Something to Weave Into Your Small Talk With Friends and Co-Workers
Sunday
I read a story from The Week Magazine yesterday, and when I was at work, I mentioned one little tidbit in conversations with four different co-workers. What I mentioned was that Syed Farook, the male shooter in San Bernardino, hesitated after he and his wife came into the conference room. He seemed to be looking for someone according to some survivors. He might have been looking for a man he had argued with earlier about whether Islam was a religion of peace!
Everybody I told this to burst out laughing. And it made a serious point in a somewhat lighthearted way.
Below are some other interesting excerpts from the article.
At 11 a.m., less than 30 minutes after Farook had left the center, he was back. The couple walked through the doors and took what witnesses described as "a stance." She stood on the right of the door to the conference room; he was on the left as they pointed their long rifles at his astonished co-workers.
Farook appeared to hesitate, perhaps momentarily losing his nerve or maybe to seek out a specific victim, such as Thalasinos, with whom he had argued over whether Islam could call itself a peaceful religion.
Thalasinos was among the dead at the center. Also killed were Michael Wetzel, 37, a father of six, and Bennetta Betbadal, 46, the wife of a police officer and a Christian who fled to America from Iran when she was 18 to escape Islamic extremism.
When Malik (Farook's wife) arrived at Chicago O'Hare airport on July 27 last year after a flight that originated in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security had already carried out extensive background checks on her.
She had submitted her Pakistani passport and been fingerprinted, but no red flags had been raised...
The FBI found evidence that in their final days the couple tried to erase their electronic footprints, destroying devices. Two smashed mobile phones were discovered in a garbage bin near the home; Malik had what appeared to be a "burner phone" — one meant to be used for a short time and discarded — on her body.
When you find small pieces of information that really stand out, remember them and work them into casual conversations. This does two things: It can help gradually change someone's understanding of the problem of Islam, and it creates a mind set that says, "It's okay for us to talk about these things."
3 comments:
As for the subject of "Domestic Terrorism" which to be more clear is actually "lone wolf" Islamic terrorism. Be that person who is a violent jihadist be made so extreme by internet of ISIS , Al Qaeda or by any other kind of similar Islamic terror entity, it's the all same result by the same basic source. Which is murdered and maimed people because of the violence and evils of Islam's militant jihad. So we all ,as Americans ,should not live in fear, or be afraid to go different places and do different things because of fear of the the violent and deadly jihad of Islamic terrorism. For to live in fear would make the jihadist enemy happy. Nevertheless, we should keep a balanced view on things, and even though we should not live in fear, we still should keep aware of our surroundings and be on the lookout for anything that seems not to look quite right. As in "What's wrong this this picture ?" Then if something look wrong then go and tell the right person about it. As ,for example, that Tee-shirt vendor at Times Square NY, NY. who saw some smoke come out of a parked van and then went and told a police officer about it. As it has been said "If you see something, say something." To put in another way,the wisdom of the specific words of Thomas Jefferson may apply even more today then they did in his own time. For Mr. Jefferson had stated "Let the eye of vigilance never be closed."
I really do appreciate your "soft shoe" approach, CW, but those in denial are going to be educated one way or another, sooner or later, by Muslims, if things don't change and very soon.
Thank you. And we will all be better off if we are the ones educating them than Muslims. By the time Muslims educate them, it may be too late. Our work is clear. We need to educate and keep getting better at it.
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