Terrorist – or Mucker – In Seattle

The Seattle Times:

At least three people with gunshot wounds were taken to Harborview Medical Center late this afternoon after they were shot at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle building in the 2000 block of Third Avenue in Belltown.

Seattle police have arrested one man who reportedly walked into the building with a handgun and began shooting.

Terrorist, or mucker? We’ll hold our breath, hope for the best for all those involved, and see.

17 thoughts on “Terrorist – or Mucker – In Seattle”

  1. My bet’s on “terrorist”. Local network KING 5:

    bq.. “Sources told KING 5 the suspect is a Pakistani man with a criminal background. He is from the Tri-Cities but his citizenship is unknown.

    SWAT teams and a bomb disposal unit are at the scene. The building was still being searched.

    Three victims are believed to be women. Two of them are in their 20s. One was reportedly shot in the abdomen and another, a pregnant woman, was shot in the arm. They were taken to Harborview Medical Center. Another person has a knee injury.

    They have not yet been identified.

    Five or six people, both women and men, have been wounded, police spokesperson Jim Pugel said….”

    p. “Here’s the report.”:http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_072806WABshootingEL.3d89c1.html I somehow doubt that he was a disaffected member. If the sources are correct, he had many more convenient places to be amok – and chose this one for very specific reasons relating to the bigotry and hate preached widely within his religion.

  2. Swell. Just what we need — more maniacs.

    One of the things which has me rather unimpressed with Al Qaeda is how easy it is to carry out attacks of the scale of this one compared with how few hits the US actually takes. Given the pathetic cowardice of most of the population, it shouldn’t take very many attacks to incite widespread panic (remember the D.C. sniper?)

    bq. If the sources are correct, he had many more convenient places to be amok – and chose the synagogue for very specific reasons relating to the bigotry and hate preached widely within his religion.

    Ah, yes, that would make him one of the Swell. Just what we need — more maniacs.

    One of the things which has me rather unimpressed with Al Qaeda is how easy it is to carry out attacks of the scale of this one compared with how few hits the US actually takes. Given the pathetic cowardice of most of the population, it shouldn’t take very many attacks to incite widespread panic (remember the D.C. sniper?)

    bq. If the sources are correct, he had many more convenient places to be amok – and chose the synagogue for very specific reasons relating to the bigotry and hate preached widely within his religion.

    Ah, yes, that would make him one of the Swell. Just what we need — more maniacs.

    One of the things which has me rather unimpressed with Al Qaeda is how easy it is to carry out attacks of the scale of this one compared with how few hits the US actually takes. Given the pathetic cowardice of most of the population, it shouldn’t take very many attacks to incite widespread panic (remember the D.C. sniper?)

    bq. If the sources are correct, he had many more convenient places to be amok – and chose the synagogue for very specific reasons relating to the bigotry and hate preached widely within his religion.

    Ah, yes, that would make him one of the Swell. Just what we need — more maniacs.

    One of the things which has me rather unimpressed with Al Qaeda is how easy it is to carry out attacks of the scale of this one compared with how few hits the US actually takes. Given the pathetic cowardice of most of the population, it shouldn’t take very many attacks to incite widespread panic (remember the D.C. sniper?)

    bq. If the sources are correct, he had many more convenient places to be amok – and chose the synagogue for very specific reasons relating to the bigotry and hate preached widely within his religion.

    Ah, yes, that would make him one of the <0.5% of Muslims prone to such violence.

  3. First of all, major props for the John Brunner reference. Stand on Zanibar is one of my favorite Sci Fi novels, and Brunner is one of the more serious workmen in the field.

    Second, the difference between a mucker and a terrorist blurs at the edges. I think that this incident is closer to the mucker end of the axis, but only because he doesn’t seem to have been terribly organized. But, a whole bunch of muckers lashing out is pretty much indistinguishable from a terrorist movement.

  4. I agree this seems more like the LAX attack – a foreign-born Muslim nutball going postal against Jews instead of our local boys going after gays, the IRS, etc.

