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AP Whitewashes Fresno Terrorist Attack (Updated)

AP Whitewashes Fresno Terrorist Attack (Updated)

When bias gets in the way of factual reporting

You wouldn’t know it from reading the Associated Press headline, but the latest terrorist attack which left three dead was perpetrated by a gunman who yelled, “Allahu Akbar” while being arrested.

The AP isn’t wrong that the suspect said “God is great”, but why translate a common jihadi mantra? Thanks to 9/11 and the ensuing war on terror, ever American is familiar with the negative connotations of “Allahu Akbar”.

But they didn’t stop there. Another AP headline claimed associates of the suspected terrorist claimed he was “peaceful.” Last I checked, offing people in the name of Allah is hardly “peaceful”.

Contrast that with The Telegraph’s coverage:

Kori Ali Muhammad, the 39-year-old suspect, told law enforcement he hated white people.

The AP’s political bias has been well documented on our blog over the years and as we’ve discussed, is particularly problematic in that virtually every local news outlet in the country subscribes to the AP wire as their primary source of news.

I fully understand the progressive hesitancy to label an individual motivated or inspired by radical Islam as such. It’s what Tom Wolfe referred to as “radical chic.” But none of that changes that the collective progressive (and  AP) refusal to acknowledge radical Muslim terrorist-like acts doesn’t in any way make them less terroristy.

Update:

12:09 PM, 04/19 and the AP recants:

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Comments

I do not want to dismiss the Islam terrorist angle, but this killer seems to have more uncommon with Dylann Roof than ISIS. At least that is my initial sense of it.

But, But the wise and learned Chief of Police said it was “a random act of violence”

Who are you going to believe, the Chief or the TERRORIST that shouted “allahu akbar” ???

    The Friendly Grizzly in reply to Lewfarge. | April 18, 2017 at 9:21 pm

    He picked four people at random; he didn’t have a shopping list.

    /

      But he didn’t pick them at random. Nor did he pick them based on religion, as we would expect a jihadist to do. He deliberately passed over non-white presumed infidels, shooting only white people, without regard to their religion.

        DaveGinOly in reply to Milhouse. | April 19, 2017 at 10:09 pm

        On its face, the attacks were motivated by both religious and racial animosity. Either or both could have had political motivation – the advancement of Islam and/or the advancement of the black race. Random (insofar as the victims were unknown to the attacker and that there was no personal animosity between them) attacks committed in the furtherance of an ideology of any kind are “terror attacks” by definition. The police are trying to characterize this as a “hate crime,” but “hate crime” and “terror attack” are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For instance, all attacks by Palestinians against Israelis are both terror attacks (motivated by a desire to advance both a political and a religious ideology) and “hate crimes” (because the perpetrators profess a hatred of the Jewish people). There is no reason the Fresno attack can’t be such a “twofer.”

    Obviously Ali Mohammed’s stated motivation was Islamic terror and racism and it is right to point that out, just like the media jumped to point out Dylann Roof’s racist motivations. I am just saying I can see a pattern forming between Dylann Thomas, Ali Mohammed and Steve Stephens’ and their respective murders.

    Who are we going to believe?

    The “Only Ones” who get to wear uniforms and badges and show up after the fact to draw lines on the ground!

    Who else would we believe? [/sarcasm]

From the Daily Mail article on this (seen at Instapundit): “It is not believed Muhammad had any accomplices in the horror attack” (emphasis added)

I love it.

All the original meaning of “terror attack” with none of the political baggage.

But really, I’d settle for calling this a “hate crime”.

    Not going to happen. Only white conservative Christian males can commit “hate crimes”.

      Milhouse in reply to Archer. | April 19, 2017 at 12:18 pm

      You’re full of cr*p. Nobody claims this. Certainly not the FBI, which from the very beginning of its reporting on hate crimes has always included a large percentage committed by black people.

        Poe’s Law strikes again. It appears I left off the “[/sarcasm]” tag, indicating cynicism, not a claim of fact.

        🙂

          Milhouse in reply to Archer. | April 19, 2017 at 2:50 pm

          No, your sarcasm was obvious, and it’s still full of cr*p. No law enforcement body in the country has ever taken the attitude you accuse them of. From the very earliest collection of hate crime stats, they have included crimes against “white conservative Christian males” as well as crimes by them.

          Correct, but if you listen to the “white guilt” and “white privilege” crowd, you wouldn’t be able to tell.

          To those, no racial, religious, or ethnic minority — or any woman — can commit a hate crime; it’s a deed done exclusively by white conservative Christian males.

