Alton Nolen
The left-wing media is rushing to ensure the public that the beheading murder of a woman in Moore, Oklahoma this week was simply workplace violence and had nothing to do with terrorism. Watch MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeffrey-meyer/2014/09/28/msnbcs-perry-muslim-beheading-oklahoma-was-workplace-violence
And she is a professor at Wake Forest University!! On second thought, strike those exclamation marks.
Part of the "logic" being used here is that the accused killer Alton Nolan has no known connection to Al Qaeda, ISIS, or any other known terrorist organization. In addition, he was angry because he had just been fired. Aside from the two women who were stabbed by Alton, nobody in Moore has any reason to fear anything.
This is why they are wrong.
Nolen, who has a criminal record, had recently converted to Islam and was reportedly trying to convert people in his workplace to Islam. Apparently, he was unsuccessful in converting any of the "unbelievers". That alone may not mean much, but when you discover his Facebook writings that include this, it gets interesting.
"The station said the Facebook page has several photos of Usama bin Laden and a screen shot from the 9/11 terror attacks. It also shows a man with a quote : "I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smile ye above their necks and smite all their fingertips off them."
Smiting unbelievers above the necks is precisely what ISIS is doing to them in Syria and Iraq as we speak. The expression means cutting their heads off. Here is where Nolen (not to mention ISIS) got that idea.
Koran: Sura 8 verse 12. Here is the reading from my English language Koran given to me at the Islamic Center of Orange County. It is published by the Book of Signs Foundation.
"(Remember when) verily your Lord revealed (the Message) to the angels; 'Verily, I am with you: Give strength to the believers; I will bring about terror into the hearts of the disbelievers. So you strike above their necks and hit hard all over their finger-tips and toes."
You should also note that Sura 8 was recorded during the Medina period of the life of the Prophet Mohammad, when he had become a warrior and was spreading Islam through war. (Islamic defenders say that this verse concerned a certain Battle of Sadr, which pitted Muslims against non-Muslims.) In addition, Sura 9, which was the final sura, is full of condemnation for the unbelievers, but also states that they should be spared if they repent (accept Islam or accept dhimmi status-paying taxes and feeling subdued, etc). Sura 9 verse 5 is the one most often quoted.
9:5] Once the Sacred Months are past, (and they refuse to make peace) you may kill the idol worshipers when you encounter them, punish them, and resist every move they make. If they repent and observe the Contact Prayers (Salat) and give the obligatory charity (Zakat), you shall let them go. GOD is Forgiver, Most Merciful.
(Source: Tucson Masjid)
http://www.masjidtucson.org/quran/noframes/ch9.html
So here is my theory: We know that Al Qaeda and ISIS have called for Muslims in the US to conduct strikes within the US. Certainly the vast majority of American Muslims have no intention of following those directives. But we do have a fear that there are some who will listen. We also have a concern about returning ISIS fighters since thousands of those fighters are carrying Western passports. It is my opinion that Nolen followed the events in Syria and Iraq, listened to the directives, and decided to act on them. He had tried to convince the "unbelievers" but had failed. His firing was merely the trigger. It was time to follow Sura 8 verse 12, and who better to attack than those who not only had fired him but rebuffed his attempts to be converted. It was the perfect storm. Alton Nolen is the classic lone wolf attacker, such as we have already seen in Britain. The fact that he decapitated a woman makes it pretty clear that his religious beliefs played a major role in this murder.
Again I caution: We should not make a leap into believing that the vast majority of Muslims in the US are contemplating anything like what Nolen did. They are not and I assume the vast majority of American Muslims are repulsed at the murder. I constantly hope that nobody gets it in their head to carry out acts of "retaliation" against innocent Muslims.
Having said all that, we cannot ignore the danger and continue to tell the public that these horrific incidents are something else like workplace violence. I am afraid that we are going to see more murders of this type not only in the US, but in the West in general. The public needs to be informed for their own safety.
3 comments:
It plainly WAS workplace violence. He was angry that he had just been fired. The FORM it took was an opportunistic matter of convenience.
Frankly, a beheaded co-worker is no less dead than one who is shot, stabbed, or thrown down the stairs.
Siarlys:
Ft Hood was not workplace violence because Hasan was clearly radicalized and was shouting, Allahu Akhbar" as he was shooting.
Oklahoma is more than workplace violence even though Nolen had just been fired for the very reasons I outlined. If it had just been simple stabbing you would have more of an argument. The beheading had Islamic overtones. And we still have not hear if he was shouting anything when it happened.
I wouldn't call a soldier taking up arms against fellow soldiers "workplace violence" in any case. Further, Hasan was in communication with al-Awlaki, AND he expressed a specific motive for opening fire.
Nothing of the kind in Oklahoma. The man might as well have been a Goth. He acted up because he was fired, not because his new-found infatuation motivated him to kill.
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