Driving While Muslim

I feel like Earl Pitts at times: "Ya' know what makes me so angry, so angry I could pour honey on me and roll on fire ant beds....?" After some opening like that, Earl will diatribe a minute or two about some cultural irritation, and end it with "Wake up, America!" If you like red neck and blue collar humor coming from a brilliant humorist, you will enjoy Earl, from time to time. Right now, my Earl Pitts moment comes from this University of North Carolina attempted massacre of UNC students by this Iranian Muslim guy who graduated from there. In his case, his major defect was driving-while-Muslim.

As aggravating as that is, watching the news "authorities" look like deer in the headlights trying to "understand" this guy and "explain" his actions really gives me an Earl Pitts moment every time I think of it.

First, here's the context. On Friday, 3 March 2006, one Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, who had already graduated from the UNC, took a rented suv and purposefully ran into a crowd of mingling UNC students. He injured nine students before he drove off campus and called the cops to come get him. Beginning with the 911 call, he justified his actions as avenging Muslims of the globe for the actions of the United States, and he told reporters later that he fully intended to kill students. Apparently failing to do so, and failing to have larger numbers injured, disappointed Reza. Smiling, shuckin', and jivin', he went to court Monday, 6 March, and thanked the judge for providing a trial. Why such thanks? The trial will give him the opportunity to bring the "word of Allah" into a public forum. O, by the way, Reza has been in America since age 5, and his mother works for the U.S. government as a translator in Afghanistan. Reza graduated with degrees in psychology and philosophy.

Have you guessed what drove Reza? Anyone who has been reading sites such as Jihad Watch and reading the great books of the past 10 years (listed) about the facts of Islam could understand all the basics there are to grasp in the actions of this Iranian Muslim. Yes, some specific details about this guy's motivation need to be found out, but the basics are already evident--to anyone who has done the basic homework.

Any of this would cause stunning revelations, however, among the newsies. I will dwell on Fox News Channel reporting because it is mostly what I watch. What I have seen on the networks and cable outlets, however, about this matter have been non-contributory, as expected.

By Monday, the 6th of March, news coverage had become sedate compared to the coverage on Saturday, the day after Reza drove over students. No "whys" and certainly nothing below the surface has been even whispered, as far as we can tell.

Saturday news coverage, at least on Fox, was abominable. Two anchors were clearly bewildered by the events caused by this Iranian Muslim UNC graduate.

Jamie Colby and Greg Jarrett broadcast for hours in a mental fog, just unable to understand the meaning of Reza's little drive. To Colby, someone deliberately running an automobile into a crowd of people just cannot be understood. She never exhibited any further curiosity. To Jarrett, who trained as a lawyer, this incident resulted from incitement. Jarrett interviewed the editor of the UNC student newspaper and asked why the newspaper would publish an original, campus-created cartoon of Muhammad. Jarrett's attitude became hostile; he even called the editor a troublemaker who just tried to stir up stuff--and, by implication, did so, as manifested by the Iranian Muslim's murderous behavior. The editor did not do a good job of defending free speech, but free speech clearly counted for nothing to lawyer Jarrett. From his attitude one could only surmise that UNC had brought it all down on themselves by inciting this poor, fragile Muslim, whose emotional well-being is apparently our responsibility.

By Wednesday, 8 March, anyone could expect the newsies to have researched more than enough to spell out everything anyone could need to know about Reza. Our Fox and Friends, however, led by E. D. Hill could not grasp Reza's motivation. What could possibly have made him do such a thing?

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are watching the prophetic words of Lt.General Russell Honore', U. S. Army, at work. If you recall, Gen. Honore's held a press conference in New Orleans after Katrina. A press newsie who failed to grasp the obvious kept asking the same inane question in different forms. Gen. Honore' turned to him and told him that he was "stuck on stupid." He entreated people, "Don't get stuck on stupid!"

Why would Fox News seem to be "stuck on stupid," despite the fact that for about $50 all of them could be better informed that the President is?

Perhaps job requirements for reporters and anchors these days specifically forbid knowledge of the subject, whatever the subject.

"Read about it? Why, who does that pedestrian activity any longer? One must get one's knowledge Platonically, by remembering it from the World of Forms prior to one's birth."

Fox News had just come off a banner week of its financial talking heads, half of its newsreaders, and half or more of its television and radio talk show hosts actually supported the Bush-Dubai Ports World deal. Deep Thought was nowhere near the Fox buildings last week, and still has not returned.

If anyone has taken the time to read news articles and opinion pieces, background pieces, and just a few really good books, one knows this: Whether this Iranian Muslim is a looney-toon or not, he is following the Islamic script. Even if he turns out to be psychotic, he is behaving as a True Believer of Islam, whether Shia, Sufi, or Sunni. Blood revenge is not only permitted by Islam, but it is commanded. Isn't it astonishing how similar are psychosis and Islamic thought and behavior?

Before anyone can get hung up on the insanity defense argument, let's clarify. If a raving psychotic kills someone, then that person killed someone, period. If hallucinatory voices commanded or paranoid delusions prevailed, it is still the fact that the psychotic who killed some actually did the killing. Logically, no one can be "innocent by reason of insanity."Only in a non-objective legal system can such anti-concepts persist. A is A: If you did it, then you did it. The mitigation properly comes in only in the sentencing: for example, sentencing the guilty psychotic to life-long incarceration in a forensic psychiatric facility where he or she receives proper treatment. Either way, Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar should fry, break rocks, or never see freedom again, until his End of Days.

O, by the way, I doubt that Reza is psychotic. He is a True Believer, and this is what they look like. The so-called legal definition of terrorist requires that Reza come from an organization and have a plan. The plan is Islam, and the organization is whatever mosque he frequented.

We in America have reached a watershed moment. We either face the truth about Islam NOW or get ready to perish. We have all the evidence we need, just from very recent history and current events, to see Islam for what it is. Reza is the rule, not the exception, and certainly not just some isolated misbehaver. The Rezas runneth over. It matters not one whit whether they are Sunni, Shia, or Sufi. The script is the same for all of them.

What is killing us, literally, as a nation is something much more sinister than ignorance. Ignorance means not knowing and not knowing that one does not know. No one can know everything, so we must elect to remain ignorant about a number of things, of necessity.

Our real danger comes from evasion, the refusal to know.