Why on earth would they take credit for this shit show:
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack outside a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest in Texas — and warned of more attacks to come.
In a broadcast on its official radio channel Tuesday, the group said two Al Khilafa soldiers opened fire outside the event in Garland, a Dallas suburb. Al Khilafa is how ISIS refers to its soldiers.
CNN cannot confirm the claim, and ISIS offered no evidence that the gunmen were affiliates with the terror organization.
The ISIS radio announcer also referred to Simpson and Soofi as the terror group’s “brothers.” The announcement ended with this warning:
“We say to the defenders of the cross, the U.S., that future attacks are going to be harsher and worse. The Islamic State soldiers will inflict harm on you with the grace of God. The future is just around the corner.”
Sure is convenient timing…
CONGRATULATIONS!
Somehow this is inducing a lot less terror in me than these ISIS clowns would like it to, and a lot more laughter than it probably should.
RandomMonster
Because they know that Americans collectively soil themselves at the mere hint of terrorism.
The Dangerman
They decided it would be fun to play Bullshit Bingo with Fox News commentators?
Jane2
@RandomMonster: Exactly, especially when it’s from the Most Evil Terrorists in the History of the World (This Month).
Belafon
This is relevant:
JDM
Oh I believe this absolutely, and I am so very scared. Save me, [insert Republican candidate name here].
Brachiator
ISIS Extremists vs Southern Fundamentalists. Ignorance Fundamentalist Deathmatch.
Rex Tremendae
ISIS would love for us to think they can hit us anywhere, any time.
chopper
i’ll bite your legs off!
Betty Cracker
Right? What are they going to do for an encore, send FOUR morons with assault rifles to get picked off by a pistol-wielding mall cop? Better to disavow all knowledge of that pair of deceased idiots.
And meanwhile, they played right into Geller’s hands. More than anything else in the whole world, she wanted to provoke extremist assholes that are even more horrifying than herself, and right on cue, those fools showed up. So now Geller can strut around calling herself a free speech advocate, which she’s not.
Botsplainer
Mostly the authentic heartland types of ‘Murkans.
If I were the ISIS chief of operations, I could bring the U.S. economy to a screeching halt and the society to a fascist state by selecting targets designed to heartland fears. Target a Plano megachurch, a Dothan VFW hall, an Orlando mall and a Phoenix Denny’s during the early bird rush (stationing snipers at the various first response hospitals), and those earnest, “courageous” Christers would lose their collective shit, all at the cost of some training and about 200 rounds of ammo.
raven
Fuck em all. After two years the work on our addition finally began today!
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Brachiator: Draw. Both sides are heavily armed, completely uneducated, and can’t read or speak English.
Amir Khalid
The Klown Kar Komplement won’t be komplete until this man declares he’s running for president. Lindsay Graham denounces the Arabic for “the”.
Alex
ISIS is taking credit for the attempted mass murder in Garland because a greater number of Muslims worldwide than you and other bien pensant liberals are willing to admit believe that blasphemy justifies vigilante execution. It thus behooves ISIS, from a PR vantage point, to take credit for the shooting. But, sure, you could go full Greenwald and insinuate that the U.S. government orchestrated the press release. That’s always an option.
Amir Khalid
@Alex:
And you have evidence, yes?
Lee
So the Patriot Act and all the wiretapping & eavesdropping couldn’t stop 2 crazy people from trying to do something crazy.
It was stopped by a mall cop with a revolver.
Tell me again how the security state is protecting us.
boatboy_srq
@Brachiator: If only we could airlift them to Antarctica and let them slug it out once and for all (minus parkas, 4 season tents, etc etc).
Germy Shoemangler
@Amir Khalid:
A chart showing what Americans DON’T want for president:
http://boingboing.net/2015/05/05/this-is-what-americans-dont.html
boatboy_srq
@Lee: Security theatre was never intended to protect. The best they could hope for was some interesting Kabuki, and of course the diversion of federal funds otherwise useful in rebuilding infrastructure and feeding/housing/schooling Those People.
Belafon
@Alex:
What you talkin’ ’bout, Willis?
dedc79
Poor Texas. Caught between ISIS on the one hand and the US Army on the other….
ShadeTail
Because they want to bait the US into disproportionate response, same as bin Laden managed. And if Romney had won in 2012, it might have worked. (Hell, President Romney would have already had the army over there by now). Obama, on the other hand, is smart enough not to let a bunch of cave-dwelling losers play him like a flute.
boatboy_srq
@Betty Cracker:
AAAGH! Morons with assault rifles! Quick, somebody call the militia – oh, wait…
boatboy_srq
@Botsplainer: Requires knowledge of Ahmurrcan kultur not so far shown by Turrrrrists. Notice the targets selected so far: NYC (WTC), Pentagon, WH: all globally recognized symbols, none especially likely to trigger anything like the response to attacks on the places you mention.
