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 BaronIveagh wrote:
ISIS hits in the US.

Or at least someone claiming to support ISIS hits in the US. Is there credible evidence for this being an attack organized and supported by ISIS, rather than just one murderous with a gun deciding to do his part for his hateful beliefs?

 Ouze wrote:

lolwut? I don't recall that. Feel free to refresh me.

I'm still digging around for the thread, but IIRC, I was a dirty vicious warmonger who wanted Americans to die in a godless foreign land when I said that if the US didn't go there, right away, and stomp the gak out of it while it was small, they would find a way to bring it here.

I wasn't wrong.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

lolwut? I don't recall that. Feel free to refresh me.

I'm still digging around for the thread, but IIRC, I was a dirty vicious warmonger who wanted Americans to die in a godless foreign land when I said that if the US didn't go there, right away, and stomp the gak out of it while it was small, they would find a way to bring it here.

I wasn't wrong.

Was it this thread? Because filtering it by my name...

 Peregrine wrote:
Is there credible evidence for this being an attack organized and supported by ISIS, rather than just one murderous with a gun deciding to do his part for his hateful beliefs?

ISIS is saying he was thiers, and the FBI investigated him for his connections to them and others in the past. They're not releasing much hard info yet.

This thread is, predictably, a mess. Far too many people toeing or blowing over the line of politeness. This is a one off general warning. Do better.

 Ouze wrote:

Was it this thread? Because filtering it by my name...

No, it was one that got locked that was, I believe, one of that threads predecessors.

Edit: I owe you three an apology: it was Fraz, Dreadclaw69, Kalashnikovmarine and firehead. We were all involved, but they were the offenders in that thread. It was back when the first Sarin gas attacks rolled out and ISIS entered the picture.

(disregard, it was covered)

I don't think I would ever say, either then or now, that ISIL is not a threat to the US. I would have said they weren't an existential threat, as was sort of argued here and there.

I definitely do not think you can effectively stop mass shootings or lone wolf attacks either of the angry young secular man or the angry young religious man variety. It's just too easy and too cheap to do. This country is awash in guns. Even a flat ban, which would never ever happen, would change that.

 Ouze wrote:
(disregard, it was covered)

Eh, sorry, my memory of threads more that two years old isn't that great. I just remembered that people were really rude and that you three were involved somehow, and that it's pissed me off ever since.

No jimmies rustled. I mean, I once set a calendar reminder so I could tell a guy a year later he was being a moron thinking that Ebola was going to sweep the US, so I absolutely understand the value of "i told you so".

 Ouze wrote:
No jimmies rustled. I mean, I once set a calendar reminder so I could tell a guy a year later he was being a moron thinking that Ebola was going to sweep the US, so I absolutely understand the value of "i told you so".

I hate to point this out, but being right about dead civilians is a cold sort of comfort.

They knew they would have trouble getting in, so they recruited someone who already was.

 Ouze wrote:

DutchWinsAll wrote:
So people weren't saying Christianity was wrong when that Kim Davis thing was going on? There weren't memes all over the interwebz? I'd remind you of rule 1, but it honestly doesn't really bother me.

I can't speak to the internet at large, but from what I recall, people on Dakka weren't generally blaming Christianity at large for Kim Davis's actions. In fact, the going argument from my memory was that she was free to believe or do whatever she wanted unless it removed the rights of someone else.

Since you're by far the funniest person on dakka, I feel bad when you need to correct me. But you're right about that.

I made the mistake of conflating other viewpoints / websites with other viewpoints / websites. I still believe that there is more condemnation of Christian extremists on dakka then Muslim extremists, but a large part of that is physical location and the fact most of us live in Christian majority countries not Muslim, and I shouldn't mix what I see other places with what I write here.



Like I said earlier, this particular attack just might hit too close to home for me to be objective. Besides having gay friends and family, my girlfriend is a transwoman. I've always known these groups would saw my head off for being an American, but it just seemed so distant. Knowing that they are now actively targeting groups that I connect with so much, its just hard for me to not be truly angry. But anger isn't going to solve any of this, just resolve. Resolve to be better and show these fethers that we are stronger and always will be.

Apologies to anyone I may have offended.

