Jun 01 2009
Has The Lunatic Left Gone Viral As Well?
Major Update: Hmm, is someone who thinks the war on terror is wrong, being in Iraq is wrong, being in Afghanistan wrong a liberal? Most people would say yes, those are clearly leftwing positions. And so is someone who agrees with the far left and who kills someone in cold blood immune from the wrath of America?
 A 23-year-old man upset about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan opened fire from his truck at two soldiers standing outside a military recruiting station here on Monday morning, killing one private and wounding another, the police said.
The gunman, identified by the police as Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad of Little Rock, fled the scene and was arrested minutes later a short distance from the recruiting station, in a bustling suburban shopping center. The police confiscated a Russian-made SKS semiautomatic rifle, a .22-caliber rifle and a handgun from his black pickup truck.
…
In a lengthy interview with the police, Mr. Muhammad said he was angry about the killing of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, Chief Thomas said. Previously known as Carlos Bledsoe, Mr. Muhammad told investigators that he had converted to Islam as a teenager, Chief Thomas said.
So is the man who attacked these soldiers as much a part of the leftwing fringe as the whack job who killed Dr. Tiller part of the rightwing fringe? Didn’t leftwing extremists claim our efforts to confront Islamo Fascist nothing more than war crimes and mass murder, the same way Scott Roeder saw legal abortions as mass murder? I would say both fringes and their heated rhetoric are igniting unstable and violent believers to murder in cold blood.
But then again I am a simple, centrist American who has realized the fringe in this country have become deadly. – end update.
One can only guess at the motivation behind an apparent assassination of US Army recruiters:
Little Rock police are working the scene of a double shooing. It happened around 10:00 a.m. at a U.S. Army Recruiting office at 9112 North Rodney Parham Road. The two men shot were U.S. Army recruiters.
Authorities have just told FOX16 that one of the men shot has died at a local hospital. The other man is still in serious condition.
…
Captain Randy Hickman with the Little Rock Fire Department tells FOX16 that the bomb squad has been called to the scene at I30/630. There is some type of device in the SUV the suspect was driving.Â
Is this country ready to finally deal with the fringe nut cases in the fevered swamps on the left and right? More here:
A new soldier helping to attract others to the military was shot and killed outside an Army recruiting office Monday and a second soldier was wounded, and a suspect was arrested, police said.
A man inside a black vehicle pulled up outside the Army-Navy recruiting office in west Little Rock and opened fire about 10:30 a.m., said police Lt. Terry Hastings.
The two soldiers were outside the office when they were shot. They were taken to a hospital, where one died.
The vehicle was stopped on Interstate 630 a short time later and a suspect was taken into custody. Hastings said the suspect pulled over and surrendered without incident. Police found an assault rifle in the vehicle.
As the father of a newly minted US Marine this news is beyond horrific. These scum deserve to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. This civil war between the far left and far right needs to be ended, right damn now!
Addendum: The horror of this act is simply stunning. These young men volunteered their lives to protect this nation, and they are gunned down on their hometown street. One has to wonder at the madness behind such an act. We need answers to this and to the assassination of Dr Tiller ASAP. This country cannot devolve into bloody chaos because of political extremist views.
Update: The only good news so far is the second victim did not sustain life threatening injuries. Our prayers go out to the families of both victims.
Update: Ed Morrissey’s take on the news.
I believe it was Lincoln who once said something along the lines that anyone who interferes with the recruitment of soldiers into the Army are traitors, because our freedom depends on them. Of course, however, we are not permitted to question their patriotism or which side they support in the war on terror.
Shots were fired in a Greyhound bus in Cleveland today as well. Dr. Tiller murdered, U.S. Army Recruiters shot at, bus shot at, two incidents of police shooting people during traffic stops all in the past 24 hours…. What is this world coming to?
This was a terrible tragedy, and I hope they lock this scumbag up forever and throw away the key.
But I do have to ask: AJ, how is it that you know the political leanings of the shooter? What have you read so far that leads you to believe he’s a member of the “fringe left”?
Do you have a single piece of proof that this was politically motivated at all?
It sounds like they weren’t recruiters but active duty soldiers helping out the recruiters in their hometown.
Guy,
I did not hesitate on the murder of Dr Tiller to hear the confirmation. It is clear to me, given comments like those from leftwing nut Magicdog, that there is good probability why this happened.
It probably is also due to experiences of my son, who has been harassed by left wing nut jobs on more than one occasion outside his recruitment offices.
If I am wrong I will post the correction. Until then my instincts are the same as yesterday.
Yup.
But AJ, you’re using the wrong verb tense. The Left went off the rails around 2002-2003. Maybe earlier – I could make a strong case that the failure to adequately deal with the radicals of the late 1960s planted the seeds of a culture of political violence.