“. . . after the gunman yelled, ‘Allahu Akbar’ which of course translates to ‘God is great’.”

Allahu Akbar is basically a taunt. Aimed at the victims of the jihadist, and aimed at those who witnessed, the purpose being to strike terror into the hearts of the non-Muslim. When they yell it, they mean by it that “Our Allah is greater than your god.”

Robert Spencer ably explains what Allahu Akbar means to the jihadist.

Even though “Allah” means “the God” and is used by most Arabic-speaking Christians to refer to the God of Christianity, when jihadis use the phrase, they mean to emphasize the superiority of Islam and its god – hence it would be more precise to leave the word untranslated and render the phrase “Allah is greater” in English.

And to say “God is great” in Arabic would require a different word — Allahu kabir, because akbar is the elative, or comparative and superlative, form of kabir.

from, http://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2015/12/25/allahu-akbar-means-almost-everything-except-establishment-media-says/

    Arminius in reply to pfg. | April 18, 2017 at 11:10 pm

    Good job, pfg.

    In Arabic (indeed all Semitic languages) all words have a three letter consonental root. The root here is KBR. Where you place the diacritical marks tells the reader how it’s to be pronounced.

    Western languages use diacritical marks, too, such as the umlaut in German (two dots over the letter “O”) or the tilde in Spanish (curved line over the letter n) but they’re not as vital because they simply are accent marks. In Arabic they’re vital because without them there are no vowels.

    The important takeaway (yes, there is one) is that often you don’t simply end op with different forms of essentially the same word. You end up with completely different, though related on some level, words.

    When Muslims started the fiction that “Islam means peace” and gullible Western kuffar bought the fiction (unfortunately including President Bush if you remember how he went to a Mosque shortly after 9/11 and said just that, and even more importantly Gen. McMaster still) they were playing on Western ignorance.

    Both Salaam and Islam share the same three letter root SLM. But only salaam means piece, while Islam means submission (it can also mean betrayal in some contexts).

    The prefix “mu” attaches it to a person, one who submits (Muslim), one who is praised (Muhammad), or one who commits the unforgivable sin of shirq (associating Allah with partners, mushareeq).

    I’m certain someone convinced Bush that Islam and Salaam both mean the same thing since they are so phonetically similar. Our leaders are easily fooled this way. The Ayatollah Khomeini knew exactly how to play a gullible fool like Carter. He convinced Carter that they both were religious men worshiping the same Allah using one of the several forms of lying permitted by Islam, tauriya (double meanings, knowing you mean something entirely different then how the man you intend to deceive will understand you), and Carter believed him. So Carter betrayed the Shah, convinced he had nothing to fear from the Ayatollah.

    You can see the same thing happening with Pope Francis, which in all honestly is disgusting.

      Squires in reply to Arminius. | April 19, 2017 at 3:03 am

      i. The ego of the mark is essential to the con.

      ii. The narrative is the key to the ego.

      iii. For a reflexive rejection of truth the narrative should invert the truth.

      iv. There is no lie like a lie of omission.

      v. It is through denial that a human being becomes prey.

      vi. Predators prey upon prey, that is their nature.

      vii. Prey will ignore warning signs if a predator has their trust.

      viii. Scavengers will follow the predator expecting a cut.

      ix. The long-term predator-parasite must shape their prey’s behavior or perish.

      x. Given time the con becomes essential to the ego of the mark.

      The important takeaway (yes, there is one) is that often you don’t simply end op [sic] with different forms of essentially the same word. You end up with completely different, though related on some level, words.
      […]
      Both Salaam and Islam share the same three letter root SLM. But only salaam means piece [sic], while Islam means submission….

      (No, I’m not trying to highlight spelling and grammar errors. 😉 )

      Salaam and Islam share the same root, so they are related. Salaam means “peace”, while Islam means “submission”.

      Submission (of one’s enemies) would certainly bring about peace (absence of war), but in a decidedly different sense than real peace. The violence would not end — it would actually probably increase: ethnic cleansing, genocide, mass torture and brutal murders, etc., all condoned and encouraged by Sharia Law — but there would be no “war” in the conventional meaning.

      Same root, related core definition, but very different meanings.

