Tuesday, June 2, 2009

More on the Little Rock Jihadi

A soldier talks on his cell phone in front of the military recruiting office in west Little Rock after a gunman shot two soldiers outside the office Monday, killing one. -- Little Rock Democrat Gazette

NBC's Today Show just reported the Little Rock shooting saying the Jihadi "was upset about the U.S. military" WITHOUT MENTIONING THAT HE WAS AN ISLAMO-FASCIST.

The Arkansas Democrat Gazette of Little Rock reports in a story today here that:

A Tennessee man who converted to Islam and opposes American military actions overseas is charged with shooting two United States Army privates outside a west Little Rock recruiting center, killing one and seriously wounding the other Monday morning, police said. Armed with two rifles and a handgun, Abdul-Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23, who was born Carlos Bledsoe, specifically targeted the Army-Navy Career Center in the Ashley Square shopping center at 9112 N. Rodney Parham Road, police said. From behind the wheel of a black Ford Sport Trac, police said, Muhammad fired at least 10 rounds from an SKS 7.62mm rifle. Seven recruiters were inside the office. None was injured.


So he was a home-grown Jihadi and the "assault rifle" was a standard SKS.

AP reports here with more detail on Private Ezeagwula:

William Long, 24, of Conway, died, and Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, of Jacksonville, was wounded and in stable condition, Police Chief Stuart Thomas said.

Both men were from nearby hometowns and volunteered to work at the recruiting center to attract other locals to the military. "They can show the example, 'Here's where I was, and here is where I am,'" Artis said.

Police arrested Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23, along a crosstown interstate moments after the shootings at the Army-Navy Career Center in a shopping center in west Little Rock.

Muhammad acted alone, the police chief said, and based on an interview with officers, the suspect "probably had political and religious motives for the attack." He lived in an apartment just 1.5 miles from the recruiting center. A search warrant had been obtained for the apartment.

Thomas said Muhammad, previously known as Carlos Bledsoe, would be charged with first-degree murder, plus 15 counts of committing a terroristic act. Thomas said those counts result from the gunfire occurring near other people.

The accused shooter's father, Melvin Bledsoe of Memphis, Tenn., hung up on a reporter who called about his son's arrest Monday night.

Witnesses told police that a man inside a black vehicle pulled up outside the recruiting center and opened fire about 10:30 a.m. Long fell onto the sidewalk outside the center while Ezeagwula was able to crawl toward its door.


USA Today reports here that Jihadi Bledsoe was upset with the Army in particular.

A Muslim convert who said he was opposed to the U.S. military shot two soldiers outside an Arkansas recruiting station, killing one, police said Monday.

"This individual appears to have been upset with the military, the Army in particular, and that's why he did what he did," Little Rock Police Lt. Terry Hastings said.

"He has converted to (Islam) here in the past few years," Hastings said. "We're not completely clear on what he was upset about. He had never been in the military."

"He saw them standing there and drove up and shot them. That's what he said."


OK, so let's recap.

Bledsoe converts to Islam and changes his name to Abdul-Hakim Mujahid Muhammad.

Jihadi Bledsoe, who was never in the military, was upset about the Army.

Because of this, he drove up to a recruiting station and shot two unarmed Privates in a drive-by, killing one, wounding the other.

Just another upstanding citizen professing belief in the "religion of peace," not that NBC will mention it.

More as details emerge.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've never been a politician. But I'm upset with the Kongress Kritters and POTUS. Is it ok if I go shoot up Washington DC?

B Woodman

ParaPacem said...

Well - since George Tiller did, as Biblically taught, reap what he had sown, the Obongo junta and the MSM all clamor for more protection for abortionists and, although they MAY be hinting at giving them free supplies of condoms, I suspect they are actually inferring providing guards, a la Herod's soldiers.
SO - shall we also expect to see armed guards standing as sentries outside every recruiting office in the nation to protect our brightest and best? Shall we expect to see Janet "Butch" Napolitano issue a new booklet for Homoland Security adding muslim converts and anti-military dirtbags to the threat list?
Let's hold our collective breath and see.

rexxhead said...

Everything in my Christian upbringing grates against a position I have lately come to (reluctantly) accept:

One day in the foreseeable future, the non-Muslim world will have to go toe-to-toe with the Muslim world and it will be a fight to the death. Not necessarily the death of all Muslims or all non-Muslims, but certainly the deaths of all those who cannot "live and let live".

The hardest part of all this is that we will have to become that which we hate in order to survive. It's a coarse world out there, and it's getting coarser with each passing day. And it's going to get worse before it gets better.

daniel said...