I think the left was almost happy about the Tiller killing. They jumped on it like vultures on road kill. All self righteous and sanctimonious, assuming that tens of millions of pro lifers were responsible for the murderous acts of one.
But when a soldier gets shot? Nahh. That is different.
To be honest, we live in a huge country with over 300 million people. It is inevitable that there will be people who are violent and who act out their frustrations and fears. We should not assume that they represent entire stratas of the population.
Send the shooter first to GITMO and then to hell. Swift, immediate justice.
Better yet let the Army have him and do as they see fit.
As to political leanings, it is clear the person is anti American, that is where it ends for me.
Chicago has 7 shooting deaths in 24 hours
AJ:
Fair enough, and I definitely understand your reaction concerning your son. My nephew went to Afghanistan with the 101st – if I ever saw anyone harrass him, I’d punch them in the throat.
I personally don’t think jumping to conclusions about the shooter’s motives or beliefs before you actually know any of the facts does anything to help the conversation. But hey – it’s your site.
CNN says he is a Muslim convert that is the suspect
There you go Guy……..loons on both the right and left. Both have an excuse, a modern day excuse for killing another human being. When in fact, man has free choice to kill another. No excuses, the responsibility falls on individual choice. So let’s be clear that you have the choice to take the law into your own hands, and society has the right to punish you for it. The choice these men made is tragic who ever the target.
[…] George Tiller and William Long were murdered over religion. Both men were murdered by fanatics. How much have you heard about […]
AJ,
“If I am wrong I will post the correction. Until then my instincts are the same as yesterday.”
Unless you consider Muslim fundamentalist liberals, I think it is time for that correction. While there are crazy people on both the right and left, I don’t recall the DHS report Bush order mentioning any concerns about domestic terrorist groups on the left – nope, they were only concerned about the loons on the right!
Is anybody worried that the guy who shot the two Marines, was a convert to Islam and had just returned from Yemen studying with a jehadist? How many of these people are walking around?
[…] The Strata Sphere-Has The Lunatic Left Gone Viral As Well? […]
Conman,
Wrong as usual. DHS put out the leftwing report a few weeks prior to the rightwing one.
This guy is no “leftist lunatic”.
He is apparently a terrorist.
AJ, why are you trying to equate an Islamist terrorist with the left wing? Don’t try to claim this is the leftwing equivalent of the Tiller murder. This was not a left winger. I don’t think it’s even possible to be a leftist Islamist. You think that because a person thinks we shouldn’t be in Iraq, that makes them a far left lunatic? I guess most of the American public are far left lunatics, then. How about Afghanistan? More than a few realists are afraid we are making the same mistake the Soviets did. Are they left wingers for thinking this? Just because Islamists share a few views with leftists, doesn’t make Islamists leftists, any more than Muslims are Christians because they both believe in God, Satan, Heaven and Hell.
You’re really reaching here, and it’s not befitting a reasonable conservative.
“any more than Muslims are Christians because they both believe in God, Satan, Heaven and Hell.”
Heh, Muslims believe in Jesus too, and in Old Testament and in Adam and Eve. Muslims and Jews are cousins … literally. Supposedly one religion came from one son of Abraham and the other religion from the other son. Christianity is simply a branch of Judaism.
In fact, the whole conflict between the Jews and the Muslims doesn’t even have to do with Mohamed. It has to do with interpretations of the Koran by ordinary men long after Mohamed was dead. In the Hadith it is written that the Jews lost Israel because they refused to accept Mohamed as God’s prophet and that they would never get it back until they did. Well, now we have an Israel. That means the Hadiths must be capable of being flawed … which of course they are because they were created by men. But if that interpretation is flawed, how many others are flawed? And it is for that reason that the most devout Muslims refuse to recognize the existence of Israel because if they do, it calls a major part of their religion into question.
So recognizing Israel has nothing to do with land, has nothing to do with a Palestinian state. It has to do with accepting that interpretations in the Hadith are capable of human fallacy. And the most fundamentalist of the Muslims will never accept that and that is why any country that makes peace with Israel (Egypt and Jordan for example) are “traitors to Islam”.
And so these fundamentalists will continue to kill, will continue to commit unspeakable crimes in the name of God because they believe they are “correct”. Same as the people who murder abortionists. And as we support Israel, we then become accessories to this paradox that pits reality against their belief.
The bottom line is that it is action out of desperation because Isreal really is there, their refusing to “recognize it” notwithstanding. It means the Hadith *is* wrong. And that must cause a need to destroy Israel before too many realize that and causes them to question the rest of their religious beliefs.