Jesus, people, did you hear what happened in Ottawa? I’m in class all day, so I missed those news altogether.
My first instinct is that this is connected to Canada’s decision to support the war against ISIS.
Terrorism in Ottawa
Opinions, art, debate
Clarissa's Blog 
“And it may not be over yet.
Authorities haven’t ruled out the possibility that an additional shooter could be on the loose. And Ottawa Police Constable Chuck Benoit told CNN that there was more than one person involved in the shootings.
[…]
There were two shooting incidents in the city of Ottawa, where this kind of violence is extremely rare: one at the Canada War Memorial, which is near the Parliament building, and another round of shooting inside Parliament.”
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/22/world/americas/canada-ottawa-shooting/index.html
LikeLike
Yes, Ottawa is extremely peaceful and even sleepy. This is very unusual.
LikeLike
The killer’s original name was “Martin Couture-Rouleau” before he “converted to Islam about a year ago” and changed it to “Ahmad.” Interesting. I thought he was born a Muslim, not a very recent convert.
“Months ago, Couture’s parents saw a change in their 25-year-old son’s behavior and asked authorities for help, police said.”
From another article:
Faisal, a Facebook friend of Couture-Rouleau’s in Saudi Arabia:
“So he was really mad that Canada actually supported the American bombing of [ISIS] in Syria and Iraq so I think that was the main motive in killing that Canadian soldier.”
[…]
According to information Radio-Canada obtained from a friend of Couture-Rouleau, he had convinced at least four or five people in his circle of friends to convert to Islam. But he said that Couture-Rouleau got carried away with an extreme interpretation of the Qur’an.
The friend said Couture-Rouleau spent hours on the internet and devoured jihadist literature, adding that Couture-Rouleau dreamed of dying as a martyr.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/who-is-martin-couture-rouleau-1.2807285
LikeLike
Don’t want to be a nag but his parents should have asked for help 20 years earlier.
LikeLike
Also, it is obvious, of course, that 30 years ago it would have been anti-feminism, 40 years ago it would have been communism, 100 years ago it would have been anarchism, etc. Pretexts come and go but disturbed, traumatized young people remain.
LikeLike
And just like in the 1940s in Spain there was a popular wisdom that Communism is a disease that turns people violent, today we will hear people of the same intellectual caliber say that there is something in Islam causing such outbreaks of violence.
Times pass, idiots remain.
Sorry for stacatto comments. I’m posting while cooking.
LikeLike
“Months ago, Couture’s parents saw a change in their 25-year-old son’s behavior and asked authorities for help, police said.”
So they saw a change in their son’s behaviour and CONTACTED THE AUTHORITIES? Pardon? How could authorities change anyone’s BEHAVIOUR until he commits an actual crime? Put him in prison because he bought a Quran and some new clothes, and had some online friends from the Middle East? What’s wrong with people like this? That tells everything about the shooter’s background. They are the same as the idiots who send their kid to the shrink before they, as parents tried to help – at least listen to and speak with that miserable kid. Like the “parents” of elliot rogers, eric harris, dylan klebold, adam lanza, and all the other American school shooters. Parents with the same kind of attitude produce young men like these. All of them defended themselves with “but, but, but we paid for his therapy”, “but, but, but we asked for help from the right place”. Yeah, quite right. Idiots. Innocents die again, because the almighty parents have the right to neglect their kid however it pleases to them.
However rootless, neglected, empty young people often turn to violent ideas, but this is still shocking. A white boy from a middle-class North-American background turns to the most fanatical wing of islam and shoots innocent people because he believes as a martyr he will get the 72 virgins in heaven? Plus he had also “convinced at least four or five people in his circle of friends to convert to Islam”? It sounds really bad. I’m afraid this is just the beginning.
LikeLike
I read a book about one of the shooters at Columbine, and that kid’s father spent years just bullying him, writing down his every move, horrible stuff. And then the boy shoots up a school and everybody goes, “Oh, his poor parents! ” They raised him, inflicted him on all of us, and then we need to feel sorry for them. Right.
LikeLike
I have teenagers in crisis write yo my blog address every once in a while. And all they need is for somebody to listen and listen some more. And if they don’t find a good person to do that, they will find a not so good one.
LikeLike
Do they write to you as complete strangers or do you know them from somewhere? Because if they write their personal problems to a strange woman from the internet, their parents must suck in a terrible way. But I can understand these kids. If I had the opportunity as a teenager, maybe I would have done the same.
LikeLike
The strangest story I’ve had is when a woman wrote to ask about advice on how to deal with her husband of 40 years. I had to respond saying that I haven’t lived as long as she’s been married so I don’t know how much my advice is worth. But I did the best I could and offered advice.
I’ve never seen any of the people who write to me. But there have been many over the years. I’ve helped people choose a grad school program, make a decision on emigration, I even helped one guy get married. I feel hugely flattered to be asked for advice. Many years ago strangers online similarly helped me figure out why my personal life sucked. Thanks to them, I’m now happily married, and I will be forever grateful to those anonymous folks.
LikeLike
We have a 17 year old aussie who jumped on a plane and dedicated himself to ISIS. The officials say its kinda sad because that is a death sentence for him — no coming back.
LikeLike
Not that the officials would not let him back but they are sure ISIS will not.
LikeLike
Poor sod.
LikeLike
perhaps.
