A young man with a degree in engineering from Tennessee University hired a Ford Mustang and drove it to a US Naval Reserve Centre. There he pulled out a gun and opened fire through the perimeter fence.
Four marines were killed on the spot, three more wounded, and the young engineer was himself shot dead.
The FBI say that the man’s motives are unclear, which is a serious matter. After all, as any reader of detective novels knows, a thorough investigation of a crime is impossible without establishing the motive.
Mercifully, I’m here to help, taking advantage of the omniscient powers with which God endowed me. The FBI are looking for a clue, one paltry clue, but I in my munificence can give them not one, not two, but three ironclad clues:
Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez. Each of the three parts of the murderer’s name is a clue; each is an ample explanation of his action. Put them together, and the police don’t have to wrack their brains about the motive. It’s there for all to see.
The FBI hastily issued a statement saying that the murderer had no links with international terrorism. That could be true, unless one regarded, with ample justification, Islam itself as a terrorist organisation.
The FBI are of course under explicit orders from the very top not to indulge in such sweeping generalisations. What they meant was that the murderer had no established links with ISIS – as if Muslim terrorism started with this gang and has been monopolised by it.
This is the current line, or rather the current lie. Yet it was incessant acts of Muslim terrorism that provoked the First Crusade as far back as 1096. Narrowing our perspective, most of the world’s flashpoints over the last 20 years have involved Muslims – long before the world was graced with ISIS.
Specifically one could mention the conflicts between Bosnian Muslims and Christians, Côte d’Ivoire Muslims and Christians, Cyprus Muslims and Christians, East Timor Muslims and Christians, Indonesian Muslims and Christians in Ambon Island, Kashmir Muslims and Hindus, Kosovo Muslims and Christians, Macedonian Muslims and Christians, Nigeria Muslims and both Christians and Animists, Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims in Iraq and throughout the Islamic world, Muslims and Christians in the Philippines, Chechen Muslims and Russians, Azeri Muslims and Armenian Christians, Sri Lanka Tamils and Buddhists, Thailand’s Muslims and Buddhists in the Pattani province, Muslim Bengalis and Buddhists in Bangladesh, Muslims and Protestant, Chaldean Catholic and Assyrian Orthodox Christians in Kurdistan.
Yet not just the FBI but we all are under orders not to find, nor even to look for, any links between Islam and terrorism. “Islam is a religion of peace,” repeat Dubya, our own Dave and of course that walking argument against affirmative action, Barack Hussein Obama.
On what evidence have you, gentlemen, reached this conclusion? The probable answer would be that only a relatively small number of Muslims have a propensity for shooting US marines and flying planes into tall buildings.
However, using the same logic it would be possible to insist that no link existed between Nazism and genocide because only a relatively small number of Nazis gassed Jews. Nor could Bolshevism be held responsible for the acts of those relatively few who murdered millions in its name.
One piece of crucial evidence that’s routinely ignored is the way terrorists themselves describe their inspiration. Almost invariably they attribute their state of mind to the guiding hand of Allah.
The Chattanooga murder is no exception. In the immediate run-up to his crime he inundated his blog with helpful explanations. Here’s one:
“Take his (Allah’s) word as your light and code and do not let other prisoners, whether they are so called ‘Scholars’ or even your family members, divert you from the truth. If you make the intention to follow allahs way 100 per cent and put your desires to the side, allah will guide you to what is right.”
Here’s another: “Brothers and sisters don’t be fooled by your desires, this life is short and bitter and the opportunity to submit to allah may pass you by.”
Obviously it didn’t pass him by, even if the opportunity to learn English syntax did. But of course, should an intrepid policeman take the murderer at his word, the skies will open and the god of political correctness will smite the transgressor. This god knows no mercy.
One expects an outburst of spurious explanations of the murder, many focussing on the availability of firearms. Introduce gun control all over the Western world, and Islam will have no option but indeed to act as a religion of peace.
I’d say that the arguments for banning guns after the Chattanooga shootings are as powerful as those in favour of banning airliners after the similarly inspired 9/11. It’s such woolly, politicised thinking that prevents the West from stamping out Muslim terrorism once and for all.
It’s impossible to treat a disease without establishing a correct diagnosis. And it’s impossible to diagnose correctly without understanding the aetiology of the likely underlying cause.
In the absence of such understanding the patient may die. By the patient I in this case mean the West, if you’re wondering.