Regarding the murder of 49 people and the death of the Islamist murderer, Omar Mateen, and the wounding of more than 50 others in the Orlando gay club:
Dots were quickly connected. On June 8, Channel 3 in Las Vegas reported:
“A pro-Isis group has released a hit list with the names of more than 8,000 people mostly Americans.
“More than 600-people live in Florida, and one security expert believes that many of those targeted live in Palm Beach County and on the Treasure Coast.
“The ‘United Cyber Caliphate’ that hacked U.S. Central Command, 54,000 Twitter accounts and threatened President Barack Obama is the same pro-Isis group that's reportedly created a ‘kill list’ with the names, addresses and emails of thousands of civilian Americans.
“Reports of the list came to light online when Vocativ reported the list was shared via the encrypted app, Telegram, and called on supporters to kill.
“Former FBI agent-turned lawyer Stuart Kaplan says the threat is especially alarming, because the people on this list are civilians who don't have the security necessary to protect themselves.
"’It's going to create some hysteria,’ " he said.’’
But there was little hysteria in Hartford or Washington, D.C., or indeed within the legacy media, which generally has supported the gay community at home. Islamists have long viciously targeted homosexuals.
Murderous assaults against gays, Christians and Jews abroad do not inspire hysteria. Routine vicious assaults, both at home and abroad, trigger the usual emotional delays while facts are sifted. Is there a connection between the reality-denying Islam of President Obama – peaceful, joyously accommodating to Christians, Jews and gays – and the vicious assaults on all three groups in areas of the world where Islam is most faithfully practiced?
Who will dare say? Really, it’s anyone’s guess. By all means, let us gather together all the facts. Reports immediately following the slaughter of gays in Florida warned against drawing premature conclusions. People are hard at their posts even now, sifting facts – preparing their political briefs, deflecting responsibility from responsible parties to, say, the National Rifle Association.
In Connecticut, the usual pro-gay politicians released the usual media releases, and then returned to their comforting illusions. Hysteria has a way of quickly dissipating in the land of the free and the home of the brave: One day it’s this, another day that. Christian churches are burned, those considered kafir, infidels, by faithful Muslims are beheaded; Coptic Christians, a Christian remnant founded by the Apostle and Evangelist Mark, have nearly been exterminated in the Muslim world; Islam waves its bloody sword in the Middle East and northern Africa; Islamic warriors kill non-Muslims who refuse to bow to the sword, rape and enslave their women, abduct and re-program their young children. This is Islam, says Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder and leader of ISIS.
Although al-Baghdadi is not a graduate of prominent Islamic seats of learning such as al-Azhar University in Cairo or the Islamic University of Medina, in Saudi Arabia , he is, according to Aaron Zelin of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an Islamic minister “more steeped in traditional Islamic education than either al-Qaida's past and current leaders, Osama Bin Laden and Aymen al-Zawahiri, both laymen, an engineer and doctor, respectively.”
This is not Islam, says Mr. Obama, a past guest lecturer at Harvard Law School, about which Bill Buckley, one of the fathers of the modern conservative movement, once said, “I’d rather be governed by the first 1,000 people chosen at random from the phone book than by the Harvard Law School faculty.” So, take your pick.
Omar Mateen, a radicalized American Muslim, left a 911 message praising al-Baghdadi on the day of the slaughter, a bloody theo-ideological fingerprint that only the willfully blind will ignore – or cleverly discount by turning the religious sacrificial lambs to other purposes. Obama, moments after the slaughter, said of Mr. Mateen, “This was a person filled with hatred.” Wrong: Mr. Mateen was filled with a holy purpose.
Hillary Clinton, the almost certain Democratic nominee for president, thought, post-slaughter, that this might be a propitious time to talk about gun control. U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy has twice condemned Congress, silent on the matter of gun control. Previously, on the occasion of yet another mass-murder of civilians by two Islamic terrorists, Mr. Murphy offered tweeted condolences to terrorist victims in San Bernardino – but no prayers.
To those praying for the victims, Mr. Murphy showed the back of his hand: “Your ‘thoughts,” he tweeted, “should be about steps to take to stop this carnage. Your ‘prayers’ should be for forgiveness if you do nothing -- again.” All the pointless prayers and thoughts, Mr. Murphy wrote, were a mask for inaction, and “wholly insufficient.” Mr. Murphy announced that he was a veteran of Sandy Hook.
“And what’s so offensive is in the wake of another mass shooting, we have a gigantic menu of policy options that are at our disposal to try to cut down on this carnage. And we’re not pursuing any of them. We’re just absolutely frozen. Listen, maybe I shouldn’t tweet in anger, but I’m angry that we’re not doing anything to try to stop this.”
And here we are yet again. Apart from passing federal laws that are, to use Mr. Murphy’s words, a mere emotional sop and “a mask for inaction,” what action should the United States take against ISIS that might “stop this?”
Presidential emoticons – the shooter was “filled with anger” – have never warded off attacks committed by terrorists faithful to the revelations of Mohammed, peace be upon him, a live and pertinent connection regularly discounted as irrelevant by Mr. Obama. The shooter, bending his knee to Minister al-Baghdadi and faithful to the Koran, was performing a religious duty. Almost all the sahabas, the companions of the prophet Mohammed, assign deadly punishments for sodomy. Some agree that homosexuals should be burned and stoned, other that they should be thrown from a height and then stoned; most agree their punishment should be death.
Mr. Mateen legally obtained his weapons because at one time he was a security agent. One can be almost certain that gun sales among gays in Orlando, and elsewhere in the nation, will spike after the most deadly terrorist mass shooting yet in the United States. That is exactly what happened after the Cheshire and Sandy Hook killings in Connecticut. In any case, no law promulgated by Mr. Murphy could deprive a faithful observer of the Koran and the Hadith on Sodomy of an overriding religious obligation.
How about this: Suppose we kill ISIS, utterly destroy its presence in northern Iraq and North Africa by any means necessary – and destroy it in such a way that ISIS itself will know it has been destroyed, a more efficacious solution than gun control. Naturally, this cannot be done by sending drones to snuff out al-Baghdadi. It would require lots of American boots on the ground – and the vigorous support of Connecticut’s two U.S. senators, Mr. Murphy and Dick Blumenthal, who tweeted moments after the attack on gays in the United States, “… my heart breaks for the families of loved ones lost or injured.”
Yes, ISIS has left broken hearts – real broken hearts – all over the world. Why should Orlando, Connecticut, or any other convenient target chosen by a militant, unmolested Islam escape the sword of that religion, which has nothing to fear but fear itself? Does Mr. Blumenthal seriously think that ISIS fears his broken heart?
Don Pesci is a Vernon, Conn-based political writer.