Now it's sort of hair splitting, but I think there's a distinction to be made between a terrorist plot planned and financed by ISIL, and a crazy person or groupie doing it, and then claiming an affiliation. In any event, I don't think we can realistically prevent either from happening ever no matter what we do.

Also, I don't yet know which of those 2 this was.

 Ouze wrote:
Now it's sort of hair splitting, but I think there's a distinction to be made between a terrorist plot planned and financed by ISIL, and a crazy person or groupie doing it, and then claiming an affiliation. In any event, I don't think we can realistically prevent either from happening ever no matter what we do.

Also, I don't yet know which of those 2 this was.

I think it's a little of column A and a little of column B. ISIL has been a clearing house of information and propaganda, but most of their money and manpower stays at home In Syria, Libya, and Iraq. I'd say they enabled him, but didn't provide resources.

DutchWinsAll wrote:
[nd I shouldn't mix what I see other places with what I write here.

I do that all the time and feel bad (later) when I do. I try to stop but it's a bad habit.

FWIW, I'd agree that there is more condemnation of Christian extremists than Muslim ones here, but I think that might be less about over anti-Christian bias and more about trying to fill an ideological vacuum, or an appeal to moderation, or other such.

The killer's father had a political talk show and supported the Taliban:
http://latest.com/2016/06/mateens-father-is-talk-show-host-who-supports-taliban-trying-to-run-for-president-of-afghanistan/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=ta&utm_campaign=iwnvo12

 Buzzsaw wrote:


Not to be overly condescending, but it seems like a strange tack to first claim that a news source is unreliable, then immediatly confirm said source's allegation (but claiming it was a well deserved censoring! ).

Breitbart is a well known conservative rag. It's basically the liberal Huffington Post, but even more so. It's not a good new source, if fact it's a horrible news source. And, although the facts at an extremely basic level were true, they were wrapped up in bs to push an agenda (i.e. "evil liberals are silencing speech!").
And it's not censorship, if I private company doesn't want to have it on their site, they are fully entitled to remove it. Try posting real extreme racism/sexism/homophobia here and you'll probably get your post deleted. And it still wouldn't have feth-all to do with "free speech". You are allowed to say whatever you want, but that doesn't mean people/companies are forced to give you an outlet.

In any case, it's worth pointing out that the allegation that there was mass deletions is beyond question: the Mods of /r/news have explicitly admitted they "did a poor job reacting". That this is... hmm, let's call it an understatement, but if the threads linked above are insufficiently amusing, there are plenty of threads (and screen caps) on https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/ addressing the issue.

Oh, yes, I just think it's not a big deal. It's people whining about "censorship" while the mods (all 19 of them) tried to deal with mass brigading, stupid amounts of spam and hate, a huge amount of duplicate threads. It wasn't some mass conspiracy or bs like that. They answered exactly what happened and why.

And some KiA, "Oh, no, evil ESSJAYDUBLRYOUS are coming to take our free speech!!!!!1!" gak is not very convincing.

He also claimed he was the leader of Afganistan, I think we can safely disregard his statements from here on out.

 Ouze wrote:

DutchWinsAll wrote:
[nd I shouldn't mix what I see other places with what I write here.

I do that all the time and feel bad (later) when I do. I try to stop but it's a bad habit.

FWIW, I'd agree that there is more condemnation of Christian extremists than Muslim ones here, but I think that might be less about over anti-Christian bias and more about trying to fill an ideological vacuum, or an appeal to moderation, or other such.

I blame tabs. I can go from any extreme to the other with one mouse click.

They come in handy when surfing other things though.

And I just hope more people will remember your H.L. Mencken level of destruction of a poster through a blogpost. That was seriously some next level stuff lol.

 Ouze wrote:
Also, I don't yet know which of those 2 this was.

I'm pretty sure it's a case of the lone wolf claiming affiliation to make himself seem part of something larger, or to make him seem more sinister in the public eye.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Since I see Breotan, Ouze, and Whembly, and IIRC, you were all involved in this discussion:

ISIS hits in the US. Apology, any of you? I seem to recall a few years back you all had nasty things to say about me as a person when I predicted this sort of outcome.

