Powerful interview with a young survivor of the massacre.

Billy_T wrote:

Throughout that period of hours, the gunman was in there with us. He actually made a call to 911 from in there. Everybody could hear – who was in the bathroom, who survived. We could hear him talking to 911, saying that the reason why he’s doing this is because he wants America to stop bombing his country. From that conversation, from 911, he pledged allegiance to Isis, he started speaking in, I believe … after he get off the phone with 911, he started speaking in Arabic … at first I didn’t know what the language was. And after that, he even spoke to us directly in the bathroom. He said: ‘Are there any black people in here?’ I was too afraid to answer, but there was an African American male in the stall where most of my body was, where a majority of my body was, had answered and he said, ‘Yes, there are about six or seven of us,’ and the gunman responded back to him saying, ‘You know that I don’t have a problem with black people, this is about my country. You guys suffered enough.’

He made a statement saying it wasn’t about black people. This isn’t the reason why he was doing this. But through the conversation with 911, he said that the reason why he was doing this is that he wanted America to stop bombing his country. So, the motive was very clear to us who were laying in our own blood and other people’s blood, who were injured, who were shot. We knew what his motive was and that he wasn’t going to stop killing people until he was killed, until he felt like his message got out there.

There are a lot of conflicting reports, which is always the case when tragedies like this happen. But from this particular interview, it would appear that Mateen’s biggest rationale for the slaughter was because he wanted America to stop bombing his country — which apparently meant Afghanistan.

There is no “logic” in this rationale. But when people snap and go on these rampages, that’s generally not a part of the deal in the first place. It makes no sense to even think in those terms — that by killing 49 (or more) people in an American club, this would help Afghanistan in any way, shape or form. It won’t. It also makes the reference to ISIS all the stranger.

This is truly a “senseless” tragedy.

Absolutely no question it was terrorism.

zn wrote:

bnw wrote:

here is no “logic” in this rationale. But when people snap and go on these rampages, that’s generally not a part of the deal in the first place. It makes no sense to even think in those terms — that by killing 49 (or more) people in an American club, this would help Afghanistan in any way, shape or form. It won’t. It also makes the reference to ISIS all the stranger.

Especially since ISIS has nothing to do with Afghanistan.

Plus he told people before, in workplace conflicts, that he was associated with Hezbollah.

Which makes no sense for Afghanistan either.

AND ON TOP OF IT Hezbollah and ISIS are at war in Syria.

Plus Hezbollah is Shia and ISIS is Sunni.

In short…he does not seem to know what he’s talking about. And of course there’s no reason to take those references seriously. They make no sense.

…

Stop it. Even the witness said it was political. The US had bombed Afghanistan. He went with the enemy of my enemy is my friend when he pledged allegiance to ISIS. It was definitely terrorism.

Mackeyser wrote:

Or he was a self-hating gay homophobe who snapped and had to kill himself and all the gays he associated with, but as we saw, he struggled to do that because he was conflicted about his humanity as he was with his sexuality.

Nothing he said made any sense unless we view it through the prism of the self-hating gay homophobe. Then it all makes perfect sense.

The “terrorism” angle is a ruse. He knew so little about it that he literally didn’t know the difference between Shia and Sunni terrorist groups…which…is a really big deal because they are literally at war with one another.

It’s like saying…”I’m here to kill everyone until you stop killing my people. I’m a gang banger! I pledge allegiance to the Crips! And I pledge allegiance to the Bloods!…”

Yeah, anyone who knows anything would immediately be…”um…wtf? You can’t do that. Do you even know anything about gangs?” And…the answer likely would be, ‘no’.

I’m half Irish and I don’t know shit all about the IRA. Just because he was raised in a Muslim home, doesn’t mean he knew anything about which group was what.

If he was a jihadi, he wouldn’t have been drinking in a gay bar…repeatedly. He wouldn’t have kept gay friends. He wouldn’t have communicated with gay men on three different gay dating apps.

If he was simply looking for “soft targets”, he could simply have surveilled the area and gone from there.

Everything that points to him being a terrorist falls apart.

Everything that points to him being a self-hating gay homophobe falls in place.

Facts matter and just because someone says a lie and is Muslim doesn’t make it true.

I have muslim friends from college who I guarantee lived their lives here way differently than they do in their home country. Drinking, carousing, porn etc. I can give them a heart attack by calling them and saying I sent them a care package of bourbon and porn dvds.