Laertes
We’ve seen this dynamic in the Middle East too: Extremists on both sides of a conflict have a common interest in escalating. It’s not a zero-sum game. Guys with guns gain power when the people around them are scared of the other side’s guys with guns. For extremists of all sorts, the real enemy are people who just want to work their trades, love their families, and live in peace. Thugs have more in common with enemy thugs than with “friendly” peace-loving folk.
Robert M.
This strikes me as a tragicomic misunderstanding of US culture on the part of IS.
After all, this is a country where a crazy guy shot up a room full of kindergartners a couple of years ago, and even that wasn’t a serious enough threat for us to change any of our rules about who can have guns and how we can purchase them.
In that context, one wounded security guard isn’t a terror attack. Hell, it hardly even qualifies as a distraction.
Belafon
@Lee: All our military couldn’t prevent 9/11. All of the medical programs in the world can’t stop me from getting a cold. All the food we create can’t stop hunger. Scrap it all.
Also, the people are on American soil, and there wasn’t a whole lot of reason to suspect that they would drive to Garland. You know, they fall into the part of the NSA’s program where they’re not allowed to operate.
Gravenstone
@RandomMonster:
Adjusted accordingly Shockingly, very few seem to trouble themselves over Christianist terrorism, such as gunning down abortion providers and the like.
Comrade Dread
If it were just a common mass shooting at a mall, company, movie theater or a KINDERGARTEN, no one would blink a goddamn fucking eye or give a fucking shit.
But if ISIS claims responsibility, then our politicians can whip everyone up into a needless frenzy and get us to like a typical Imperialist and meet this rather minor ‘attack’ with overwhelming force that kills more civilians and allows ISIS to portray themselves as defenders of Islam and the people and recruit more soldiers.
boatboy_srq
@Belafon: Lack of NSA sigint doesn’t impede FBI surveillance. That said, though, DHS dollars would be better spent on schools/roads/bridges/SNAP/etc, wouldn’t they?
Mike in NC
Lucky for us all, the Reverend Huck-A-Buck has climbed onto the roof of the GOP Klown Kar. He has a secret plan to defeat the dreaded Islamic State and will share it with you for a modest donation to his campaign.
Doug r
@dedc79: army exercises don’t look so bad Now do they?
Belafon
@boatboy_srq: I was trying to imply some of that in the first paragraph. No system is perfect, you’re not going to stop them all, no matter how hard you try.
I don’t deny that we could rethink a lot of it, but I just get annoyed at “it failed once, therefore it’s bad.”
Citizen_X
@Alex:
Ooh, aren’t we fucking fancy?
Belafon
@Mike in NC: Prayer, ending abortions, and keeping those black men away from your daughters. And sending your sons overseas.
ShadeTail
@Robert M.: But the guy who shot up a bunch of kindergarteners wasn’t *a Muslim*.
boatboy_srq
@Mike in NC:
Eight hundred years ago, a (similar, Catholic) effort involved a Grand Armee, heavy armor, siege engines and a wide assortment of Inquisitors’ tools. That went about as well as Shrub’s GWoT. One wonders what the FundiEvangelists didn’t learn from the earlier attempt – until one recalls that FundiEvangelicals and history aren’t exactly friends.
Chris
@RandomMonster:
This.
@Robert M.:
Don’t agree. Because of what he said –
@Comrade Dread:
Yep. There’s no misunderstanding here. An attack by Muslims is not equal to an attack by crazy white people (political or otherwise (unless the politics are leftist)).
ms_canadada
@Lee: BINGO! Amazing how nefarious these boogers are, and oh so stealthy. The knee-jerk reaction is always ‘MOAR MONEY FOR THE MIC.’
(but makes sure those low-lives on Food Stamps can’t buy a smoothie…/s)
Brachiator
@Alex:
Yawn
I can’t speak for anyone else, but just for the record, I consider Greenwald to be a moron. Invoking his name is a waste of time.
Like the full Greenwald thing, though.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
And you with a sliced-up pinky can’t even properly lift a cuppa tea in their general direction :-(
Aleta
But let’s broadcast this immediately.
boatboy_srq
@Belafon: Understood. What peeves me is the security theatre – and the corresponding bill – that isn’t especially effective except to remind Ahmurrcans how threatened they supposedly are (and to remind the rest of us that the GOTea can always find $$s to blow if it makes people scared of phantom boogeymen).