    Milhouse in reply to pfg. | April 19, 2017 at 12:42 am

    I don’t think you’re right, pfg. The shout of “Allahu akbar” is not aimed at the victims at all; it’s aimed at Allah. Moslems say it whenever they do anything for Allah’s sake, whether it’s helping an old lady across the street or beheading her. The mujahid (by the way, another example of the “mu-” prefix) says it in order to dedicate his act to Allah’s service, so he will get credit for it. It transforms what he’s doing from the crime of murder to the commandment of jihad.

      buckeyeminuteman in reply to Milhouse. | April 19, 2017 at 8:07 am

      It is also used to strike fear or intimidation into those about to be attacked, those near the attack, and now anyone around the world who hears/reads the news.

      Arminius in reply to Milhouse. | April 19, 2017 at 9:28 am

      It depends on the context, Milhouse. There’s the “I hope this bomb works” Allahu Akhbar, there’s the “Oh, s*** the bomb went off early and it killed Ali and Umar” Allahu Akhbar, there’s the “Great shot, Khalid” Allahu Akhbar, there’s the “It’s a boy” Allahu Akhbar. Those are aimed at Allah, and you can tell by tone of voice which is which.

      But when it’s used as a war cry in combat it is most definitely aimed at the enemy, as well as your own side. You’re telling them, and your comrades, that your Allah is greater than whatever it is they’re fighting for.

      Sort of a historical aside, I had a reason for grouping Muhammad along with Muslim, mushareeq, etc. There are very good reasons to believe that in 7th/8th century Arabia it wasn’t a proper name at all but a title. Archaeologists have found coins with the inscription “Muhammad” but the figure on the coin is holding a Byzantine cross. It’s clearly a Christian figure. There’s very good reason to believe that the so-called prophet isn’t a historical figure at all. The first biography we have of this prophet wasn’t written down until 200 years after he died. The first collection of his sayings and teachings weren’t compiled until almost 240 after he died.

      The “official” narrative is that Muhammad died in 632, and that after Muslims who had memorized parts of the Quran were killed in battle or died off and more and more of the Quran was lost, the third rightly guided Caliph Uthman compiled an official Quran in 650 and sent copies to Medinah, Basra, Baghdad, and Damascus. Actually there should be at least nine, as that’s how many provinces the Arabs had at the time.

      The thing is, the four earliest copBies of the Quran that were believed to date back to Uthman don’t at all. The oldest pages of the Sana’a manuscript from Yemen dates back to 705, the Samarqand manuscript in Tashkent is just a little older, the Topkapi manuscript in Istanbul is mid-8th century at best, as does the Husseini manuscript in Cairo.

      Note I said the earliest pages of the Sana’a manuscript date back to 705 or the early 8th century. But there are pages that are 60 years older, written in entirely different script. All of the early manuscripts show constant revision; words or phrases inserted above the previous text, erasures, erasures and overwrites, sometime overwrites without bothering to erase, portions taped over to hide text, etc. And this went on well into the 9th century (remember Muhammad the prophet supposedly died in the 7th century).

      All this destroys the myth that the Quran is the perfect copy of the eternal word of Allah, sent down by the Angel Gabriel to one man over a period of 23 years, and preserved in perfect form since compiled by Uthman. It’s complete BS. It’s impossible to maintain in the face of the documentary, numismatic, and archaeological evidence against it.

      The Saudis apparently know this. If you’ve seen pictures of Mecca they’ve embarked on a huge construction project. They’re essentially paving the place over. They had intended at first just to construct high rise hotels to accommodate the pilgrims. The construction projects were accompanied by archaeologists. And nothing; no artifacts. There’s no history there. In fact, the earliest mosques didn’t even have Mecca as a direction of prayer. It wasn’t until 822 that Mosques consistently faced Mecca.

      This is as much an ideological war we’re in as anything else. In every such war it’s important to discredit the enemies ideology. It appears that that there was no such thing as Islam until the beginning of the 8th century and then the Muslims spent the next century or so trying to get there story straight. Back then it was religion that held empires together. The Persians had Zoroastrianism, the Byzantines had Christianity. The Arabs had acquired an empire and they decided they needed a religion, too. And had to fall somehow in the prophetic line of Judeo-Christianity. So they invented one.

      Since it’s clearly a human fabrication, then people can dismantle it. And we need to, just as we destroyed the myths of the Japanese emperor’s divinity and state Shinto-based certainty in Japan’s heavenly mission.

        Milhouse in reply to Arminius. | April 19, 2017 at 2:55 pm

        Whether Muhammad was a name or a title, and whether the central character of the Koran was a real person or not, it’s obvious that it’s formed from the “mu-” prefix modifying the root HMD (חמד in Hebrew, the same root from which we get לא תחמוד “do not covet” and חית-חמד “pet”).

