Jared Lee Loughner and the Threat of Islam
No, the Arizona gunman is not a Muslim although a senseless slaughter of innocents does remind me of a Muslim attack. There is an interesting parallel between how others viewed the warning signs about Loughner and how civilized countries view Islam. Let me explain.
Friends of Jared Loughner told The New York Times that they stopped talking to him in March of last year because he started getting weird. His behavior had become increasingly erratic and he became quite paranoid, even suspecting that two of his closest friends were planning to kill him.
At Pima Community College, his classmates and his professors noticed something was wrong with him. The college officials were so afraid of him that he was suspended (29 Sept 2010) and told that if he ever wanted to return he'd have to obtain a "mental health clearance" from a mental health professional who would state that he did not present a danger.
Some classmates were utterly frightened by him:
FoxNews, Loughner's Meltdown Began in Adulthood, Those Near Him Say
Pima college students were equally concerned. Classmate Lynda Sorenson, 52, offered an eerily prescient warning in a personal e-mail to friends last summer.
"We have a mentally unstable person in the class that scares the living crap out of me. He is one of those whose picture you see on the news, after he has come into class with an automatic weapon," she said in an e-mail, published by The Washington Post. "Everyone interviewed would say, Yeah, he was in my math class and he was really weird. I sit by the door with my purse handy. If you see it on the news one night, know that I got out fast..."
After all this we wonder why no one stopped this guy sooner:
Arizona Daily Star, We saw Loughner coming but failed do anything
Did our angry political culture help motivate Jared Lee Loughner on what authorities say was his mad shooting spree? Maybe, but a more troubling question for me is why nobody stopped this often incoherent, irrational young man on his long path to the rampage in Tucson.
I don't just mean the people who sold Loughner his Glock 19 semiautomatic pistol last November, or the people at a Walmart who allegedly sold him ammunition a few hours before the assault.
I mean the community in which he lived. This was a young man who showed signs of mental illness, yet in our culture people couldn't or wouldn't stop him - even when they knew his behavior was bizarre.
The truth is, we in America ignore warning signs. We have anywhere from two to six million Jared Loughners Muslims living amongst us with all the warning signs.
The Qur'an in plain language spells out the duty of every Muslim who loves God: To call all peoples of the world to Allaah. Modern Muslim apologists will tell you this call to duty is no different than what the Jehovah Witnesses do in their missionary work. That may be true if by "missionary" you mean al Qaeda, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya, and the Harakat ul-Mujahidin.
When was the last time a Muslim missionary came knocking on your door and asked, "Have you accepted Mohammed as your Lord and Conqueror?" Don't bother answering, that's not how Islam spreads. Jehovah Witnesses are out there day and night knocking on doors, talking up a storm and yet there are only 4 million Jehovah Witnesses in the world. Muslims, without knocking on any doors, now number 1.5 billion. They must have a better sales pitch, eh?
Here's the sales pitch Islam has been pushing for more than 1400 years and excellent examples of their method of proselytizing:
The conquest of Persia and Iraq: 633–651
Byzantine–Arab Wars: 634–750
The conquest of Syria: 637
The conquest of Armenia: 639
The conquest of Egypt: 639
The conquest of North Africa: 652
The conquest of Cyprus: 654
The conquest of Afghanistan: 642–870
The conquest of Transoxiana: 662–709
The conquest of Sindh: 664–712
The conquest of North Africa: 665
The first Arab siege of Constantinople: 674–678
The conquest of Nubia: 700–1606
The second Arab siege of Constantinople: 717–718
The conquest of Hispania: 711–718
The conquest of the Caucasus: 711–750
The conquest of Georgia: 736
The conquest of Crete: 820
The conquest of southern Italy: 827
The conquest of Anatolia: 1060–1360
The conquest in the Indian subcontinent: 12th century and onwards
The conquests in Sub-Saharan Africa: 1200–1800
Byzantine-Ottoman Wars: 1299–1453
The Siege of Vienna in 1529
Battle of Vienna in 1683
When Muslim armies conquered they rarely had to convert people by the sword, they simply made it difficult to live as an infidel. Onerous taxes, physical beatings, rape, murder usually persuaded those of another faith that it was easier to be a Muslim. Much as they do today in (Click on link for information):
So for 1400 years and even unto the present day, the actions of Muslims have been giving us warning signs just as Jared Lee Loughner gave us warning signs. When will we start paying attention?
I hope that my grandchildren never see a headline from an underground newspaper that reads: "We saw Islam coming but failed do anything."