Ridnik Chrome
@Germy Shoemangler: So according to that, Americans would be more comfortable with a gay or lesbian president than they would with one who was an Evangelical Christian or a Tea Party leader.
Gives me hope for this country, it does…
boatboy_srq
@Gravenstone: Christianist terrorism is the Righteous Slaying of unBelievers™, as dictated in the Book of Smith-Wesson.
Belafon
@boatboy_srq: I do agree with you there: The purpose of the DHS is theater for the people in Washington (and a way to bust federal unions), and I get annoyed at the stuff we do for show at my work that doesn’t really do much good. But, I’m pretty sure the pre-DHS FBI would have more likely than not missed this.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
…algebra, Al Gore, alfredo sauce, Albuquerque, algorithm, almonds, alcohol, Alcatraz, Aldebaran, Alexander the Great, allemande left…
Germy Shoemangler
@Ridnik Chrome: …Evangelical Christian or a Tea Party leader
Both of the above choices are recipes for disaster. I would hope the majority of citizens understand this.
ThresherK (GPad)
@Lee: Is one of those crazy people you speak of Pam Gellar?
Betty Cracker
Media coverage question: I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how low-key the reaction to the Garland incident has been, but maybe it’s just because I’ve been limiting my corporate media intake for my own sanity. Aside from Fox propaganda outlets (because fuck them), has this incident been covered as a 24/7 scare-mongering event? Not that I’ve seen, but maybe I’ve just missed the shit-storm. After the initial reports, it seems like mostly a blog-level event.
Hungry Joe
People can’t seem to understand that 1) nothing can keep everyone in the country safe from a small number of determined lunatics, and 2) that fact does not imply weakness. When Iranian militants took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, it wasn’t because Carter or the U.S. was weak, it was because all embassies are sitting ducks if they’re not protected by the host country. Is a big-city police force “weak” and “helpless” if a criminal is holding a child hostage?
People also can’t grasp the fact that were Islamic terrorists to kill 30 people a year in the U.S. — more than they’ve killed in any year since 2001 — an individual’s chance of being a victim would be, literally, one in ten million.
Lee
@ThresherK (GPad):
I was vague for a reason ;)
Belafon
@Betty Cracker: Come to the Dallas area. The only thing that’s been more annoying than seeing this covered on all four news programs is seeing Chuck C. Johnson within 50 miles of my house.
Germy Shoemangler
@Betty Cracker: Could it be because of Pam Gellar?
It’s like, if there is a hornet attack in a small town, the local news would want to make it a full-blown headline, but then if it turns out little Pam spent the morning poking sticks into nests…
Amir Khalid
@Hungry Joe:
If Muslim terrorists were to kill 30 Americans every year out of 300+ million people, wouldn’t that be an annual kill rate of 1 in 10 million?
Chris
@Hungry Joe:
This behavior gets even more retarded when you realize that, when there are no Muslims involved, we do react rationally and put it all in perspective.
Oklahoma City was a terrorist attack on the same scale as 9/11; we didn’t react by going completely apeshit. We acknowledge that every now and then, some band of crazies will get lucky, but that the militia movement as a whole doesn’t pose nearly the kind of threat that would justify a response like the Patriot Act. And go back to treating is as primarily a police problem.
Hungry Joe
@Amir Khalid: Yes; I corrected to ten million before the clock ran out on my comment. No fair.
Gravenstone
@SiubhanDuinne: Allons-y!
Belafon
@Chris:
FTFY
replicnt6
@Botsplainer:
Sounds like you’ve thought this through :-)
Napoleon
@Betty Cracker:
In two of the local newscast here in Cleveland the morning after it lead the news, but they specifically noted Geller’s group was listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Institute (or whatever it is called).
J R in WV
@raven:
Congratulations!!
Take lots of pictures, both for the great memories and so in the distant future, when you can’t remember where the heck that fresh water inlet/sanitary sewer/gas/phone/electric comes into the house, you can look it up. Put a big wide tape measure in the picture, running from a corner which won’t move.
Actually mine are easy to find, as they enter a basement, where I can measure from the corners standing in the cool dry of a celler. But the principle is the same.
Good luck with everything. I wish I could lend a hand! It’s great to get home from work and see stuff that has been accomplished.
Poopyman
@boatboy_srq:
Feature, not a bug
.@SiubhanDuinne: Don’t forget al dente
Mandalay
@Amir Khalid:
Also too, this not-so-smart quip from Graham:
I want everyone in the GOP presidential clown car to crash and burn, but Graham is the absolute top of my list. People generally just mock him here, but he is a really nasty and really dangerous piece of work.
