to believe is that "terrorism" is a sort of contagious mental disorder spread by Muslims and leftists, and that all they need to do is trace the steps that virus spread through, and eliminate them.
I'm sorry, but I can't let ths go by without some sort of a challenge. Although I don't identify myself as being on the "right", I think (and I believe that the people that you are referring to also think) that terrorism is espoused and taught through many Moslem comunities as a way to effect change in society and the world.
It is no more contagious than Algebra or the theory of relativity.
I am not claiming that Moslems are the only comunity that teaches terrorism. I am not claiming that all Moslems are terrorists or teach terrorism.
But leaving all the other terrorist organizations out of the conversation for a moment... Anyone who refuses to acknowlege that America's major threat is from Moslem terrorists has their head buried in the sand.
posted
If it wasn't "contagious" we would no longer have a problem.
-------------------- Fundamentally Unfundie since 1975 Posts: 7942 | From: Louisiana | Registered: Jun 2000
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Sara at home
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
Ah, but just because more schools open, more students attend, and more learn the rhetoric does not change it from learned behavior to transmitted behavior.
-------------------- Assume that all my posts will be edited at least once. Dyslexic -- can't spell, can't type, can't proofread. Posts: 8317 | From: Reading, PA | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Greg of Winter:Wow. I'm stationed at Fort Riley, which is right next door to KSU*, and I've heard almost nothing about this story.
*Yes, I know the game was actually at Oklahoma.
That's because, IMHO, it is (in the wider world view) an unimportant tragic suicide that hurt no one except the sad individual who chose to kill himself.
P&LL, Syl'"McVeigh, Saddam, Iraq, AlQaeda" 'vanz
-------------------- Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. — Voltaire Posts: 1944 | From: Michigan | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Greg of Winter:Wow. I'm stationed at Fort Riley, which is right next door to KSU*, and I've heard almost nothing about this story.
*Yes, I know the game was actually at Oklahoma.
That's because, IMHO, it is (in the wider world view) an unimportant tragic suicide that hurt no one except the sad individual who chose to kill himself.
P&LL, Syl'"McVeigh, Saddam, Iraq, AlQaeda" 'vanz
Except for the method and the place of it. I don't know what the story is with this individual, but I would think that this would be more newsworthy.
quote:Originally posted by Sara at home: Ah, but just because more schools open, more students attend, and more learn the rhetoric does not change it from learned behavior to transmitted behavior.
Let's see - after careful, rational analysis of one's political and social position, outlook on life, and amount of respect for fellow human beings of all races, religions, national or ethnic origin, sexual preference, or favorite TV channel, an intelligent student would come to the obvious conclusion that it is better to blow himself up in public and take as many people with him, rather than make the world a better place for everyone.
Oh yeah. It's a "learned behavior". Fuckit, it's a disease. And it is being allowed to spread.
-------------------- Fundamentally Unfundie since 1975 Posts: 7942 | From: Louisiana | Registered: Jun 2000
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Sara at home
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
Universities and colleges tend to downplay criminal acitivity and tragic incidents as much as they can. They really don't like bad publicity and Boren's attempt to stifle the reporting is normal.
Edited because I screwed up and didn't really need the quote anyway.
-------------------- Assume that all my posts will be edited at least once. Dyslexic -- can't spell, can't type, can't proofread. Posts: 8317 | From: Reading, PA | Registered: Mar 2004
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Sara at home
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
quote:Originally posted by Ole Pappy: Oh yeah. It's a "learned behavior". Fuckit, it's a disease. And it is being allowed to spread.
Isn't that fundamentalist/extremist Islam's feeling about Christianity and Judaism?
-------------------- Assume that all my posts will be edited at least once. Dyslexic -- can't spell, can't type, can't proofread. Posts: 8317 | From: Reading, PA | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I think Ole Pappy's referring to the suicide bomber school of terrorism rather than fundie Islam per se.
And I agree wholeheartedly. It is a disease, an insidious form of mental and/or spiritual illness, to be so infused with hate that one's own life becomes nothing more than a weapon to kill others with.
One of the London Underground bombers had a year-old son. And considered it more important to blow himself up killing people than to be around to be a father to that son. Sorry, but that's just plain diseased thinking.
Nonny
-------------------- When there isn't anything else worth analyzing, we examine our collective navel. I found thirty-six cents in change in mine the other day. Let no one say that there is no profit in philosophy. -- Silas Sparkhammer Posts: 10141 | From: Toronto, Ontario | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
If you lived in Oklahoma you wouldn't see any "news blackout" It is all the local stations are talking about. Little things are popping up and more information is being made available, but there is not any confirmation to rumors that the young man in question was associated to any islamic extremist group
I believe there were a few muslim men who lived in the same apartment complex detained shortly, but nothing came of it.
I think it was some poor young man who had some problems and too much imagination on how to end his life. A young woman killed herself at another oklahoma school yesterday, but she shot herself. Same end different means.