Me? o.O

 whembly wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Since I see Breotan, Ouze, and Whembly, and IIRC, you were all involved in this discussion:

ISIS hits in the US. Apology, any of you? I seem to recall a few years back you all had nasty things to say about me as a person when I predicted this sort of outcome.

Me? o.O

Addressed at the top of this page

 Breotan wrote:
I'm pretty sure it's a case of the lone wolf claiming affiliation to make himself seem part of something larger, or to make him seem more sinister in the public eye.

And of course ISIS has incentive to claim credit even if they didn't provide any meaningful help.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Since I see Breotan, Ouze, and Whembly, and IIRC, you were all involved in this discussion:

ISIS hits in the US. Apology, any of you? I seem to recall a few years back you all had nasty things to say about me as a person when I predicted this sort of outcome.

Me? o.O

Addressed at the top of this page

Sorry. I didn't read the whole thread.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Breotan wrote:
I'm pretty sure it's a case of the lone wolf claiming affiliation to make himself seem part of something larger, or to make him seem more sinister in the public eye.

And of course ISIS has incentive to claim credit even if they didn't provide any meaningful help.

This. It isn't separated purely into 'Guy trained and armed by ISIS', and 'Guy who ISIS doesn't know exists', I'd argue that there's a third far more common category, 'Guy who talks to ISIS a lot over the internet, and receives advice/suggestions from them'. They're lone wolves in that there's nobody funding or acting in concert with them (unless ISIS was lucky enough to radicalise someone else nearby at the same time), but the two are in contact.

Frankly, they're the kind of people ISIS wants to cultivate most, people who will sacrifice themselves abroad and grab headlines in the name of ISIS in exchange for a few hundred hours of web grooming. Not a bad tradeoff.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Do you read what you're typing before you post it? Do you have the basic intelligence required to understand how slimey and vile it is to use a tragedy like this as an opportunity to make idiotic"gotcha" statements like the ones you're making in this thread?

Do you know what Dakka's RULE NUMBER ONE is? If you don't like what someone posts, click the little triangle of friendship over on the right and tell an admin.

To me, this person's analysis appears spot on (she spent 7 years in West Africa, so she knows what she’s talking about. ), which she surmises that this was a text book lone wolf attack--culled from her twitter timeline:

Rukmini Callimachi ‏@rcallimachi 12h12 hours ago
1. Afternoon everyone, I'm in Paris on assignment but will be Tweeting shortly about the Orlando attacks. Join me here for a discussion

2. Police is classifying the Orlando shooting a "terror incident." It's of course too early to say, so the usual caveats apply.

3. If it is the Islamic State, what we can expect is that it will be claimed within 1-2 days on one of their official Telegram channels.
3. I follow these channels & have scoured them & there's nothing as yet - but it's still early. Remember San Bernardino was claimed next day

4 What I did find is a channel run by ISIS sympathizers which is gloating: "US crying over 20 dead homos. Lol."

5. What bears noting is the timing, occurring in the holy month of Ramadan, which has historically been when ISIS & al-Qaeda ramp up attacks

6. in May, ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani issued his pre-Ramadan speech, inciting violence in West, and specifically naming America

7. He argues that acts of terror carried out during Ramadan will bring greater rewards and he makes 2 arguments meant to incite Lone Wolves

8. He tells them that if they failed to travel to Syria, they can now join the jihad by carrying out terror in the land of the infidel

9. More interestingly, Adnani says he's heard from ISIS fans in West who are unable to reach military targets & balk at killing civilans

10. In his speech, Adnani exerts effort to reassure them that killing civilians inc women & children in West is both legal and encouraged

11 Here's an excerpt of Adnani's speech translated by @siteintelgroup: "We have heard from some of you that you are unable to do your work"

12. ... "of your inability to reach military targets & because you are too embarrassed to target what is called civilian targets."

13. "So know that in the heartland of the Crusaders there's no protection for that blood & there is no presence of what we call innocents.”

