Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Jonathan Kay on Terrorism: Frequently Wrong, Never in Doubt (UPDATED)

My good friend scaramouche brought this to my attention, and has already made some very astute observations about this silly essay. 

My first reaction to Kay's piece was 'standard leftist tripe'.

That is to say, it is standard operating practice for leftist to guffaw at the "bungling", or "amateur", or "silly" or "unprofessional" terrorists operating among us.

As scaramouche rightly noted, if the victim is a member of your family, then it doesn't really matter if they were professional, "lone wolf" or "amateur", does it?  You still have a dead relative or friend and a lifetime of bereavement ahead of you. And yes-I know from what I speak. It's personal.

He's just a guy, don't you know.



It's pretty rich for someone who refrains from using the "I" word (Islam) to describe the "root cause" of these murders to joke about whether or not one should be calling these murders by the "T" word.

Ha ha, so cute.

It's pretty brazen cowardice not to mention the religious roots of this terror and the whole "ist" ("Islamist") schtick is getting pretty tiresome.

But alas, cowardice seems to run pretty deep in the media these days, as one can see from the strange reluctance of the judiciary in this case, to publicize the name of the random Ottawa real estate agent who cut his daughter's finger  off with a butcher knife and beat his wife when the daughter told him that he could no longer control her life and Daddy Dearest saw a photo of his daughter near a man (from Glee Club, I mean, how sinister is that).

Why the publication ban?

Rather to avoid "re-victimizing" the victims, I suspect it's rather to try to prevent the unwashed masses, hatemongering masses from coming to the conclusion that this is Islamic honour/shame "culture" violence.

"The Crown prosecutor in the case requested and was granted a ban on publishing the names of the accused and his family so the victims wouldn’t be “re-victimized”.

"He told court that although media reports at the time described the attacks as a family “honour crime”, nothing in the case file supports that theory."

Really?

So, who are you going to believe? The official edict of the Crown lawyer-no doubt a highly trained expert on the fine points of sharia, or your own lying, reading eyes?

"The strict father had forbidden his children to have any presence on the Internet and was so controlling that he monitored their mobile phones, computers and bank accounts. He didn’t allow his three children — aged 16 to 20 — to date anyone or post online photos of themselves, let alone have a Facebook account."

Where have I heard that before? 

"May 3, 2014, was a big day for their family. His wife and daughter had just returned from his daughter’s new apartment. The father had never agreed that his eldest daughter, 20, could move out. And when she said her father no longer controlled her life, he said that in fact he did and slapped her across the face."

"He then grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen and slashed his daughter in the shoulder. When she tried to grab it to stop the attack, her right pinky finger was severed and her ring finger partially severed."

"When the attacker’s wife yelled for her daughter to call 911, drawing her husband’s attention, the man pushed his wife and slashed her. His wife suffered severe defensive wounds to both hands and her skull."

If memory serves, the name of this Daddy Dearest father of the year did appear in print when the episode happened but now I can't find a link that has the family name in it. I've tried a few searches, but if you find one cached, please feel free to send it along to me. It seems to have been completely scrubbed.

Here's another nugget that is pause for thought:

"The father, who cries himself to sleep most nights at the Innes Road jail, pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of aggravated assault in a plea bargain with the Crown that spared him prosecution on the more severe charges of attempted murder."

Shame on the reporter (Gary Dimmock) for this despicable and pathetic attempt to portray this monster in any way as sympathetic. What the hell is that sentence doing in there?  

Getting back to Kay's piece, one realizes how expert in terror people become in hindsight.

It's very clever to analyze the terrorist attacks that have already happened, and be a counter-terrorism expert in hindsight. The harder task is avoiding them.  And unfortunately, the misguided idea that there is a minimal threat and cause for optimism is extremely naive and dangerous.

In fact, despite surveillance and pretty much getting blueprints for terror attacks, individuals and police and security forces have been brainwashed by our elites to ignore the signs, ignore their human instincts in favour of 'minimizing' the concept of threat and rationalizing the real signs of danger and most importantly bury the investigations in paperwork.

Hey, people will get slaughtered, and police and security forces will have known about the threats, but as long as nobody's feelings get hurt-that's the main thing, right?

Stay optimistic!

Just as left wing liberal Jews obsess about the war that has already been won, and focus on the irrelevant "fight" against non-existent "right wing" boogeymen, instead of identifying the real, actual semitic "neo Nazis" who threaten us, so too do leftists try to minimize the threat of terrorism and pooh-pooh it in their smug, superior sneers.

It gives them great comfort to know that they are so much smarter and advanced than us primitive knuckle-draggers, and this enlightened plane of analysis no doubt insulates them forever from terrorism.

Glass half full, carry on!

Unfortunately, this is not only naive but dangerous but actually absurd and profoundly immoral. 

Ultimately, this is not a story "just" about "a guy".

It's not just about Corporal Cirillo, or Warrent Officer Patrice Vincent. It's not "just" a story about "a guy" who was my brother-in-law, David Cohen, murdered by Palestinian "lone wolves', gunned down in cold blood on his way to work one morning.

It's not "just" about the "guys" and the "gals" in the Twin Towers, in pizzerias, in shopping malls, on airplanes, in discotheques, American army bunkers, embassies, hotels, churches and synagogues, in airports, at bus stops and in movie theatres around the world. 

It's "just" about our extremely young and exceptionally fragile system of living in Western, Judeo-Christian democracies. There are clear, existential threats, blueprints all around us but it's much more comfortable to retreat to a mental happy space in the land of wishful thinking.

Clearly, our (superior) way of life means more to some than others.

And that's unfortunately "just" the way of the world right now.

UPDATE: 

scaramouche found an old article with Daddy Dearest's details: 

"OTTAWA - A realtor accused of cutting off his daughter's finger and stabbing his wife was charged with two counts of attempted murder Monday."

"Labib Khawas, 55, will remain behind bars for at least the next three days so police can conduct "further investigation."