Seems to be a trend; "unorganized" onesies and twosies of the fundamentalist Islamic type, conveniently labeled "domestic," or "homegrown" by the MSM. How many more of these before they have to start reporting the real threat posed by these "unorganized" actors? The perp in this story was following the same lead as the clowns arrested in NY last month. The lead they are following is that of the original "Islamofascist," the Prophet Muhammad himself. As long as there are those who follow that murdering child molestor's example, we will have religiously motivated attacks like this.

ScottJ said...

Personally, I wonder why over the past 8 years we haven't had more of these "homegrown" converts taking up arms or even worse following the homicide bombing path of their brothers overseas.

ScottJ said...

Another thought about this one: It gives them the ability to move forward with the gun control and distance themselves from the DHS report at the same time.

Dutchman6 said...

Purge sez: "If you 'need' to become that which you hate in order to survive, then you have no right to survive. You can't commit atrocities and say it's all right because 'they did it first.' It would be infantile moral logic to believe that it would be all right to commit atrocities. Ever."

MBV: EXACTLY. Thank you.

BillH said...

That being said, I'm still stuck on this

Seven recruiters were inside the office. None was injured.

And NONE of them returned fire? Let's not be atrocious, but let's at least come to the dance with our dancin' shoes on. And quite frankly, the music has been playing for awhile now.

Sean said...

Sorry, Mike, I'm with Rexxhead. I KNOW what you are saying, and I KNOW what he is saying. And I'm saying that survival is preferable to annihilation. The idea that you have no "right" to survive if you have to become what you hate is a fine point. Rights are not what rexxhead was talking about. You either win, or you lose, right or wrong. I never would give the go-ahead to incinerate hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians in fire-bomb raids and A-bomb strikes, IF, it would not induce the survivors to surrender. And faced with their own annihilation, they did. So it worked. And they had it coming. But it was bloody, awful logic that reached that point. Commonly known as immorality. If you're not willing to go into it, blood up to your elbows, and filthy no good GD butchery your aim, don't go. Because the other side will, and you'll be morally just, and dead. Wars aren't won by Boy Scouts. They're won by killers. Filthy,rotten,scum killers. When it's all over, maybe you can go back to being like you were, and maybe you can't. At least you go back. And that, is the point.

Anonymous said...

Sean, quick question. Are you a Christian?

ScottJ said...

Along the backlash to Sean's comment's, Mike, a friend I introduced to Absolved was a bit squeamish about the chapter with the fuel-air bomb.

The thought of killing 10K all at once who weren't an active threat at the time gave him pause.

Dutchman6 said...

ScottJ:

In the book, we recalculated the physics of the FAE and the likely layout of the mercenary barracks area and concluded that the death toll would be substantially less.

However, I would like to point out that these were all combatants with no collaterals sitting in the middle of an isolated area. They were just as valid targets as Hessians fighting for the British. Indeed, more so because in the introduction to that chapter you find that they have just participated in the slaughter of innocents at Chillicothe, OH.

Anonymous said...

"I never would give the go-ahead to incinerate hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians in fire-bomb raids and A-bomb strikes, IF, it would not induce the survivors to surrender."

Yup, hard men hit those buttons to drop those bombs, knowing that true innocents were going to die by their hands.

I watched a Japanese animated movie called "Grave of the Fireflies", and it details, with brutal directness, the devastation caused by the fire bomb raids.

If you aren't openly weeping when the final scene comes up (an amazingly powerful ending), you aren't human.

Even moreso when you find out that the story was written by a survivor reflecting on his experiences...and overwhelming guilt at having survived when his little sister did not.

Even after watching that powerful film, I still feel that we were perfectly justified in dropping all those bombs.

And what was done to those innocent civilians was an atrocity...just like what the Japanese themselves did to the hapless citizens of Nanking.

"Wars aren't won by Boy Scouts. They're won by killers. Filthy,rotten,scum killers."

It may be awful, but it is true.

I'm reminded of the Blackhawk Down book, where the author details an incident where a visibly pregnant woman repeatedly pointed out where the Americans were holed up, so that the militia could target them more effectively.

One of the Delta guys finally said "If that bitch shows up again, I'm going to waste her."

She walked out again and started to point, and he dropped her. I am fully in agreement with that.

A different moral choice happened in the Love Survivor book, where the SEAL team could kill a shepherd that spotted them. They didn't, and he reported their position to Taliban forces.

We know what happened because of that, and I happen to think they made the right choice, as does the lone survivor.