Ridnik Chrome
@Germy Shoemangler: Don’t forget, our first (some would say only) evangelical Christian president was Jimmy Carter…
chopper
clearly this is a Jade Helm false flag operation. the so called “ISIS” guys came out of a tunnel underneath a walmart.
LanceThruster
As one who has been slammed here before for expressing distrust of the official narrative…it was encouraging to see this line —
Sure is convenient timing…
raven
@J R in WV: I documented the entire sewer project and will do the same with this!
Mandalay
So that they can legitimately claim to have carried out a terrorist attack on American soil.
SATSQ.
sharl
@Germy Shoemangler: I’m guessing that the author – one of several (many?) very internet-savvy folks at BoingBoing – chose that specific opinion poll to make a rather narrow point. Assuming my conjecture is true: a poll asking about a hypothetical atheist or non-christian Presidential candidate would receive negative response which would dwarf the unfavorables for all those other (non-religious) categories, and the differences in the resulting bar graph would be compressed in such a way as to reduce the visual impact.
FTR here is a 2014 poll that did ask about a hypothetical atheist candidate, and here’s a 2012 poll that included non-christian religious affiliation.
………….Luv,
………….Sad Nonbeliever :-(
Cervantes
@raven:
But especially LBJ?
chopper
@Aleta:
“Is ISIS attacking Texas? The facts say ‘no’, but my producer says ‘yes’.”
boatboy_srq
@Belafon: No doubt pre-DHS FBI would have missed it. But they’d have missed it with perhaps 40% of the budget it took to miss it this time…
sharl
@sharl: Missed the window for editing…correction to above: replace “(non-religious)” with “(christian and non-religious)”. Thankya.
SRW1
Maybe because they watched the ebola saga?
Cervantes
@Alex:
And what is that number, and greater by how much, and how do you know?
Probably, if the assertion is credible.
Has he made this insinuation?
John Revolta
Y’know, if Pammycakes keeps this shit up, she’s gonna end up on somebody’s kill list for real, and end up having to watch her stupid back for the rest of her so-called life. So there’s that.
boatboy_srq
@Poopyman: True. But you’d think that half a dozen Crusades would be sufficiently documented to dissuade efforts to organize another one (anywhere besides Teahadistan, that is).
Germy Shoemangler
Southern Poverty Law Center on Pamela Geller:
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/profiles/pamela-geller
They quote her and list some of the folks she hangs out with. Didn’t know she owned a car dealership!
Mike J
@John Revolta: And then she’ll be a martyr. Ugh. I rather she had a long life in total obscurity.
jo6pac
Sure is convenient timing…
My thought also
Heliopause
If ISIS are terrorists, and the purpose of terrorism is to instill terror, then this “shit show” certainly succeeded, at least in terrifying Wolf Blitzer.
boatboy_srq
@Betty Cracker: Metro DC has had regular (but hardly full-time) newsreaders-and-video snips; but this is Beltwayland, where anything that reinforces the narrative that The United States Is An Island Under Seige™ gets extra play for the lobbyists and the uberskittish Congresscritters.
Brachiator
@Chris:
Sorry, it doesn’t follow that you just treat this as a police problem. It depends on the nature of the threat. This is not to say that all of the Patriot Act is required, but nor does it say that any or all of it must be thrown away. The Brits did not always treat Irish nationalists as a police problem, nor is this the case with the Basques in Spain.
It is also just plain dumb to dismiss Islamic extremists as a “band of crazies.” Some domestic militias are not garden variety nutcases, either.
burnspbesq
@boatboy_srq:
Tom Clancy’s imaginary terrorists were way better at target selection than any actual terrorists. They tried to nuke the Super Bowl.
msdc
@chopper: Funny line, but as this thread shows, conspiracy theories aren’t just for the tinfoil hats on the right.
Amir Khalid
@Mandalay:
No, they can’t legitimately claim to have carried out anything. These two mooks were killed before they could even get into the venue.
boatboy_srq
@burnspbesq: Clancy (like most US writers) is handicapped by his knowledge of US culture – and by a profound lack of awareness that the fine points of US culture are masked (outside the US) by Hollywood’s various products.
bobbo
“The future is just around the corner”??? Someone from ISIS actually wrote this?
Mike J
@burnspbesq:
I liked it better when the inventor of Hannibal Lector had them use the Goodyear blimp to attack it.