14. Adnani encourages Lone Wolves to therefore hit any & all targets in Europe & America that will engender civilian deaths during Ramadan

15. By the way, this is an interesting shift that began in spring 2015, according to @JcBrisard following a Q & A in ISIS' French magazine

16. In the March 31, 2015 interview, Boubacar al-Hakim, considered the 'Godfather' of French jihad advises brothers to drop the symbolism

17 He tells his terror colleagues: "I advise them not to bother looking for specific targets. Kill whoever you can." http://www.memri.fr/2015/04/07/le-djihadiste-franco-tunisien-al-tounsi-relate-son-parcours-et-engage-les-musulmans-a-tuer-nimporte-qui/ …

18. According to @JcBrisard, that interview is key because of the salient role of Boubaker al-Hakim in the French terror network.

19. Up until then, most of the terror plots in Europe by ISIS sympathizers had some level of symbolism: Hit a church, hit a police station.

20. Starting with the Thalys train shooting then Reda Hame's foiled Aug 15 plot to attack a rock concert you see ISIS going for soft targets

21 Again folks ISIS has not claimed this attack. We're still in the early hours. My thoughts are meant to provide context if in fact they do

22 Reuters reporting 50 dead in Orlando. If police are correct & this is terrorism, it's one of the worst since 9/11

23. FYI everyone, ISIS has just issued its daily news bulletin. Of note - no mention of Orlando

Spoiler:

24. Numerous media outlets including @washingtonpost have confirmed that the Orlando gunman called 911 to pledge allegiance to ISIS.

25. It's important to understand the role so-called "Lone Wolves" play in ISIS' mission of spreading terror, which is often misunderstood

26. As early as 2014, ISIS explained that *anyone* could carry out an act of terror in their name. "Do not ask for permission," Adnani said

27. They later codified this, and advised that their supporters should pledge allegiance in a public forum, before carrying out the attack

28. Idea is simple: ISIS floods the internet with their gory propaganda hoping to incite anyone inc the mentally unwell, then claims credit
28. The fact that there is no link back to the core is *by design* and is intended to protect the organization in an age of surveillance

29. In recent yrs we have seen pattern unfold. Take San Bernardino. Same day as Dec 2 attack, assailant posted pledge of allegiance on FB

30. Take the Garland, Texas attack by Elton Simpson. Minutes before the shooting started, he posted his pledge of allegiance on Twitter

31. It's important to learn the lingo. Pledging allegiance in ISIS terminology is "pledging bay'ah":

32. And oath of allegiance is usually directed to "Amirul al-Mumineem," or "Emir of the Believers," the honorific used to refer to Baghdadi

33. Keep in mind these unfamiliar terms are being thrown around on social media by native English speakers, not Arabic speakers

34. What that shows is that they are steeped enough in the online ISIS world to learn the terror group's secret code.

35. I'm curious to know what terms the shooter used on the 911 call. Did he just pledge allegiance? Did he refer to Emir of the Believers?
35. Here are some other examples of Lone Wolves from Europe, and the manner in which they signaled their allegiance to ISIS:

36. On Jan. 7, a man charged a police station in Paris carrying a butcher’s knife. An image of the ISIS flag was found on his body & a note

37. BREAKING NEWS: ISIS' official news wire, the Amaq News Agency, has just claimed the Orlando shooting.

38. Alert was posted on Amaq's Telegram channel circa 2 pm EST meaning 12 hrs after attack (well under 2 days it took post San Bernardino)

39. Here is a screen grab of the Amaq announcement. Notice the wording regarding information from a source:

Spoiler:

40 Alert says "Source to Amaq: The attack that targeted a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando..was carried out by an Islamic State fighter"

41. Language to me indicates the shooter was not dispatched from the core / is a Lone Wolf. Amaq was awaiting confirmation of ISIS pledge

42. Notice from @MarcSantoraNYT's reporting that gunman took hostages and sealed himself in a room:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/13/us/last-call-at-orlando-club-and-then-the-shots-rang-out.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-abc-region®ion=span-abc-region&WT.nav=span-abc-region

43. The idea of a hostage standoff is first floated by ISIS in June 2015. 1st evidence of it that we have is the interrogation of Reda Hame
43. Hame was a Parisian IT professional who traveled to Syria, trained with ISIS and was sent back under orders of Abdelhamid Abaaoud