That being said, I bet one of the killers of Easy Company would've killed him and not have been bothered in the least.

It is a fine line, and hopefully we never have to be confronted with that choice!

ScottJ said...

Mike, I explained the FAE to my friend just as you did here.

I also told him how my mind first dealt with the concept of having to kill in self defense. Part of the thought process of becoming a gun owner and carrier.

I explained what I learned through Jeff Cooper's writings. To him (and me) once someone crosses the line inot predation of their fellow man they cease to be human and become goblin.

rexxhead said...

Purge & Mike & Sean --

I didn't say I thought it was a good idea. I do hold that when times get rough so do people. It will happen to us, howsoever pious we may think we are.

As for the "low blow" about Sean and Christianity, I would like to remind everyone that the phrase "Kill them all; let God sort it out" was first uttered during the Crusades by a pre-Reformation French (therefore Christian) knight wearing a cross on his tunic. Talk about 'coarse'...

Dutchman6 said...

"I would like to remind everyone that the phrase 'Kill them all; let God sort it out' was first uttered during the Crusades by a pre-Reformation French (therefore Christian) knight wearing a cross on his tunic. Talk about 'coarse'..."

This was a Christian on Christian "Crusade" called the Albigensian Crusade or Cathar Crusade (1209–1229) and it was a 20-year military campaign initiated by the Roman Catholic Church to eliminate the Cathar heresy in Languedoc.

The exact quote, according to the Cistercian writer Caesar of Heisterbach, was uttered by one of the leaders of the Crusader army, the Papal legate Arnaud-Amaury, who when asked by a Crusader how to distinguish the Cathars from the Catholics, answered: "Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius" – "Kill them [all]! Surely the Lord discerns which [ones] are his".

This is not about religion versus religion. It is about one religion being used as a vessel, a weapon, for a worldview that tolerates no other and kills those who disagree. They do not hate us for what we do, they hate us for who we are. They have made this an existential war, not us.

tom said...

Family friend is USAF (Retired). Rained Holy Hell down on a lot of S.E. Asia in multiple tours, first in AC-47s and then in AC-130s. Not one bit of remorse. Just sadness it had to be done. "Whether or not we should have been there in the first place I was going to try to keep our boys alive because we WERE there. I worked an uncomfortable and dangerous job I was sent to do and did my best to keep myself and crew and people on the ground alive. Never lost an aircraft, did what needed to be done. I wasn't at a desk in the Pentagon, I had a seat in the sky whether I liked it or not."

His vote has always been, more or less, "It was not our job to judge others but we were known to arrange appointment dates for the judgment of others."

The people firing triple A at him didn't seem particularly full of remorse...

If he hadn't have been driving gunships, he started out as "Class 56* (edited for privacy) Advanced Jet Fighters" and flew with various fighter squadrons after that until there was a need for more multi-engine drivers, so if he hadn't have agreed to the transitioning, he'd have been napalming babies with Thuds and Phantoms, no doubt.

War isn't a pretty thing.
Never will be

He didn't "become anything he hated", he did his job in a rather clinical way compared to a lot of ground pounders and other parts of USAF SOCOM, for that matter, but he likely killed as many on the soil as any man that fought in Vietnam. Also one of the more religious men I know.

Purge said...

Rexx,

The moral of the story is not, "Someone said something a long time ago, giving historical precedent to the idea that it's 'necessary' to slaughter non-aggressors." The moral of the story is that Arnaud-Amaury was wrong to utter those words. There's nothing wrong with killing aggressors, even when they are acting under the guise of a religion. There is something wrong with slaughtering others because of what they believe, whether they are Muslims, Albigensians, Cathars, Arians, Anabaptists or Nestorians. And it is always wrong to intentionally kill non-combatants. Is it always wrong to kill non-combatants? Yes, yes it is. Always wrong.

Some alleged Christians seem to forget that our survival upon the earth is not the highest good, to be protected at any price. Our highest good to attain at any price is the preservation of our immortal souls. Slaughtering non-combatants is contrary to that end. We are pilgrims in this world. We weren't promised that it would be fair on this earth. But we were commanded how to act. And that includes "Thou shalt not murder." It doesn't say, "Thou shalt not murder, but only if the other guy doesn't murder first."

Dutchman writes: "They do not hate us for what we do, they hate us for who we are."

Dutchman, it's a basic Thomistic principle: what you do is what you are. If you lie, you are a liar. If you kill, you are a killer. If you murder, you are a murderer. If you do good, you are good. If you occupy, you are an occupier. If you meddle, you are a meddler.

Sean said...