        DaveGinOly in reply to Arminius. | April 19, 2017 at 10:24 pm

        The conclusion of your piece on the history of Islam (created to bring a an empire together) sounds much like the development of the Old Testament stories about an ancient Hebrew people and the roots of the nation of Israel as proposed by some authorities (including some Israeli authorities, notably Israel Finkelstein) – historical fiction meant to cement a body politic and to give a new nation a pedigree comparable (ancient and heroic) to that of its neighbors.

Coulter’s Law, MAGA Extension:

No news is bad news for democrats.

AP, and any other “news” organization that behaves similarly (which is virtually all of them), is ENABLING Muslim Terrorists by censoring the news like this.

The effect, intended, is to prevent any serious discussion of the actual problem: Islam.

Can’t solve, or even propose a solution, for a problem if there is no discussion allowed on the topic.

“radical Muslim” – What’s radical about him? He’s following the clear teachings of his faith, like millions of others before him and millions more to come. His actions are MAINSTREAM Islam. The faith specifically calls for such violence. The ONLY difference between him and any “moderate” is that the so-called “moderates” teach the hatred and violence hoping to inspire a few to actually commit such attacks. They then celebrate the attacks, and treat the “radical” as a “martyr”.

    “radical Muslim” – What’s radical about him? He’s following the clear teachings of his faith, like millions of others before him and millions more to come. His actions are MAINSTREAM Islam.

    How many so-called “moderate” Muslims have come out to condemn his actions? If “radical Muslims” are a tiny minority, as we’re told, and “moderate Muslims” don’t share in the ideology of jihad and just want to live Western lives, as we’re also told, where are the hundreds or thousands (or hundreds OF thousands) of Western “moderate Muslims” who say he was wrong?

    *crickets*

    The silence is deafening. It leads me to believe that there are no “moderate Muslims”; the “moderates” believe in jihad every bit as much as so-called “radical Muslims” — they just lack the calling from their “god” to actively engage.

    Arminius in reply to Aarradin. | April 19, 2017 at 4:20 pm

    I actually don’t mind the term “radical Muslim” because one of the main definitions of radical is “of or pertaining to the root of something.”

    Al Qaeda means “The base.” But it could equally mean “The root.”

    When a woman has a radical mastectomy the surgeon is trying to cut out all the diseased tissue down to it’s very root. I tend to think of Islam as a form of cancer. To combat this prescribed violence which forms the very root of Islam will require radical surgery.

The Fresno police say that it had nothing to do with terrorism, but by that I think they mean that he didn’t have any specific terrorist ties that they could find and/or wasn’t part of a specific cell. But given that his name is Muhammed, and he shouted Allu Akbar and has a rap sheet that’s more like a gang member or drug dealer, I don’t think anybody’s going to be surprised to find some Nation of Islam ties.

    Milhouse in reply to tyates. | April 19, 2017 at 12:29 pm

    No, they mean that despite his name, affiliation, and shout, the plain fact is that he wasn’t aiming at infidels but at white people, so he can’t have been motivated by religion. His actions speak louder than his words.

      tyates in reply to Milhouse. | April 19, 2017 at 1:20 pm

      You’re putting the tree in the wrong forest. The Nation of Islam and BLM owns this guy, not ISIS or Al Queda. He was inspired by the Baton Rouge police shootings. It’s basically Black Panther-style race war terrorism, While his actions were horrific, it could have been worse if he had been more organized and it should be a wake up call to the FBI since Fresno police are out of their depth on this one, obviously.

        Milhouse in reply to tyates. | April 19, 2017 at 2:58 pm

        That’s exactly what the police are saying. This was not an Islamist terror attack, it was a racial shooting exactly like Dylann Roof’s.

          tyates in reply to Milhouse. | April 19, 2017 at 7:45 pm

          That’s why i think the police are in over their heads. This guy and Long (Baton Rouge shooter) both had the same affiliations.

      DaveGinOly in reply to Milhouse. | April 19, 2017 at 11:01 pm

      Remember, we’re dealing with a nut job here (anyone who thinks that it’s OK to kill someone because of race or religion is a nut job). There’s no telling how he rationalized his target selection. Rational people may look at his choices and think “hate crime” – he was simply a racist. But this is not necessarily an accurate determination of the attacker’s motives in his own mind, and those are the only motives that count. Neither “terror” nor “hate crime” can be ruled out, and, as I mentioned in an earlier post, they are not mutually exclusive. Even someone operating on pure racism is not necessarily just acting out of hate if an attack is also motivated by a desire to advance an ideology (such as “Black Lives Matter”), making it a racially-motivated hate crime and a terror attack.