    But the public won’t draw distinctions between this Seattle incident and Beslan. After enough repetitions of this, there will be an irresistable public demand to export unmarried young (under 40) Muslim resident alien males.

    Some here may think their side’s elected officials won’t join this stampede.

  5. Pakistani? What do you think, is Jamaat-ul-Furqa or Lashkar-e-Jhangvi more likely?

    It was a “Pakistani”:http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/11/14/cia.killings.execution/index.html who opened fire outside CIA headquarters in 1993. Jamaat ul-Furqaa is based in Pakistan, and has significant presense in the US, Canada and the Carribean, with many Black Muslim members. Richard Reid was in JuF, which is what “Daniel Pearl”:http://www.saag.org/%5Cpapers5%5Cpaper409.html was investigating when he was abducted and killed. And, in the Pacific Northwest, “James Ujaama”:http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/04/14/Ujaama.plea/ & company likely had ties to JuF, and I’ll bet bottom dollar that the DC “snipers”, Muhammed and Malvo, were “involved”:http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=4173 with Jamaat ul Furqa.

    But this is crazy conspiracy talk.

    Were Muhammed and Malvo terrorists? Oh, “heavens, no!”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13935-2002Oct24?language=printer They were just a couple of crazies. No connections with foreign terrorists, I’m sure. And this guy has no foreign connections, either. Well, except he’s a, er… well, you know, _foriegner_, but let’s not let that simple fact keep us from ruling out, from the outset, the fact that he has any connections with a foreign terrorsist organization. Because we all know that’s simply ridiculous.

  6. Imams pump out propaganda and incitements. Bin Ladens and Zawahiris speaches proliferate on tape. And some in their audienace, singly or in “groups”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground#2005_terrorist_bomb_attacks act on it and die in the act or get caught, while their “Spiritual Leaders” keep spreading the hate.

    This discoupling of leaders and actors in order for the leaders to avoid legal consequences (not OBL or Z of course, but the average hate preacher and the foundations that pay him) is called “leaderless resistance”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaderless_resistance it was pioneerd by Christian Identity and the KKK after the United Klans of America got bankrupted in a lawsuit.

    But leaderless resistance really fits Islamists much better than Kluckers for a number of reasons.

    o Firstly Saudi money to finance materials and pay full time inciters are several orders of magnitude greater than what the KKK ever could dream about. United Klans of America got bankrupted when they were ordered to pay $7 million in damages. What would it take to bankrupt the Saudi foundations? $7 trillion?

    o Secondly in the Saudi-controlled mosques they have a captive audience that Louis Beam could only dream about.

    o Thirdly the hate material, books or tapes, is in a language that 99.99% of all police doesnt understand.

    o Finally jihad is an invididual duty.

    Ursus Maritimus

  7. _I agree this seems more like the LAX attack – a foreign-born Muslim nutball going postal against Jews instead of our local boys going after gays, the IRS, etc._

    Not so fast there, Tom.

    According to this “Frank Gaffney article”:http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/gaffney070902.asp

    _First, there is evidence that Hadayet was connected to al Qaeda. On Sunday, the Arabic London-based Al Hayat reported that the shooter was a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and that he had met Dr. Ayman Zuwahri, the Islamic Jihad leader who became Osama bin Laden’s deputy, in California — not once but twice in California, in 1995 and again in 1998._

    _Taken together with other aspects of Hadayet’s background — notably that he reportedly had worked at LAX for five years in the employ of a ground service company until he aroused El Al’s suspicions and that he then left to run a limousine service that afforded him continued, regular access to airport terminals — raises suspicions that the gunman might have been a “sleeper” agent for al Qaeda._

    Other intriguing information came out in the days following the attack. According to “The Scotsman,”:http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=728992002
    Hadayet’s uncle was a General in the Egytian Army. Also confirmed by “Fox News”:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,56978,00.html

