They haven’t managed to come up with a picture of her yet but evidence has emerged that Tashfeen Malik, one of the two individuals to whom the murders in San Bernardino are being attributed, pledged allegianace to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi:
One of the two people involved in the San Bernardino attack that killed 14 people pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, the clearest indication yet that this was an act of terrorism, according to two law enforcement officials.
The officials said Tashfeen Malik, 27, the Pakistani wife of the other shooter, made the statement on a Facebook page. It’s not immediately clear when she posted the declaration referring to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the emir of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, the terrorist group that says it has established a caliphate in Syria and Iraq.
When news of the attack was first reported, my immediate reaction was that it was either a game or a rehearsal. Subsequent events, if only the sheer volume of weapons and matériel recovered from the couple’s home, have lent some weight to the idea that attacks of a very different sort were being planned which suddenly transmogrified into shooting up an office Christmas party. Some are suggesting that a certain level of volatility should be expected of someone who’s planning a terrorist attack but I don’t know that.
I am not sure why some people believe that this was a terrorist attack. If the terrorists are now attacking Christmas parties, there is little to worry about. If this was workplace violence, there is a lot to worry about.
They were obviously planning something larger, but the hothead husband went off. If the reports of the neighbor seeing multiple people going in and out of the garage are correct, there are more people involved, but it also means that there are more people to apprehend.
Like I said, taking on untrained recruits is risky business. Think about it. Would you really want most of the people you know in the SEALS or Delta Force? If Uncle Joe or Sammy from next door were the best they could do, would you really feel safe at night?
This should prove that the NSA data collection is worthless to prevent attacks. They might use it to find their accomplices, but it contains too much data to be useful for prevention. It is a security blanket, but no security blanket can stop bullets, knives, or shrapnel.
Instead of killing people, blowing up shit, and spying on US citizens, the government should have an anti-/counter-terrorism program to monitor traffic across the US border and outside the US, they may have caught some of these domestic terrorists. Instead, junior terrorists are praised as genius engineers for creating mock bombs to ensure the senior terrorists can operate more freely.
Is it any surprise that Johnny Jihad, Jr. scampered out of the country before the attack took place. Now that his father is not in the US, he should be taken in for questioning.
This has been a differently handled attack, IMO, in that information appears to have been funneled through federal government filters before being disbursed to the public at large. For instance, law enforcement officers in San Bernardino found no mixed messages in the evidence presented to suggest anything other than the attack was a terrorist one. However, they reported to being constrained from “higher ups” to go there in their remarks.
Instead, the WH was given room to head on down corridors of possibilities supporting their indulgence of gun control rhetoric. This political exploitation of tragedy is becoming more and more explicit as this president’s term in office is winding down. It’s as if he is grasping on the last straws of his agenda — be it gun control, climate change controls, EPA regulation controls, healthcare controls, police department reconfigurations. etc. It’s mind boggling how the federally generated speech is so out-of-step, though, with many of the on-the-ground realities. Even Loretta Lynch coming out today and issuing a statement cautioning the use of anti Muslim speech, which followed her nebulous statement yesterday regarding San Bernardino’s police department — especially in lieu of the overwhelming praise received for their exemplary response to this event:
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One of the questions I have is whether the couple dropped their baby off at the grandmothers before Farook went to the office party, or if it was after he initially left the party angry.
If they dropped the baby off first, due to a fictitious doctor’s appointment, then Farook leaving angry might have been more pretense. He could have simply been scouting the scene and his anger was more about his resolve to go through with the plan.
I wonder if what might have changed here is the Paris bombings, which the couple took as a cue to do something to keep the pressure on the West. This was the target of opportunity that presented itself, though they had been developing capabilities for something different.
What I’m desperate to find out is whether anyone has even a scintilla of evidence that all those “thoughts and prayers” from all over the USSA had any objective effect whatsoever.
A terrorist behavior analyst interviewed claimed that a two step soft target/hard target (for the purpose of being able to show something for the effort should the hard target mission fail) approach is common.
I can’t comment other than it makes a lot more sense than the hothead hubby theory.
This thing is weird all the way around.
To answer PD’s question, the child wasn’t dropped off anywhere, the grandmother was living with the couple, according to the family attorney. Of course, she didn’t see nothing.
It’s good to see the Attorney General has responded to an act of probable terrorism by Mohammedans by assuring Mohammedans that the US government will be sure to investigate anyone that speaks anything other than words of fawning praise for the child molester they all worship. Somehow this seems like a misplaced priority to me, but I’m sure the feds know what they’re doing.
Every politician in America is stating that their preferred policy choices are the only solution: Obama wants to disarm white people; Jews & neocons want to invade some more Arab countries; anti-immigrationists want less immigration. I’m sure Bernie Sanders probably wants more social programs for disgruntled Movember participants and Rand Paul thinks a flat tax & legalizing hashish are the solutions for what ails ya. (At least the anti-immigrationists have a point. The FBI screening prosess looks about as effective as the Secret Service, or the NSA data mining operations. So yes, let’s please let in more fucking Musselmen!)
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The family’s press conference was full on bizarro.
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And with this taking place in San Bernardino, I can’t help but think James Ellroy should right this story up, In Cold Blood type style, perhaps.