Look at the 911 hijackers. Same thing and they were Al Quaeda.

Mateen went to Saudi Arabia twice in recent years. He was radicalized and made sure he let people know he was a terrorist. All the know it all types know better of course.

Mackeyser wrote:

The certitude with which you ply your half-truths would be disconcerting if such a trade in misinformation weren’t so commonplace.

You have NO PROOF that Omar Mateen was radicalized in Saudi Arabia. None whatsoever. You are clinging to that desperately because that fulfills your world view.

Brown muslim killed people…cuz…ISLAM. That fits.

That other stuff? Yeah, that’s too complicated…

The problem is that life is complicated and it doesn’t get less complicated when folks just ignore how complicated it is and act like they can make it simpler.

“We’re just gonna go in, overthrow Saddam and be greeted as liberators. Take a week. Two tops.”

Except…Iraq was a complicated mix of Shia and Sunni kept together by a secular dicator. And we saw how that’s turned out…

Over and over again we see this tendency to want to oversimplify as if the Cliff Notes version of Life, The Universe and Everything were more virtuous in any way than the unabridged version.

It isn’t.

If it helps you, NO ONE understands it all. NO ONE. And anyone who pretends to is outright lying.

But this whole, “it’s simple. he did this. he went there. he got radicalized. Done” thing…

yeah. That’s just wrong. Now you can do the AR-15 thing and show me his boarding pass to Saudi Arabia and tell me which seat he sat in on the plane and 1000 other details which have NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with him not being radicalized in Saudi Arabia (cuz he wasn’t) and him not being a jihadi (cuz he wasn’t). You can do that if you want, but I’m just gonna roll my eyes and focus on what mattered.

Omar Mateen was NOT radicalized. I’m not saying he never heard a radical word. Let’s not do THAT thing. I’m saying he wasn’t radicalized.

As details emerge, we’ll get a better picture about him and if he had any partners if they’ll come forward. That first guy if there is one will pretty much slam the door on any radicalization. In case you were wondering.

“Omar Mateen was NOT radicalized. I’m not saying he never heard a radical word. Let’s not do THAT thing. I’m saying he wasn’t radicalized.

As details emerge, we’ll get a better picture about him and if he had any partners if they’ll come forward. That first guy if there is one will pretty much slam the door on any radicalization. In case you were wondering.”

You don’t know that. You just did what you accused me of although I have the murderers words to back up my position. BTW visiting Saudi Arabia and other areas in the MidEast is a common theme with people living outside the MidEast becoming radicalized.

Also I did not support the War on Iraq. I also only supported the destruction of Al Quaeda in Afghanistan after which we should have left. I was against the first gulf War too. We shouldn’t be in Syria since we weren’t invited. Let the Russians take care of it. I’m against interventionist actions that weaken our economy and our standing in the world.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by bnw.

zn wrote:

Mackeyser wrote:

You have NO PROOF that Omar Mateen was radicalized in Saudi Arabia. None whatsoever. You are clinging to that desperately because that fulfills your world view.

Not only that, but, Saudi Arabia is one of the least likely places TO get radicalized.

That’s a fundamentalist police state that absolutely cracks down on extremist dissidents.

That would be like going to the Soviet Union in the 80s to get invested in neo-liberal capitalist economics.

As in, not bloody likely.

And the Fox-type sources who claim that Saudi Arabia is a place someone could get radicalised are just demonstrating that they have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.

…

This is too easy. I’ll just give links because there are so many from so many sources across the political spectrum. As in its that bloody likely.

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/ISIS-Threat/Pakistani-in-California-shooting-became-radicalized-in-Saudi-Arabia-relatives-say-436412
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/saudi-arabia-radicalization-neil-macdonald-1.3354831
http://www.la.utexas.edu/users/chenry/usme/2007/Saudi-Terrorist_Recruitmen_87543a.pdf
http://theweek.com/articles/570297/how-saudi-arabia-exports-radical-islam
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2015/12/08/saudi-arabia-isis/#3caf609f4318
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saudi/analyses/wahhabism.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-yousaf-butt-/saudi-wahhabism-islam-terrorism_b_6501916.html

‘Time Of Looking Away Over’: Germany Warns Saudi Arabia To Stop Funding Wahhabism

Bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody likely!