Renie
@raven: Congratulations you gonna do pictures of the work?
scav
@Amir Khalid: You can Call Me Al
Baud
ISIS has stepped up its game since that time it left Cole’s car in that field.
trollhattan
@bobbo:
Yeah, that’s so very insightful of them it sends chills up my pinkie finger. Colbert should sue, since it’s clearly an inept ripoff of “Making a better tomorrow, tomorrow.”
sharl
Regarding Pamela Geller, who has been around for quite some time, and who has benefited the most from this failed attempt at mass murder: why I miss Gavin M. at Sadly,No!, part umptygazillion.
trollhattan
@Heliopause:
To be fair, frozen yogurt, chalk and feminine hygiene products terrify Wolf Blitzer.
Mandalay
@Amir Khalid:
The success or failure of the attack is not that important. ISIS can still claim that they took the fight to the enemy on their soil (even if no evidence of ISIS involvement is ever found).
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
They actually succeeded in nuking the Super Bowl, just not taking out the rest of the city with it.
@boatboy_srq:
He wasn’t so handicapped that he couldn’t mess up obvious details, like giving Denver a domed stadium so they could host the Super Bowl. Not gonna happen.
trollhattan
@Mandalay:
Hopefully ISIS and Al Qaeda will get into a slapfight over the Texas flub naming rights. Halal popcorn for everyone.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
One thing’s certain, Clancy skipped all the writing classes that taught dialogue.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Betty Cracker: I don’t know. Radio news was always shit, then I swore off the TV/newspaper news, then I swore off the internet news and now I’m cutting down on my blog reading. None of it is worth it, none of it has anything to do with my life or my concerns, and it’s all just seeming like a big waste of my time.
At the least, I know this makes me unpatriotic. When people ask about the outrage du jour and I stare at them blankly (sometimes feigned, often quite real) you wouldn’t believe how pissed they get. I find the anger a very interesting and telling reaction.
alce_e _ ardilla
@RandomMonster: they get maximal effect from minimal investment
kc
Fuck these clowns.
gian
Happened about the same time as this
http://m.startribune.com/local/302438671.html
Carolinus
Eh? The Patriot Act was always going to be easily renewed, and EFF knew it, which is why they backed the version of the USA Freedom Act that the President supported in the lame duck session (with its reforms to Section 215). It’s also why, after the Republicans killed that first version the EFF now backs passing the current House’s somewhat weaker revision of the bill (EFF understands its the best they’re going to get given the current makeup of Congress).
Tree With Water
Cole: Thought you might enjoy these pictures of the famous Warlocks on the band’s 50th birthday:
http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/slideshow/50-years-ago-the-Grateful-Dead-played-their-first-108727.php
Tree With Water
Louie Gohmert: “Once I observed the map depicting ‘hostile,’ ‘permissive,’ and ‘uncertain’ states and locations, I was rather appalled that the hostile areas amazingly have a Republican majority, ‘cling to their guns and religion,’ and believe in the sanctity of the United States Constitution.”
Gomurt (sic) would have shit his sheets during the famous U.S. Army maneuvers of 1939 (or was it 1940?), maneuvers that served George Marshall in evaluating talent such as Eisenhower, Bradley, and other junior officers of that generation, many of whom he tapped for high command during WW2 (from a theatre command in Ike’s case, on down the line through division and battalion commands). Would it kill Gomurt guy to pick up a book?
gian
9-4 we’re up
opiejeanne
@Belafon: The CBS evening news billed Pammy’s event as an “anti-Muslim” activity, which is really avoiding who and what the sponsoring group was.
On the other hand, they downplayed the terrorist end of it, interviewed a couple of experts who said that any link to Isis was pretty thin, and featured bewildered friends and family of the two dead men; the mother of Soofi wept copiously and wondered aloud how she would be able to live with this knowledge.
opiejeanne
@Brachiator: I wish they’d leave the rest of us out of this dispute.
Tree With Water
@opiejeanne: After the Boston Marathon atrocity, one wit imagined a scenario in which one terrorist said of the bomber’s mother, “She must be so proud”.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker:
I assume that was exactly what ISIS was trying to do, by taking credit for this. Ideally, they want some more American right-wing nutbars to start killing American Muslims, to the point where maybe a few of them want to fight back, so we get into a homegrown religious war. It probably won’t go that far, but we have a low-level trickle of hate-killings of Muslims already.
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator: It makes little difference anyway, since these days “treating it as a police problem” evidently means killing everyone in the general vicinity.
Tree With Water
@Matt McIrvin: That depends. If you’re an old white guy who learned the hard way how not to deal with cops, it makes little difference; but only because you’re generally treated the way every one should be by law enforcement, i.e., respectfully.