It would appear lots of people are trying to spin The Pulse Club attack as somehow less than the all-American mass murder that it is. Don’t believe them.
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More importantly, refute them if they should voice said opinion in your presence.
Here’s why this latest mass murder is 100% American:
Our shooter, Omar Mateen, was born in New York and absorbed all the worst of American values, turning into a racist, sexist, wife-beating homophobe. He also attended the police academy but never became a cop, instead working as a prison guard and security guard—so, a wannabe-cop who enjoyed posing in NYPD T-shirts.
His ex-wife claims he didn’t seem particular religious, but instead went to the gym a lot and did steroids, in between acting unstable and beating her for not having the laundry done, to the point where her parents had to rescue her only months into her marriage.
So far, perfectly American.
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At least one of his coworkers at a security firm changed jobs just to get away from him, alarmed by his constant shit-talking of Blacks, Women, Jews, and general threats to kill anyone who pissed him off (as well as constantly texting & calling him, to the point where his coworker felt like he was being stalked). He was nice to the old ladies at the retirement community where he was posted, so he also fulfills that “coworker who won’t shut up but is angelic to perfect strangers” requirement. So far, perfectly American.
Add to this the stories that he was, in fact, quite familiar with The Pulse, having been there several times, frequently getting drunk & belligerent, and complaining how he couldn’t drink around his wife or family. One of his classmates in the police academy reports that Mateen asked him out on a date. Another guy claims he messaged Mateen off and on for about a year on a gay dating app (Jack’d, not Grindr, as it turns out). So, Mateen seems like he was either closeted or otherwise conflicted, and so we can now add “self-hating” to the list.
And, holy crap, Mateen’s dad, Mir Seddique… !
A very special brand of American transplant. You may have heard that Seddique claims that Mateen may have been motivated to go on his rampage by seeing two men kissing in front of his 3 year-old son, but Seddique is probably an unreliable narrator.
He was born in Afghanistan and hosts a talk show that runs on YouTube and a few Afghan-diaspora cable channels. Almost all of his videos are in Pashto and aimed at fellow Pashtuns (although at least one news outlet claims he gave an interview with them in Dari and made at least one video in Dari, so either Siddique speaks both or that news outlet can’t tell Pashto from Dari; both are equally possible). He’s also a bit of a crackpot—he tried to run for president of Afghanistan, and sometimes claims to be president of an Afghan government-in-exile while posing in fatigues… you know the drill.
You’ll hear that Seddique supports the Taliban; this may be true (I can’t understand Pashto), but assuming it is, I believe he supports them as an Afghan/Pashtun *nationalist,* not an Islamist—this is a guy who wants Pakistan to give the Pashtun-dominated Northwest Frontier Provinces back to Afghanistan, and opens his videos with portraits of Ahmad Shah Durrani (1722-1772)* and a map of the Durrani Empire (when Afghanistan expanded into eastern Persia & invaded Mughal India).
I consider those old crackpot nationalist guys…to be quintessentially American.
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So, if you read anything claiming Mir Seddique is some sort of radical Islamist, it’s bullshit—he’s an extreme *nationalist,* like that guy in Glendale with the sticker of Greater Armenia on the back of his SUV, or the guy with the “Only Unity Saves The Serbs” bumper sticker you see in the Petco parking lot. Or that guy with the giant decal of the Persian royal flag I see on the freeway. And I dunno about you, but I consider those old crackpot nationalist guys who can’t shut up about the once and future glories of the home country but continue to live here, bitching about how American life makes their kids soft while buying cognac at Jons, to be quintessentially American.
*Also note—the portraits of Durrani are important (and Seddique really, really loves Ahmad Shah Durrani) because, of course, an actual Talib adheres to the salafist ban on images, while a conservative nationalist like Seddique doesn’t.
Finally, the murders themselves
We tend to think of mass murders as being completely random, and a lot of times they are, but just as often they aren’t. Frequently mass murderers single out groups, and sometimes individuals, who they feel are to blame for all their troubles—thus:
- when survivalist, gun nut, & all-around ticking time bomb James Oliver Huberty killed 21 people in a McDonald’s in 1984, it’s not a coincidence that the majority of his victims were Hispanics who he believed were ruining his all-white anti-communist America;
- when George Hennard killed 23 people at Luby’s Cafeteria in 1991, 14 of the dead were the women he referred to as “vipers” and “bitches;”
- when raging misogynist Marc Lepine killed 14 people in 1989, *all* of the dead were women;
- when recently fired postal worker Thomas McIlvane came back to work in 1991, he *only* killed the 4 managers he was after, even telling one woman he’d shot & wounded “you’re not the one I want” before moving on to kill someone else.
Thus, if indeed Omar Mateen came to kill the people in the *same place* he was trying to indulge-yet-not-indulge his conflicted sexuality, well, then it’s another piece that fits into the picture of an all-American mass murderer—not an international terrorist.
Yes, I know he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State on that 911 call, but it’s clear ISIS had never heard of him before Sunday. The FBI investigated him twice and closed both investigations because they came to the conclusion that he was talking shit and had no ties to international terrorism whatsoever.
Pledging allegiance to ISIS at this point is the equivalent of that white guy with the shaved head you knew in high school claiming his older brother knows people in the Aryan Brotherhood, and how he’s going to fight for “race and nation” just as soon as he finishes smoking this joint. It’s just an attempt to make yourself seem like you’re part of something larger. It means nothing. ISIS had nothing to do with this. This was one guy who found it easier to kill 49 people than to admit to his dad, or his wife, or himself, that he liked dudes.
