A Rather Large Pack of “Lone Wolves”

 

We are constantly being told that it’s “lone wolf” terrorists who are behind the Islamic terrorism attacks on our country, but it’s a rather long line of loners who are to blame for the Islam-inspired violence inside America. Since that fateful day in September 2001, there have been, by my count, ten attempted and successful attacks by radical Islamic terrorists on American soil.

  1. The 2006 UNC SUV Attack (9 injured)
  2. The 2006 Seattle Jewish Center Shooting (1 dead, six injured)
  3. The 2009 Arkansas Recruiting Center Shooting (1 dead, 1 injured)
  4. The 2009 Fort Hood Shooting (13 dead, 33 injured)
  5. The 2010 Attempted Bombing of Times Square (no injuries or fatalities)
  6. The 2012 Boston Marathon Bombing (6 killed, 280 injured)
  7. The 2014 Vaughn Foods Beheading (1 killed, 2 injured)
  8. The 2015 Texas Art Show Shootings (1 injury)
  9. The 2015 Chattanooga Recruiting Center Shootings (6 killed, 2 injured)
  10. The 2015 San Bernardino Shooting (14 killed, 23 injured)

Now, is this a complete list of all the post-9/11 attacks on American soil that have been inspired by Islam? Of course not. I’ve specifically left out the honor killings and inter-family attacks that were committed because someone in a family was “not Islamic enough” for someone else. This is just a list of large-scale attacks that were politically motivated by the words of the Quran.

It’s one thing to say that “God’s voice told me to kill my family”: Our prisons and psychiatric institutions are filled with people who claim that the voices inside their head told them to commit murder. With radical Islam, however, people kill in the name of god not because of the voices in their head told them to, but because the words in their scripture tell them it’s their ticket into heaven.

The lawyer for the Farook family urges us not to label the people who committed the horror in California as “Muslim terrorists” and complains that no one talks about “radical Christian terrorism.”

I beg to differ. I’m Scots-Irish: I can trace the ancestry of my family back to a small village outside of Londonderry in the late 1600s. This means that for hundreds of years, my Protestant ancestors were doing their level best to kill their Catholic neighbors, neighbors who read from essentially the same Bible my forebearers did. Eventually, though, both sides saw the stupidity of their ways and found a way to live peaceably together.

This is a lesson that radical Islam has yet to learn. It’s one thing to be a Dark Ages-era religious bigot who kills in the name of his god, and it’s another to try to repeat the mistakes of the Dark Ages in modern times, as ISIS is attempting right now. Maybe one day our foes in this war will be enlightened enough to live peaceably with all men, but until that day, we fight.

Published in Islamist Terrorism
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  1. John Berg Member
    John Berg
    @JohnBerg

    You left off your list  Mohamed Mohamed’s attempted bombing of Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square during the 2010 Christmas tree lighting where tens of thousands of people had gathered.  The FBI knew of the plot and made sure that the bomb was fake.  The fake bomb was in a white van that carried six 55-gallon drums with what appeared to be real detonation cords and plastic caps.  Mohamed tried to detonate the bomb by dialing a cell phone that was attached to it. When the device failed to explode, the undercover agent suggested he get out of the car to obtain better reception. When he did so he was arrested.  Mohamud told the agents, “I want whoever is attending that event to leave, to leave either dead or injured.”

    • #1
  2. Instugator Thatcher
    Instugator
    @Instugator

    Beltway Sniper?

    • #2
  3. MJBubba Member
    MJBubba
    @

    Instugator:Beltway Sniper?

    Yes, John Allen Muhammad should be included in this list.   He did pick up a 17-year-old sidekick, so he was not acting entirely alone, but he was the one who radicalized young Malvo, and he planned, provisioned and carried out his reign of beltway terror without other assistance.   Including the sniper attacks in other states before they got to Washington DC they are attributed with 16 killed and 9 wounded.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Allen_Muhammad

    • #3
  4. Instugator Thatcher
    Instugator
    @Instugator

    At the bottom of John Allen Muhammad is this list of “See Also”

    Note the number of plots not included above.

    • #4
  5. Mike LaRoche Inactive
    Mike LaRoche
    @MikeLaRoche

    Islam: it’s a blast!

    • #5
  6. Aaron Miller Inactive
    Aaron Miller
    @AaronMiller

    If you’re going to include attempted but failed mass murders, there was also the shoe bomber and underwear bomber who smuggled explosives onto planes full of passengers but were stopped (by passengers… while the TSA twiddled its thumbs).

    • #6
  7. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Kevin Creighton: It’s one thing to say that “God’s voice told me to kill my family”: Our prisons and psychiatric institutions are filled with people who claim that the voices inside their head told them to commit murder. With radical Islam, however, people kill in the name of god not because of the voices in their head told them to, but because the words in their scripture tell them it’s their ticket into heaven.

