Massacre in San Bernadino

Another day, another public massacre, more mass hysteria.

“Round them all up.” “Get search warrants for every Muslim living in the United States and search all their homes for guns and bombs.” These were the comments I heard in the lunch room at work today. (The day after the San Bernadio Massacre.)

Well, people, guess again. Syed Farook was born in the United States, in Chicago; and his wife, Tashfeen Malik was born in Pakistan and as a child moved to Saudi Arbia, with her father, then back to Pakistan, where she obtained a college degree. We don’t know yet what radicalized them and led them to conduct the action, this massacre. As they are dead, we probably will never really know.

But mass discrimination, based on place of birth, is nothing new to America. In the 1830’s, help wanted signs stated “no Irish need apply.” It was disgusting then, and it is just as vile today. We should not discriminate against a person based upon birthplace.

Nor should we, as some have suggested, discriminate on the basis of religion. Not everyone who follows Catholicism is a child molester, nor is every follower of Islam a terrorist. Yes, the ISIS/ISIL group has declared war on the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia and now China. It is ISIS that we need to defeat. It is ISIS that is radicalizing these so called lone-wolf terrorists. It is also ISIS that is using social media to spread its agenda around the world.

ISIS needs money to operate. That is a fact we need to address. Recent news coverage from France shows French fighter jets destroying row after row of tanker trucks at oil facilities, oil that is sold on the open market to fund ISIS’s operations. As a world hopefully united in stopping the spread of ISIS terrorism, we should concentrate on destroying their ability to refine and move oil, and also to stop companies and countries from purchasing that oil. There is a coalition of countries, lead by the United States, which is making some progress in achieving that step.  Great Britain has now committed to air strikes against ISIS targets.

ISIS also needs its social media. There are people, in the United States and abroad, who are geniuses with social media. Perhaps it is time to bring them together, to charge them with the duty of shutting down the social media sites ISIS uses, both on the common internet and the deep web. In doing so, they can also trace back to the source of the ISIS media, and then use ground forces, or air strikes, to shutter these physical sites. They can also trace who is looking at this social media, and then determine if they are casual viewers or more dangerous in their intent.

Yes, we need to take action regarding ISIS/ISIL. We need to defeat them, to deny them the ability to radicalize people and encourage those radicalized to commit murders for ISIS’s sake, in ISIS’s name.

But we shouldn’t, and don’t need to, discriminate against an entire religion because of the crimes of a few.

Of course, this is just my opinion, and I am open to discussion regarding this issue!

Thanks for reading.

R.M. “Bob” Hartman