A recap on the link between religion and the truck attack in Nice

[Albertoo]

• belonging. While not observant most of his adult life, the attacker identified as Muslim. And in the last months of his life, he described himself to acquaintances as a born again radical. Religious identification: check.

• ideology: "I will throw fear into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Then smite the necks and smite of them each finger" (Quran 8:12). The attacker sure smote unbelievers' necks and fingers. Ideology: check.

• motive: Islam turns your drab life* in a flowery afterlife if you die killing people deemed enemies of Islam
France was engaged in fighting the State calling itself Islamic. *This is particularly attractive when one hasn't bothered living the observant Muslim's life. 'Martyrdom' cancels out all past omissions. motive: check.

• tactics: the attacker in Nice followed to the letter the Islamic State terror playbook. tactics:check.

• logistics: black money transfers, SMSs, weapons found in the truck. accomplices (link). logistics:check.
http://metro.co.uk/2016/07/17/nice-attack-lorry-killer-sent-text-to-accomplice-moments-before-he-murdered-84-people-6011880/


Now, can we go over again as to why this 'lone wolf' attack has, as usual, nothing to do with Islam?

[calimary]

1. And isn't it nice we have a religious extremist on the GOP ticket?

Yep! That'll fix everything!

[Albertoo]

3. In accordance with your avatar, I wish to imagine a world with no religion.

I think it would be a massive step forward for humanity.

Facing real problems with the real power of human intellect and compassion.

[calimary]

6. "...and no religion, too."

Yeah. I think about that one a lot, too. Those lyrics raise up an ache in my heart.

[Doodley]

2. I don't see that a strong link is evident.

[Albertoo]

4. True. I'm beginning to suspect Buddhist radicalization

[rug]

7. There isn't.

The Metro is distributed for free, designed for commuters, and is one of the numerous conservative papers that thrive in the UK.

And if you read the link, none of what the OP says is in it. It's doubtful Boulel would recognize "Quran 8:12" any more that trump recognizes 2 Corinthians.

[Brettongarcia]

12. So he never read the newspapers?

And never noticed Muslim radicalism that way?

Some experts suggest that's the way its spread today in part.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. In the week before the attack, he was doing religious things and looking at jihadi websites

Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had grown a beard in the eight days before he carried out the attack and told friends “the significance of the beard is religious”, prosecutor François Molins told a press conference.
...
Investigators had found no proof of any “allegiance or any direct link” to Islamic State or other terrorist organisations, according to Molins. However, Lahouaiej-Boulel’s computer contained “very violent” images from radical Islamic sites and links to jihadi websites, as well as articles about the Bastille Day fireworks display in Nice, the recent nightclub attack in Orlando, shootings in Dallas, the killing of two police officers in Paris suburb Magnanville, and research into Osama bin Laden and the Algerian terrorist leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar.
...
On 7 July, Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had researched the Qu’ran on his computer as well as religious songs.

He picked up the lorry used to carry out the massacre on 8 July at 8.30am. He was due to return it on 11 July and left a guarantee cheque for €1,600. In the three days before the attack he went to the Promenade des Anglais several times.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/18/nice-attack-premeditated-mohamed-lahouaiej-bouhlel-beard-prosecutor

[applegrove]

5. You can find crazy **** in the old testament. Living the worst of something

Last edited Sat Jul 23, 2016, 04:39 PM - Edit history (1)

and committing crimes in its name does not make it Islam. 1- 4% of people are psychopaths who are sadistic. Around the same percentage are schitzophrenic who are bad a perceiving the salient issues and can be easily manipulated. All ISIS has to do is recruit a small percentage of those from people of middle east decent (or non middle east decent) and you have all your isis attackers and bombers and vehicular manslaughterers and shooters and warriors in the middle east and outside the middle east. All of them ISIS. That's what isis does is recruit. In the name of mayhem. Under the guise of Islam. But they do not get together and practice Islam when they go to Iraq or Syria, are given speed for days on end, rape and torture and genocide. That is not Islam. Of course Islam is being used as the Web that keeps them all together. The same as any religion is used by powerful men to be a web. Now who uses the Web properties in religion in the west to further their political goals......I just can't quite put my finger on it...

Seems to me the right wing is trying to label Islam the culprit for terrorism because, despite what they say about racial animosity in the usa, things are getting better under Obama, and the GOP is losing the southern strategy. People feel secure enough in not getting their heads knocked together that they do form groups like BLM and march. The GOP need a new evil to whip their naive base into shape, instead of the different factions that exist in this election cycle, and Islam it will be. It is a new wedge issue: do you call terrorism Islamic or not. And instead of promising to stop abortions and gay marriage and not being able to deliver it these days, the GOP can actively promise that sharia law is right around the corner and deliver on stopping that. The perfect GOP wedge issue. And surprise surprise they are trying to recruit (wedge) on the DU.

[Brettongarcia]

11. So all those terrorists who credit Allah as their motive...

Are wrong? And we, the non Muslims, understand this better than they do?

[applegrove]

15. Yes.

[trotsky]

16. Wow. n/t

[applegrove]

17. Those people who burned women alive for not cooperating in being sex

slaves were not doing it for any human God. The people who orchestrated that are sadistic. If you are told to do something by psychopaths, you are doing it for the psychopath, not for the excuse they give you. How cults work.

[trotsky]

18. Again, wow.

So according to you they're not religious - what are they? Atheists?

[applegrove]

19. They are in a death cult. A story older than any one religion. The

psychopaths got control.

[trotsky]

20. If you say so.

You know better than anyone else I guess.

[trotsky]

8. No matter what any other factors are, religion throws in some particularly toxic elements.

As you accurately noted.

[Act_of_Reparation]

13. Right. The question isn't whether or not religion causes violence...

...the question is whether or not it encourages violence. Whether or not it encourages people to accept violence as a means to an end. Whether or not it encourages otherwise decent people to look the other way when violence is done.

[struggle4progress]

9. Try to get your facts straight: "The killer fired a 7.65mm automatic handgun

at police before they shot him dead on Thursday night. Other weapons in the truck were fakes or replicas" -- link

The actual "weapons" turn out to be a single handgun

[Albertoo]

10. The facts stated in the OP are correct

1- I used the word weapons to cover what was found in the truck

a magazine, a pistol, an empty grenade, and replica Kalashnikov and M16 rifles in the truck.

2- the attacker tried to get more before committing his attack:

He was found to have sent text messages to an unidentified contact during the attack, asking for "more weapons"

Anyway, you focused on one tree (the word weapon),
how about acknowledging the forest? (the beam of evidence that religion played a role)

[Brettongarcia]

21. As usual, later findings verify Islamic tie

ISIS is now acknowledging the trucker as an Islamic revolutionary.

This little game of looking only at early hard evidence, and not later stuff that was predicted, is a bad methodology.