    The prisons and the psychiatric institutions are filled with schizophrenics. I should also note that this Muslim guy killed all those people because of what people on the internet told him. If he just read the Quran alone he might have had a different idea. Or maybe not.

    • #7
  8. BrentB67 Inactive
    BrentB67
    @BrentB67

    Thanks for putting the list together.

    • #8
  9. wilber forge Inactive
    wilber forge
    @wilberforge

    Long ago, the Japanese rulers had a method of dealing with miscreants that plotted against them. They first executed the plotters, then their families, uncles, cousins and wiped out the entire family line. A rather stern lesson to all who might oppose. In context, Islam is not that different, save it’s ideals are expansionist. Grim stuff that.

    When people twist themselves into knots over the Root Cause are simply those with bumper sticker mindsets.

    The Genie is out of the bottle and denial rules both in the elected and the media. Therein lay the greater threat. Appeasment is the poorest of all options and has been proven.

    • #9
  10. Pony Convertible Inactive
    Pony Convertible
    @PonyConvertible

    I am not trying to deminise this, but put it in perspective. You list 40 dead, 356 injured. Compare that to car wrecks, other murder attempts, falls, drownings, etc., and your numbers will look very small. The amount of fear people have over this, and the media attention it is getting, is not justified.

    • #10
  11. TG Thatcher
    TG
    @TG

    Pony, I believe that if you’re focusing on the numbers, you’re missing the point. With all those other causes of death or injury, we try to determine what can be done to prevent those incidents and what trade-offs we can and will make, and act accordingly.

    Here, Kevin has listed some incidents and wants to talk about what they have in common. The general idea is to identify causes, then talk about what *can* be done to prevent incidents having similar causes, discuss trade-offs, and – in an ideal world – act accordingly.

    • #11
  12. KiminWI Member
    KiminWI
    @KiminWI

    The impact of this “pack of lone wolves” should not be reduced to a number of dead and wounded, though that’s a sobering characteristic. The more consequential impact to the larger society is the fear (terror) that is seeded which prevents people from pursuing their lives. The brutality isn’t an end in itself, although the bloodlust may be seductive to the disordered souls trained in this theology. The disruption of society is the purpose of the terror-producing savagery which proceeds from the theology, by design.

    • #12
  13. Autistic License Coolidge
    Autistic License
    @AutisticLicense

    The Wikipedia on Garland is actually informative. And has a painting of Mohammed, so nsfw.

    • #13
  14. Stephen Bishop Inactive
    Stephen Bishop
    @StephenBishop

    It’s escalating.

    • #14
  15. Eugene Kriegsmann Member
    Eugene Kriegsmann
    @EugeneKriegsmann

    What is most disturbing about these events is that they do not have to be linked in anyway other than their adherence to a particular religion. They need not be card carrying members of a terrorist organization. They simply have to believe in the tenets of radical Islam and that all infidels are deserving of death. It also doesn’t hurt that they themselves feel that they are victims, that their whole religion has been  victimized by Christians and Jews since the Crusades.

    Given those rather simple factors, it is very difficult to differentiate the  so-called moderate Muslim from the potential terrorist. At what point does one become the other as apparently happened with Forook? Given the nature of Islam, the teachings of the Koran as they are interpreted by radical mullahs, it really is very difficult to feel comfortable with anyone who considers him or herself a religious Muslim. I don’t believe that that same can be said for adherents to any other religion, certainly not Christians and Jews, nor Buddhists. Islam is truly unique in this regard. No other holy book other than the Koran preaches the use of violence for the spreading of the religion or the punishment of apostates.

    If Muslims are concerned that they are looked upon with suspicion, perhaps they should look to their own beliefs and practices, and the history of Muslim terrorism which is pretty lengthy.

    • #15
  16. R. Craigen Member
    R. Craigen
    @

    Pony Convertible:I am not trying to deminise this, but put it in perspective.You list 40 dead, 356 injured. Compare that to car wrecks, other murder attempts, falls, drownings, etc., and your numbers will look very small.The amount of fear people have over this, and the media attention it is getting, is not justified.

    Hi Pony. Another reason reducing it to numbers is not the right way to look at issues like this is that those who do this tend to do so selectively — generally one’s choice of when to play “which of these things is biggest”?  reflects a prior disposition to wish to downplay something.  Note that from the same mouth you hear such arguments you might hear hysterical rhetoric about coat-hanger abortions … but have you ever seen the numbers for mid-century coat-hanger abortions?  How about the name of a single victim?  Yet has that not formed a fundamental part of the pro-choice argument for the last half-century?

    Yes, relative numbers mean something and shouldn’t be ignored.  But after showing a number is “small” we must still get to the question as to whether that small number is significant in some way other than mere cardinality.  In the case of Jihad attacks on American soil … it is.

    • #16
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