LikeLike
It’s surprising that we haven’t had more Islamist terrorism in North America. We can expect it anywhere in Canada or the U.S. It’s instructive and frightening that terrorists attack symbolic icons of North America: the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, the Canadian Parliament.
Clarissa, I don’t believe it’s relevant to compare the conflict between the Muslim world and the Western world with communism or feminism, both of which are recent historical developments that appeal to people of nearly all nationalities and religions.
Communism is a somewhat plausible economic theory that attracted a great many followers in some places, and fewer followers nearly everywhere. Communism, like Nazism, will probably go down in history as a dangerous prairie fire that flared up and burned out. Like Nazism, communism may be essentially defeated but continue to attract scattered hotheads for some time. Or perhaps communism will continue as a minor economic party in parts of the world, with occasional success. Whatever, it’s a recent phenomenon, and it’s an equal-opportunity problem, not attached to any specific ethnic group, religion or race.
Feminism is salient nearly everywhere in the modern world. It’s a recent development, because it wasn’t practical for most women to overcome the restrictions of a life bound by childbearing, caregiving, and farming. The industrial revolution enabled women and men to widen their horizons, especially in countries with well-developed education systems. But modern feminism couldn’t really take off until medical advances made it possible to control fertility.
Of course, feminism has nothing in common with economic or political movements like communism and Nazism.
Feminism is more like democracy. Democracy and feminism, once discovered and implemented, will thrive and expand anywhere and everywhere. The only exceptions are places where democracy and feminism are opposed and possibly forbidden by powerful dictatorships or paternalistic societies.
Now consider radical Islamist terrorism. It is not a recent historical development. Conflict between the Moslem world and the Western world has been ongoing for a thousand years, give or take. It used to be called a conflict between the Moslem and Christian worlds, and some would continue to characterize it as such. However, it is no longer reasonable to characterize the Western world only by Christianity. The hold of western religions on populations has weakened in many places. But the hold of religion seems to have intensified in much of the Moslem world.
Almost from the beginning, Muslims were expansionist, conquering Northern Africa and half of Spain. During the era of the Crusades, Christianity, led by the popes, saw the Muslim world as “Infidels.” Likewise, the Muslim world saw Christians as “Infidels.” Centuries of land and sea battles ensued.
This longstanding battle between east and west has been on hold for a century of more. During that pause, “modernization” has tremendously widened the gulf between the Muslim world and the West, with Turkey sort of caught in the middle. Muslims and Christians have lived side by side in many places. But the breakup of Yugoslavia is instructive. As soon as central government disappeared, ancient enmities between Christians and Muslims turned violent.
The gradual spread of radical Islamist thought over the past half-century can only be understood as an extension of history.
Now then. In centuries past, it would have been incorrect to say that all Christians were Crusaders. (Although the crusades certainly had widespread support throughout Europe.) It is, however, correct to say that all Crusaders were Christians. Get it?
Today, it would not be correct to say that all Muslims are Islamist terrorists. (However, we are beginning acknowledge that terrorists have a degree of sympathy and support from more moderate Muslims. In fact, it’s becoming clear that terrorists are finding considerable financial support, not to mention newly radicalized followers, in England and America.)
I won’t say: “There is something in Islam causing such outbreaks of violence.”
My point is that, just as the Crusaders were Christians, the radical Islamist terrorists are Muslims. Either by birth or conversion.
— “Jesus, people, did you hear what happened in Ottawa?” Ironically, that initial reaction reflects the religious history of this long conflict.
Sorry to be so longwinded. Americans and Canadians need to be aware of the history.
LikeLike
The Attack In Ottawa will be used to justify losing more rights
Prime Minister Harper pretty much confirmed it: ‘Our laws and police powers need to be strengthened’
http://www.ianwelsh.net/the-attack-in-ottawa-will-be-used-to-justify-losing-more-rights/
In other news:
“An Arab woman dressed in a niqab … was recently evicted from an opera house in Paris … Midway through an interminable performance of Verdi’s La Traviata, a member of the cast clocked the woman and a sort of revolt took place. The whole bunch of warbling luvvies refused to continue unless the Arab was chucked out. In France, wearing a niqab is illegal — as is not wearing one in some of the more severely backward Muslim countries. The woman came from one of the horrible Gulf States; we have not been told which.
[…]
I think we have become deranged by Islam. We act towards its adherents in ways which must seem to them mystifying and contradictory. […] Another example of our derangement came in the bizarre statement that young jihadis returning from chopping off people’s heads in Syria might face charges of treason upon their return. It was only a couple of years ago that the British government was cheering on the rebels in their fight against the hated monster President Assad and contemplating sending aid to help them in their cause. […] The British jihadis were answering a call to arms which came — at least partly — from the very government that now wants to lock them up for treason. That they ended up fighting on the side of an organisation with the aims and values of the Islamic State should come as a surprise only to someone with the IQ of a bowl of butterscotch Angel Delight.”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/rod-liddle/9348102/wear-a-veil-if-you-like-but-dont-treat-women-like-that/
LikeLike
Both quotes come from deranged weirdos with nothing but comedic value. Ian Welsh is obviously unwell. And the other guy is going in the direction of a lunatic asylum , too.
LikeLike
http://pando.com/2014/10/24/the-war-nerd-how-do-you-deal-with-wannabe-jihadis-an-upgrade-to-business-class/
War nerd on the Canada attacks.
LikeLike
A brilliant article, brilliant. This guy is extraordinarily talented.
I wish more people read it. I think I will put it into a separate post.
LikeLike