Yes, Christian. The highest good is the preservation of our immortal souls? Not in the Bible. As I see it, Love G*d, love one another, including enemies. Killing noncombats love? What do you think? Hell, no. But the decision is yours to make, to kill noncombats or not. In the end, I believe it is G*d Who will sort all of US out. If you're in doubt as to G*ds'(you know, the Christian one) position on the subject of the disposition of non-combatants, read about the mission Saul was sent on regarding the Amlekites, and what he was told to do with them. Not for the faint of heart.And I'll give you an example of not flattening the enemy, and him coming back and doing worse. WWI. The Germans were not completely defeated, only humiliated, and they came back 20yrs and 65 days later and caused the deaths of 50million people. The injustice and terror and rage of the victims did not get in the way of the Nazis murdering THEM. How do you stop evil? The Christian point is that after all your efforts and work and sacrifice, you are still short, far short, of the glory of G*d. Even trying to do good, you will commit evil. And you stop, you admit your sin to G*d, and you go on. Why do you think He cried out on the Cross? He came to save sinners, not saints. We remain that way until........

Dutchman6 said...

"If you want me to discriminate (recognize the differences) between Sipsey Street and the SPLC, then I want you to discriminate between peaceful and non-peaceful Muslim individuals."

Certainly.

And I do.

I am beginning to see the blogger's dilemma with comments. Either you let anybody post comments without supervision, leaving yourself wide open to anybody who wants to hijack your blog or tie it up in flame wars, protecting yourself with a disclaimer (as does David Codrea)

or,

you spend night and day catching every nuance of other people's opinions and defining by your own back comments who you are as opposed to who the commenters are.

Having had some experience with the former, I must continue to filter comments. Yet, I do not have the time to do the latter.

I have not used terms like "Muzzie," commenters have. Should I have reproved them for doing so and made the distinction that you make above? Yes.

The term "Islamofascist" comes in for a lot of scorn in some quarters, but the fact of the matter is that it is a good way to differentiate between those who combine their religion with a collectivism to excuse killing all those who are different from them on their way to political power. It IS religious. It IS political collectivism. To say so is no sin.

It is the same with the so-called "Christian Identities" in this country. I have in the past called them "Mistaken Identities" because there is little Christian about their pus-filled beliefs. I have also called them "no ball Nazis" and "pantywaists" because unlike pagan Nazis they require the veneer of religion to explain their hatreds to their wives and sweethearts (those of them who can actually get dates).

"Oh, its all right that we hate blacks and Jews dear because God and Jesus told us so," they simper.

Whereas, Nazis understand that you need no religious excuse to hate and kill. Even so, some of the original German Nazis were motivated by the belief as Odinists that if you piled up enough bodies in sacrifice, the gates to Vahalla would open and all these Norse biker-gods would be turned loose again in the world.

(continued in next comment)

Dutchman6 said...

There are people in all flavors of collectivism who paint a religious whitewash over themselves. To point out the obvious is not discrimination.

Now, people who paint me as a neocon are wrong. I do not support interventionism and would, given tabula rasa, agree wholeheartedly with Washington's dictum.

However, we have the situation that we have. Nothing is clean or easy in the world we have been handed by our ancestors. Muslims are outraged by the mere fact of the state of Israel. Yet Israel exists. Israel, a largely secular democratic socialist state, has acted brutally in the past using this existential threat as an excuse. It has committed unanswered crimes with our tax money (the Liberty comes first to mind), yet shall we then abandon them to a hostile world?

We should not be the world's policeman, but that is where we find ourselves. We have a history of selling people out when the going gets tough, vice, the Vietnamese, the free Cubans, the Cambodians, the Hungarians in 1956, all of Eastern Europe in 1945, the anti-Saddam Iraqis in 1991. Soon it will be the Taiwanese, the Kurds, and likely, Israel. It is not a pretty record. Shall we then refuse to help anyone?

And if we did withdraw completely from the world, would that protect us from attack? Look at how the Islamofascists such as the Taliban act in countries where they rule. No dissent is tolerated, any other religion, or part of religion, even their own is tolerated if it doesn't conform with their own interpretation. They would extend sharia law to the whole world had they the means and opportunity. They almost did it once, until they were stopped at the gates of Vienna.

Look, I have no evil intent for anyone of any faith, or no faith, as long as they take no steps to harm me or mine. But merely pointing out their collectivist error and evil intent does not make me complicit in "religious persecution."

Now, I'll let the comments continue to run on this for a bit, but I'm close to shutting it down from time constraints if nothing else.

Vanderboegh