Nearly a month after a series
of coordinated terrorist attacks—consisting of mass shootings, suicide
bombings, and hostage taking—occurred in the French capital, Paris and its
northern suburb of Saint-Denis, many Americans must have wished that the
December 2, 2015 San Bernardino shooting was anything but a
terrorist attack. (On that occasion -- a holiday banquet at the Inland
Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, USA, Syed
Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik shot and killed 14 people and
injured 21 others).
As sad as that was, random shootings of that nature, in fact, have become
so rampant in the United States that some have begun to think of it as the 'new
normal.' The massacre, not surprisingly, reignited the rather familiar gun
control debate, a subject seemingly less frightening than any suggestion that
the Islamic State (ISIS) had perhaps penetrated the U.S. as it had
France. But the gun control debate was a red herring. While such debate
might serve the U.S. in its domestic quest for peaceful coexistence, this
particular massacre went beyond the purview of gun laws, though the
couple were said to have exploited the “bullet button loophole” to legally obtained assault-style rifles in
California.
In the Wake of Paris Attacks
The FBI has since acknowledged it as an “Act of Terrorism,” and the Islamic
State has claimed, in a radio broadcast, that its followers carried out the
attack. What was more, American-born Syed Rizwan Farook was reported to have
had contact with at least two militant groups overseas, including the al-Nusra Front, (an Al Qaeda affiliate allegedly supported by
the U.S. to oust President Bashar al-Assad of Syria). His Pakistani wife,
Tashfeen Malik was said to have pledged loyalty to ISIS in a Facebook post
hours before the massacre.
America-born Syed Farook
Pakistani wife, Malik
As it now sadly appears, ISIS penetrations into the
U.S. and western Europe is no longer a mere propaganda but a reality. If this reality is frightening, then maybe it is time for the
West to rethink the strategies, the blatant lies, and hypocrisies that gave impetus to this terror in the first place.
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