Source: 30dB.com – assault weapons ban
“Social is talking 61% positive about assault weapon bans since the Orlando killings. Think there will finally be movement to re-rid the US of the mass murder weapon of choice? This one may be interesting to watch over time to see if the momentum gains and if our legislators will develop a set of…um…ears.” — Howard K. 30db
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Photo Credit: Getty Images
Do we know whether there are more automatic weapons in the U.S. per capita than in Afghanistan? Isn’t that also the place where there are honor killings? The targeted assassinations in Iraq, Syria, etc. are not mass shootings because? Do we really want to give them legitimate bu equating these terrorists to soldiers calling what they did war crimes? It’s not like the people who were shot and killed had any weapons or necessarily had to be fighting them.
Fell better after that rant?
From Hufffington Post: Preacher Gives Shockingly Repulsive Sermon: ‘Orlando Is A Little Safer’
Who needs to blame ISIS when good ole American homophobia is so close at hand. Mateen was quite possibly a conflicted, self hating, gay or bisexual man. His claim of association to ISIS was a red herring. His hatred may have started in radical Muslim teaching, but there was plenty of American political and Christian prejudice to reinforce the message.
The frenzied attempts to spin this into an ISIS terror attack speaks to America’s need to distance itself from its own hate speech.
Let’s look at facts rather than suppositions, shall we:
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That has nothing to do with anything discussed in this article. Sure, the U.S. is definitely way ahead on gay rights than most parts of the world, which is great, but we also have a culture where, for a variety of reasons, it is more acceptable to solve your problems by picking up a gun and killing the people you blame for your problems. This simply doesn’t happen in most other parts of the world, and it tends to horrify other parts of the world when it does, whereas we Americans have become numb to it. In many cases, a… Read more »
Sometimes Gabe, a simple picture is all that is required to counter the incoherent string of ideas you’ve glued together in your article. You expend a lot of effort trying to explain how it had little to do with this idiot’s belief system. Access to guns is indeed an issue, but only in the sense that it multiplies 100-fold the level of atrocity one can commit – but the root cause is the belief system that infects the mind. His belief system is the problem Gabe. Why don’t you Google the latest Pew study on the followers of Islam and… Read more »
I attempt to lay out the complex psychological factors that go into making a mass murderer—a previous history of violence, steroid abuse, mental instability, an easy group to focus one’s rage on, etc.—and you call it “incoherent.” Your solution is simplistic: Islam is bad. If we’re going for simplistic, I’ll do you one better: *ALL* religions are bad, but the monotheistic ones are the worst. Here’s a little list for you, just consisting of names I could pull up off the top of my head: John Russell Hauser (2015) Frazier Glenn Miller (2014) Wade Michael Page (2012) Keith Luke (2009)… Read more »
You’re not following Gabe – I said his belief system is bad. Islam is a bad belief system. There are many other bad belief systems, but they are not all equivalently bad in consequence. There are no Mormon Jihadists, for example, even though Mormonism is another bad set of ideas. This is a simple point that you need to grasp. North American sexism and homophobia is also a bad set of beliefs, but they are not anywhere near the same level of atrociousness to what I presented in the link above. You’re drawing a false equivalency and I’m not going… Read more »
You can say Mormonism is a bad belief system but its far more complex than that. The Mormons do more in disasters than any other group; they can be “on the ground” before even government agencies. They also have a culture that rewards and emphasizes internal locus of control, order, cleanliness etc… You could do much worse than a stereotypical Mormon neighbor…. Islam itself is pretty complex as well. I’d say the fundamentalist brands of Islam practiced by ISIS and Al Queda is far and away the most destructive belief system present in our world today. My daughter’s Iranian friend?… Read more »
Dial back the time frame on that map a few months and America would look more like a patchwork.. not the “unified” country the current map suggests.
elissa, Thanks.
Maybe Gabe maybe he had a conflict with being at least bisexual. I don’t know nor do you. So on the surface let’s not try to deflect it from the stated purpose that he had of being true to isis that is a huge problem here. To claim American culture is to blame and guns while not acknowledging it may in fact be Islam itself.
To unpack your comment point by point—I did refer to Mateen as “closeted or otherwise conflicted,” because I didn’t want to make too many assumptions about his sexuality. Whether he was gay or bisexual, it’s clear he was struggling with his attraction to men—no one goes to the same gay bar multiple times just to get drunk. As for his “stated purpose” of “being true to ISIS,” sure, he may have claimed so in that 911 call—but he was also a fan of Jabhat al-Nusrah (Sunni Wahhabists backed by Saudi Arabia & Qatar) and Hezbollah (a Lebanese Shi’a militia backed… Read more »
ever heard of Taqiya? The drinking logic fails.Secondly- jihadists aren’t always the most devout. the 911 killers went to strip clubs, drank alcohol etc… I’ve already covered your objection to the “stated purpose” in a prior comment. you’re trying really hard to make this work but your logic is thin. You’re starting with conclusion you wish to be true and trying to fit selected facts, random exceptions and over 50 years of isolated events to make it so. I don’t even have to go back 3 years and I can eclipse your event count, deathtoll etc. Fundamentalist (see that word?)… Read more »