    _In Cairo, his wife and sister were taken away for questioning by Egyptian intelligence officers. Hassan Mostafa Mahfouz, a retired general and Hadayet’s uncle, said the family could not understand why he had carried out the shooting: “I was surprised and upset by this news. I felt that he could not do that. He is a very, very tender person and close to his family,” Mr Mahfouz said._

    In addition, Hadayet’s own father “appears”:http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:VmnrYof_etUJ:www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp%3Fpage%3Dstory_7-7-2002_pg4_1+Hadayet+father+general&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=30&client=firefox-a (google cache) to be a General, and the “Forward”:http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.07.12/news1.html even offered that,

    _There was speculation this week that he was related to Salah Hadayet, one of the so-called Free Officers who along with Gamal Abdel Nasser staged the 1952 army coup that overthrew Egypt’s monarchy._

    Here’s where it gets really interesting. “Debka”:http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=351 reported,

    _Hadayat is also believed to have abetted a previous, contrived airline disaster: On October 31, 1991, an Egyptair Boeing 767 Flight 990, which also took off from Los Angeles airport, never reached its destination of Kennedy, New York. The plane plunged into the Atlantic off the Nantucket Island, Mass. coast, killing all 217 passengers and crew. In a special probe, the US National Transportation Safety Board found that the copilot Gameel el-Batouty was at the controls when the plane went into its dive. His voice was recorded shouting, “I put my faith in Allah!”_

    _The report held back from referring more directly to the Egyptian copilot’s responsibility for the crash._

    A fantastic article on that report can be found “here.”:http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200111/langewiesche Or used to be — the whole thing was online at one point. Back to Debka.

    _Our sources affirm that Hadayat, who lived in Irvine, California, 70 km south of Los Angeles, knew Batouty well. There are also indications that, in the years 1998 and 1999, Hadayat was in touch with a group of high Egyptian air force officers and helicopter pilots posted at the time at Edwards Base north of Los Angeles. They were there to learn how to install command and control centers in Egypt’s air defense systems, operate anti-air missile batteries and fly Apache gunships. Most of those officers were on the doomed Egyptian airliner after completing their courses._

    Now certainly one has to be very careful using Debka. Even in this breif article, they twice mis-state the date by eight years, and include a bizarre theory that the officers on the doomed plane were in on the plot. Nevertheless, Debka can be useful when cross-referenced with other sources. Throw out the crap in Debka’s piece, and a plausible scenario emerges.

    Hadayet, the son of privilege, finds an allure in extremism, as many sons of privilege are wont to do. In 1981, when Sadat was assassinated by Islamic Jihad, Hadayet would have been 21 years old. Near that flashpoint and subsequent turmoil, Hadayet joins as a secret member.

    Hadayet finds himself in the United States as an undercover operative. Leveraging his family connections, he visits the visiting officers in California. Hadayet passes the information along to el-Batouty, who intentionally crashes the plane in the name of jihad. Muburak leans on Clinton to keep it quiet, and Clinton does so. (See Atlantic article.) The Hadayet connection is perhaps only revealed on July 4, 2002 at LAX, and that attack, too, is glossed over for various raisons d’etat.

    It took months before the FBI admitted that, well, the LAX shootings _might_ be possibly classified as a terrorist act. “BBC”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2100000.stm

    _The FBI said it was not ruling out terrorism as a motive – but there was nothing to suggest that at the moment._

    _”We have not determined whether he had any anti-Israeli views,” FBI agent Richard Garcia told news conference on Friday, saying it was still “very difficult to determine the exact motive”._

    And in the Scotsman article linked above:

    _”We’re not looking for any other suspects,” said Richard Garcia, the FBI official in charge of the investigation._

    It’s easy to miss a larger organization when you don’t bother to look. Sure, Admit that it’s terrorism — only after the trail has gone cold. Only after journalists, editors, and the general public have that information mentally filed under “lone gunman.”

    Compartmentalization is the name of the game. I expect the same standard of investigation and openess in the Seattle investigation.