Now it may come out that he wanted others to join him in death (I am leaning towards this), but until there is more evidence of an association with an extremist group we can only speculate
Also remember that extremist groups come in many different flavors.
Posts: 20 | From: Oklahoma | Registered: Aug 2005
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Sara at home
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
It's learned behavior, taught to people. Without the teaching, they wouldn't be acting that way.
-------------------- Assume that all my posts will be edited at least once. Dyslexic -- can't spell, can't type, can't proofread. Posts: 8317 | From: Reading, PA | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Eliminate the teaching. ELIMINATE it. Then no one would learn. I'm sorry, but I don't really see what kind of point you're trying to make.
The result is the same. And, it doesn't matter if the man in question was a member of Al Queda, First Baptist Church, or the High Order of the Unicorn. The behavior was "learned" from someone else who was doing it, and copied.
Eliminate the source, whether it be teaching, or idealogy, and you eliminate the problem.
Forget all those arguments about "their" freedom of choice to believe. Those of us who believe it is *NOT* acceptable to blow people up have a right to live without the threat of it, and we should take steps to end it. This isn't just a "religious thought experiment". This is ACTING on those thoughts, with intent to harm. The very foundation of thought that allows these actions is a disease on mankind.
-------------------- Fundamentally Unfundie since 1975 Posts: 7942 | From: Louisiana | Registered: Jun 2000
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quote:Originally posted by EthanMitchell: [...] Obviously, most of the early posts assumed that the bomber was an Arab, and there were some immediate calls for "mass deportations."
[...]
As with Oklahoma City, it is morbidly interesting to watch how predictable our fears are, and how hypocritical we become when they're wrong. No one is going to call for a mass deportation of engineers.
I remember the same thing happening with OKC. Everyone thought the A-Rabs did it, but it was a homegrown redneck. So, mass deportations? I'm all for that! Let's deport all the rednecks! Where would we send them, though? Gotta be a place big enough to support multiple NASCAR venues.
-------------------- Your ultimate source of superfluous flummery. Posts: 595 | From: South Carolina | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Eliminate the source, whether it be teaching, or idealogy, and you eliminate the problem.
I say eliminate the breeding ground for that source. Existing terrorist groups will collapse if they can't get any new recruits and have less and less popular support.
No, the breeding ground for terrorist ideologies in the Middle East isn't entirely based on hatred for the US and the West caused by flawed foreign policies, though that's certainly a major part of it. :dons flameproof suit, waits to be informed that she hates America: It is also caused by internal political problems, and disillusionment as a result of severe oppression by local forces.
(Contrary to the belief of some, poverty doesn't have a lot to do with it. Remember the profiles of the 9/11 suicide bombers? They weren't exactly starved and uneducated. Same goes for many Palestinian suicide bombers and, I suspect, Iraqi ones as well.)
One way to eliminate the breeding ground for terrorist ideologies is to make sure that people like Bush never get the opportunity to make any decisions more important than hmm, paper or plastic?
Another way is to support voices of moderation from the places where extremism originates. There are plenty of them but they're not being heard. Take Saudi -- there are plenty of progressive intellectuals, both men and women, but you won't hear anything from them as long as the House of Saud is in power. And you won't get any challenges to the House of Saud as long as they're supplying us with a quarter of our oil.
That's just one of many examples. There's also the problem that every time a prominent Muslim denounces bin Laden, no one hears about it, and then Thomas Friedman writes another column complaining about how Muslims aren't condeming bin Laden because he's not hearing about it.
We need to hear more from the moderates of the Arab and Muslim worlds. That is both their responsibility and ours.
quote:Forget all those arguments about "their" freedom of choice to believe.
Where are "all those arguments" about terrorists' freedom of choice to believe that they should blow us up? I certainly haven't heard any of them, and I'm a card-carrying crazy-ass liberal. This is news to me.
Anyway, I'm done soapboxing, I gotta get to class.
Posts: 1251 | From: Michigan | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
AJ writes: "Anyone who refuses to acknowlege that America's major threat is from Moslem terrorists has their head buried in the sand."
Well, maybe I do, but let me back it up. I think the position the US is in right now is comparable to the late British Empire. Like Britain, we don't like to think of ourselves as an empire, and so we discount the very existence of places like Puerto Rico and Guam ("Not counting niggers" as Orwell used to put it), and we discount the role that our proxies play in the Middle East, Latin America, etc.
Like Britain, we have a problem with the upitty natives throwing rocks and car-bombs at us, in manifest ingratitude for all the nice care packages we've sent them.
And, like Britain, the primary threat we face is not that we will get hit with a larger rock or a bigger car bomb--though that is certainly bad news--but that we will continue fighting those battles on their terms until we are completely irrelevant as a world power.
Posts: 330 | From: New Haven, VT | Registered: Sep 2005
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