44. Abaaoud was mastermind of Nov 13 Paris attacks. But before Paris, he trained Hame, instructing him to attack a rock venue &take hostages
44. Based on interrogation log, it's clear that the tactic of taking hostages is intended to prolong the op for maximum media exposure

45. Also purpose of a hostage standoff is for shooter to die a "martyr." That ensures he cannot be interrogated, and hence used for intel

46. We had all of these elements in Orlando. Re-upping my story on the rise of ISIS' external operations wing:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/world/europe/isis-attacks-paris-brussels.html

47. It's 3 am in Paris and I'm heading to bed. Here's a story version of today's tweets. Thanks everyone!
Was Orlando Shooter Really Acting for ISIS? For ISIS, It’s All the Same

Holy cow that's a bitch to read. Care to sum it up?

Edit: lone wolf, got it

Makes sense. If this was a planned operation It'd be something like the Paris attacks, not just a shooting.

I thought it would be interesting to post her tweets as it was organically tweeted (or is that twatted?) over the course of the day.

For a TL;DR version, just read her NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/13/us/orlando-omar-mateen-isis.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Buzzsaw wrote:


Not to be overly condescending, but it seems like a strange tack to first claim that a news source is unreliable, then immediatly confirm said source's allegation (but claiming it was a well deserved censoring! ).

Breitbart is a well known conservative rag. It's basically the liberal Huffington Post, but even more so. It's not a good new source, if fact it's a horrible news source. And, although the facts at an extremely basic level were true, they were wrapped up in bs to push an agenda (i.e. "evil liberals are silencing speech!").
And it's not censorship, if I private company doesn't want to have it on their site, they are fully entitled to remove it. Try posting real extreme racism/sexism/homophobia here and you'll probably get your post deleted. And it still wouldn't have feth-all to do with "free speech". You are allowed to say whatever you want, but that doesn't mean people/companies are forced to give you an outlet.

Let me correct you for a moment, no one considers these mods "liberals", they seem to be firmly ensconced in the regressive, authoritarian left. Like the Social Justice movement (of which it may be sometimes considered a part) this is an illiberal and authoritarian movement.

As for your point about censorship, there are three issues with it. The first is that Reddit (or, in this case, its mods) does not have unfettered ability to simply delete material; the TOS does more then simply grant them rights, it also establishes a code of conduct that is prevents capricious deletion of material that conforms to stated norms. Second, Reddit is a public company with a business model based around the idea of being a forum; while you may be unimpressed with the severity of their actions, there is a very valid reason to draw attention to such actions. The public is not so sanguine as you might imagine at the notion of a public forum exercising such capricious moderation.

Third and most importantly, for liberals free speech is a value, not simply a legalistic entitlement, just as censorship extends beyond that which is enforced by government diktat. This is leads to amplifying the last point; the idea that Reddit reserves an unfettered right to delete news about the largest mass casualty attack in the USA since 9/11 is offensive to many people beyond the politically conservative.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

In any case, it's worth pointing out that the allegation that there was mass deletions is beyond question: the Mods of /r/news have explicitly admitted they "did a poor job reacting". That this is... hmm, let's call it an understatement, but if the threads linked above are insufficiently amusing, there are plenty of threads (and screen caps) on https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/ addressing the issue.

Oh, yes, I just think it's not a big deal. It's people whining about "censorship" while the mods (all 19 of them) tried to deal with mass brigading, stupid amounts of spam and hate, a huge amount of duplicate threads. It wasn't some mass conspiracy or bs like that. They answered exactly what happened and why.

And some KiA, "Oh, no, evil ESSJAYDUBLRYOUS are coming to take our free speech!!!!!1!" gak is not very convincing.

Again, at the risk of being condescending, given that you have endorsed a vastly narrower and more legalistic concept of 'free speech' (certainly then my own), perhaps convincing you is not so very high on the Breitbart priority list? Rather, they are attempting to convey this information to liberals, conservatives and classical liberals that, as Milo Yiannopolis likes to say, believe in sunlight as the best disinfectant.

But to reiterate my above point: this incident is damaging to Reddit as a brand. For hours today the default news board on Reddit had nothing on the biggest terror attack in the US post 9/11!