  8. This act was terrorism. The FBI will deny it because they are responsible for preventing domestic terrorism and don’t want to admit they failed – even though that job is almost impossible. Any person or splinter group motivated by a terrorist organization can take action on their own.

    By the way, this show’s why it’s useless to negotiate with terrorists. An individual or splinter group can act independently. This happens with Palestinians all the time when the militant wing commits a terrorist act and the political wing responsible for negotiations says “don’t blame us for breaking our agreement, we didn’t do it”.

    Will the international community consider this during the effort to resove the problems in Lebanon? Probably not.

  9. It may be terrorism, but it’s not very effective terrorism. That’s why a lot of people are willing to classify it as wackoism. When they do something effective, it’ll get more than 24 hours’ attention. Till then, it’s another flavor of wacko.

  10. Mrs. Davis & Rory,

    After a point the American people will not differentiate between Islamic wackoism and Islamic terrorism.

    They will demand that non-citizen Muslims in the threat group, i.e., single males under 40, be expelled in mass. And the U.S. govt. will do it. There is much history here.

  11. “But the public won’t draw distinctions between this Seattle incident and Beslan. After enough repetitions of this, there will be an irresistable public demand to export unmarried young (under 40) Muslim resident alien males.”

    Well of course. They are the enemy.

    You can’t have “All Men are Created Equal” with Mohammed’s message that they are not; and the Muslim must slay and/or enslave the infidel. Like or not, the true, religious, authentic voice, character and actions of Islam are represented by this individuals cruel and brutal murder of Jewish women, including one pregnant woman shot in the stomach.

    When Muslims scream they will carry out “the real Holocaust,” carry signs saying Allah Bless Hitler and “Islam will Dominate” I understand their message very well.

    It’s not as if Muslims take to the streets denouncing this sort of thing; instead we get weasel words and cries of Islamaphobia.

    This guy, John Muhammed, Lee Boyd Malvo (both Muslims) are all part of a pattern of “sudden Jihad Syndrome” aka the NC Jihadi who wanted to kill Americans with his Jeep; or various other Muslims intent on Jihad.

    The Muslim community in the US failed to take action against Jihadis (instead sided with them) and will pay the price for that failure.

    This attack points out that no negotiation can be done with Muslims; among other things Muslims feel the need to kill Jews whenever and wherever they can find them; even Jews who have nothing to do with Israel. Instead of Muslims calling for this guy’s head on a platter and offering to put their own lives on the line to protect Jews and Syanagogues, we hear the Islamaphobia stuff and evasion of responsibility (because what this guy did is part of Mainstream Islam and really something nearly all Muslims agree with; I’ve certainly seen no Muslims en-masse condemning him or his actions).

    Time to face reality: Islam is a constant threat to civilized peoples and if Muslims practice expulsion of all non-Muslims from lands they control (and they do) logic dictates the West do the same.

    [Tom Dems siding with Jihadis and their plan being abject PC surrender makes them electoral losers.]

  12. American history and certainly more so human history, suggests that Tom’s scenario is possible. Having said that, I think his dark future scenario fails to consider the braking forces that are always at work in such situations, and also the effects of implementing alternative measures. Good analysis requires both. For instance:

    [1] For every case of “sudden jihad syndrome,” you’ll probably find at least 5 young Muslim males serving in the Army, FBI, et. al. Like the news from Iraq – present both sides of the picture, and the view of what we’re looking at changes. And with the “6 degrees” principle operating, many people aren’t that far away from counter-examples.

    [2] SJS sufferers tend not to be overly effective as things currently stand. And Americans (unlike, say, Europeans) have a remedy to it without recourse to laws: carry a weapon. The most likely consequence of ongoing SJS is that the liberal assault on the 2nd Amendment gets a lot weaker.

    [3] The most likely target for enforcement effort isn’t “young Muslim males” if things step up – it’s mosques. There’s always a mosque in the background of such things, preaching hate. Laws that can strip such locations of their religious status would be in place long before deportations. The effect of which would be to substantially raise the penalties for non-reporting of suspicious behaviour or persons, and deprive many jihadis of their prime organizing locations. At that point, SJS is likely to drop below the “further action required” threshold.

