Allegiance to [omitted]
The FBI has released partial transcripts of Omar Mateen’s conversations with police while he was shooting up Pulse in Orlando.
As we’ve previously reported, Mateen threatened to use explosives, including a car bomb and a suicide vest. Investigators say they didn’t find those items in or outside the club. In the calls, Mateen also identified himself as”an Islamic soldier” who pledged allegiance to a terrorist group, FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ron Hopper said Monday.
Throughout the calls, Hopper says, Mateen spoke in a “chilling, calm and deliberate manner.”
That’s how “Islamic soldiers” work. They’re chill.
A key name is missing from the official text, that of ISIS, the terrorist group to which Mateen reportedly pledged allegiance in the call. The term was redacted, in a move Attorney General Loretta Lynch discussed Sunday.
The discussion reported by CNN is singularly unenlightening.
FBI Director James Comey said Monday there were three calls with Mateen.“During calls he said he was doing this for leader of (ISIS) who he named and pledged loyalty to,” Comey had said. “But he also claimed to pledge solidarity with the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing and solidarity with a Florida man who died as a suicide bomber in Syria for al-Nusra Front, a group in conflict with the so-called Islamic State. The bombers at the Boston Marathon and the suicide bomber from Florida were not inspired by (ISIS) which adds a little bit to the confusion about his motives.”
Lynch also said that political correctness is not getting in the way of terror investigations and that maintaining contacts within the Muslim community is very important because “if they’re from that community and they’re being radicalized, their friends and family members will see it first.”“We investigate these cases aggressively, no stone is left unturned,” she told Bash. “There is no backing away from an issue, there is no backing away from an interview because of anyone’s background. Because for us, the source of information is very, very important.”
I don’t get it. I don’t get why ISIS is in parentheses, or redacted.
Back to NPR and the transcript. It’s nasty.
2:35 a.m.: Shooter contacted a 911 operator from inside Pulse. The call lasted approximately 50 seconds, the details of which are set out below:
Orlando Police Dispatcher (OD)
Shooter (OM)OD: Emergency 911, this is being recorded.
OM: In the name of God the Merciful, the beneficial [in Arabic]
OD: What?OM: Praise be to God, and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of God [in Arabic]. I let you know, I’m in Orlando and I did the shootings.
OD: What’s your name?
OM: My name is I pledge of allegiance to [omitted].
OD: Ok, What’s your name?OM: I pledge allegiance to [omitted] may God protect him [in Arabic], on behalf of [omitted].
OD: Alright, where are you at?
OM: In Orlando.
OD: Where in Orlando?
[End of call.]
There are few things more revolting than those pious invocations to sanctify the act of murdering people. The merciful, the beneficial – how dare you.
It isn’t explained at the link. I expect it may be simply that the word in whatever language he used to say it isn’t exactly “ISIS.” It’s not like they’re making a secret of which group it was.
How dare they. Indeed. And there’s a black joke in there somewhere. Something like: if they feel the need to insist their god is merciful, it’s probably because of ample indications to the contrary… It’s a bit like when someone says ‘It’s not about the money’. Usually, this is about when you work it out: it’s about the money.
Prior to the transcript being released, Loretta Lynch said references to ISIS and Islam had been redacted because to include them would be to “further [Mateen’s] propaganda” and would “re-victimize” survivors.
This half-assed attempt to stuff the massacre’s connection to Islam down the memory hole was met with instant ridicule, and the unredacted transcript was released shortly thereafter. A joint FBI/Justice Dept statement said they reversed course because the redactions had caused “unnecessary distraction.”
Right-wingers are currently stressing that this is an “Islamic” attack, because if they admitted the major role of homophobia in the attack they would be pointing the finger at themselves. Christians, ditto.
I don’t seem to have the link handy, but FWIW law enforcement appears to find this man consistent with mass murderers, and inconsistent with Islamic radicalization. On the “mass murderer” side, he was a loner, with few friends, who was bullied and who bullied others, who was a consistent discipline problem that never got better over time, who abused his wife, etc., etc. On the “inconsistent with radical Islam” side, there was for example no uptick in his religiosity before his killing spree. He had been an attendee at the mosque, but he didn’t start attending more frequently, nor change mosques, nor give other behavioral indications of intensified or radicalized religious belief.
If so, he seems to illustrate that when a religious person is also a criminal, he will couch his self-justifications in religious terms.
I think this is significant because blaming radical Islam, if it should transpire that his motivation wasn’t Islamic radicalization, gives a free pass to Christians and the non-religious to continue basting in the same homophobia that pointed this mass gunman at a gay nightclub when he snapped. It lets people who are part of the problem believe that the problem has nothing to do with them, but comes from them, over there.
Religious inspiration for murder doesn’t have to be coherent. I suspect a majority of religious terrorists would flunk a Sunday-school quiz. For that matter, who thinks any of the Bundy mob, for all their invocations of The Constitution, could answer any questions about its content?
This is a meme that needs to go away! The mass media loves the “loner” schtick, but it does the same thing as all the other brands – implies that loners are somehow more prone to mass murder. I have seen several places where a good case has been made that it isn’t loners that murder. Being alone is not the same as being a loner. A loner who does not have many friends does not snap; that’s what they want. A person who wants friends but doesn’t have them? Different story entirely.
The real affect of this is to make people scared of loners, to single out loners. The vast majority of loners are alone by choice, not because they are a sociopath, but because they are introverts and being around lots of people is exhausting. I’ve seen no convincing evidence that mass murderers are loners, or that loners are mass murderers in any greater number than gregarious people. Not having friends doesn’t make you a loner; it might just make you lonely.
So please, please, please, please, quit passing on this meme! For the sake of us loners, who really feel quite abused by society already for so many other reasons.
I’m with you that introverts aren’t killers. IIUC, the law enforcement profile goes deeper than that. In conjunction with other antisocial tendencies, like recurring brushes with authority and incidents of violence, the inability to form interpersonal relationships is part of the puzzle.
Various people claim he was in the closet. Self-loathing may have had something to do with it.
This half-assed attempt to stuff the massacre’s connection to Islam down the memory hole was met with instant ridicule, and the unredacted transcript was released shortly thereafter. A joint FBI/Justice Dept statement said they reversed course because the redactions had caused “unnecessary distraction.”
Loretta Lynch thinks we can solve the problem of Islamist terrorism through love, compassion and understanding.
My personal take on Matteen is that he was sexually abused as a young boy perhaps even by his father or uncles.
Sexually abusing pre-pubescent boys is very common in Afgan culture