    The Fresno investigators apparently have nothing to do with investigating.

    The PC culture has taken over. Here’s what I expect in the next couple days: People in power will examine the facts — his name was Muhammed, he was a practicing Muslim, he studied his Koran, he killed people, he shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he was doing it, he praises Allah from his prison cell, he shows no remorse over the killings and calls them his holy duty, and at some point it will come out that he’s voted straight “Democrat” (suck it, Joy Reid) in the past X elections — and will naturally conclude that the NRA, white Christians, and Republicans are to blame.

      Milhouse in reply to Archer. | April 19, 2017 at 3:01 pm

      No, but they will conclude, probably correctly, that despite all that he was not motivated by religion but by race. The proof is that he deliberately passed over non-white infidels, shooting only white people without even considering whether they might be Moslem. Therefore he shot them for their skin color, not for their religion.

    Arminius in reply to tyates. | April 19, 2017 at 4:08 pm

    Just because his name is Muhammad and he shouted Allahu Akhbar doesn’t mean he’s affiliated with the Nation of Islam or any form of Islam. A lot of politically radicalized blacks regard Christianity as the religion of the slave master and identify with Islam for ethnic, social, and political reasons.

    Which is funny in a pathetic sort of way, because while the Atlantic slave trade lasted approximately 400 years the Arab/Ottoman slave trade lasted at least 1400 years. And while blacks try to portray the Atlantic slave trade as a “genocide” the vast majority of slaves survived the trip and approximately 120 million of there descendants live in North and South America.

    There should be far more than that in the Islamic world? Where are they? There are remnant populations of Afro-Turks, Afro-Iranians, Afro-Iraqis…

    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/08/baghdad-black-i.html

    “IRAQ: Black Iraqis hoping for a Barack Obama win”

    …and remnant populations in the Indian subcontinent such as the Indian Siddis. But collectively they number less than a million while there should be far more than the 120 million in the Americas.

    And the thing is while Saudi Arabia officially outlawed slavery in 1960 and Mauritania outlawed slavery in 1981, slavery is still practiced in many Muslim countries.

    If American blacks want to see a slave trade that truly was genocidal they should look at the Arab/Ottoman empire slave trade. Unlike the Atlantic slave trade which enslaved adult me 3 to 1 over women due the the demand for labor, the Arab/Ottoman slave trade overwhelmingly enslaved women as sex slaves and young boys as eunuchs. And the vast majority of the boys didn’t survive the “surgery” out in the bush, then the forced march to the coast and the voyage to the slave market. And even if they did, naturally the survivors wouldn’t be procreating.

    We live in an insane world. Because the people who engaged in the slave trade on the Atlantic weren’t trying to kill the slaves their descendants survived to accuse white America of committing genocide. Because the Arabs/Ottomans did commit genocide they destroyed almost all the evidence that they ever engaged in slavery in the first place. And black Americans see Islam at least in cultural if not religious terms as an empowering and liberating force.

What’s the big deal. When AP stands for “American Propaganda” you should come to expect this level of reporting.

buckeyeminuteman | April 19, 2017 at 8:01 am

So its bad to water someone’s culture down, use white actors and translate everything into English. But when you’re trying to cover for your Muhomies, it’s encouraged to whitewash it and cover their true angle. Doublespeak at it’s finest.

According to (I believe) Robert Spencer, “Allahu Akbar” is frequently mistranslated as meaning “God is great,” when, he posits, the more accurate translation is in fact “God is greater,” meaning, “greater” than rival Abrahamic faiths or secular governments or belief systems.

    Arminius in reply to guyjones. | April 19, 2017 at 4:29 pm

    You are correct. If you scroll up the thread you’ll see it’s already been noted that the problem with translating Allahu akbar as God is great is that there is a different word for great in Arabic. Kabir. Akbar can only mean greater or greatest.

    You’re spot on about the rest as well. When Allahu akbar is used as a war cry it’s intended to demoralize the Muslims’ opponents and inspire the Muslims. Reminding both of them that Allah is greater than whatever the non-Muslims are fighting for.

Thanks — I missed that others had made that observation. Long thread and all. Very interesting discussion. 🙂

    Arminius in reply to guyjones. | April 19, 2017 at 9:23 pm

    guyjones, don’t go away thinking you didn’t make an important contribution to the thread. You did. I can’t speak for everyone but it is heartwarming to know America is awakening to the threat.

    It is encouraging to know that maybe the time I spent in the Navy may amount to something after all. No sarcasm.