    [4] Note that there is ALWAYS a “further action required” threshold for any political problem. IS SJS currently serious enough to cross it? No. Could it become so? It could. Would Tom’s scenario be the first reaction, or the very last of a long chain if all other options fail? I think that whatever one thinks of the option on moral grounds, speaking practically we can agree that it’s at the end of the chain.

    [5] Consider other experiences and how the problem has been addressed. Israel offers one example where they have implemented many measures short of Tom’s solution. If they aren’t there, how far would the USA have to be pushed? One can also look at the Europeans, who are quietly reducing immigration from Muslim countries, creating legal mechanisms targeting problem mosques and imams, et. al. America is an Anglosphere nation rather than a continental European one, so these measures would be less backroom-elite and more open if adopted here. But the experience of others does suggests what is likely to be tried, and Tom’s option isn’t on that list.

    Considering all this, the grounds for alarm are much, much smaller than Tom’s scenario presents. One certainly hears such cries and warnings often enough from the Left, but it remains deeply unlikely.

    The exercise of pointing out WHY, however, both dampens alarmism and points the way to better analysis approaches in general.

  13. Joe,

    It isn’t the preaching in American mosques which leads to this – it comes from being raised in a majority Muslim country. American nutballs going postal hear messages from Mars in their teeth fillings, or from Ross Perot, and attack gays, the I.R.S., etc. Muslim nutballs raised in Muslim majority countries who go postal attack Jews when those are available. Generally Jews are not available to attack in Muslim majority countries.

    But Jews are available to attack in the U.S. for Muslims raised elsewhere who go postal here. So they do.

    Such people cannot be deterred. They’re nuts.

    The only way to prevent such attacks in the U.S. is to keep out Muslim nutballs raised in Muslim majority countries. They are generally under 40, always male, almost always unmarried, and almost always have discernible records of undesirable behavior – mental treatment, criminal records, are unemployed or unemployed school dropouts, etc.

    It is certainly feasible to track resident alien Muslim males under 40, and to track their W-2’s, student registration status.

    But nothing will be done to this end until the American people are so riled up by repeated Seattle/LAX type incidents that they demand the expulsion of all resident alien Muslim males under 40 or so.

    This would certainly be overkill. And it will happen because more effective lesser means won’t be tried before it is too late.

    As for lefties who think this can’t happen, consider that it was Democratic elected officials who led the charge against the Dubai ports deal.

  14. Joe,

    For every case of “sudden jihad syndrome,” you’ll probably find at least 5 young Muslim males serving in the Army, FBI

    Sure, and I assume most of them serve honorably. However, you do remember the one Muslim FBI agent who refused to surveil a fellow Muslim, don’t you?

  15. Just because you commit a crime, doesn’t make one a terrorist, even though that is the gov’t def of what a tango is. Because fear controls the weak.

    If all the sociopaths that make up the fear laws, and hate crime laws would quit living in fear of their criminal lives, then all of this would be redundant. The fact is, that the people that coined the phrase genocide, and hate crime, do so, because there is cause against them, and they make such laws to hide behind them.

    Such laws would only deter joe 6-pack and Sally soccer mom, anyway. Someone who wants to kill you bad enough can do it with a sharp #2 pencil.
    Gunphobes, and those who depend on gov’t to protect their silly little lives have to have some kind of weak substance to buffer their paranoid vaginal knee jerk reactions. Reality is far from them, and they run to and fro like lemmings in a crisis situation. If you are evil, and don’t want to get caught, then you have to have such things as big gov’t. If you walk like the righteous and you dare to be good, the you’ll walk upright with your head high as you pack a gun. So when the next tango rears his ugly head, you can give him an open mind.

    It’s as simple as that.

    Gov’t is just a small (g) god for the weak.

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