Tag: Pulse Orlando

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editing aspects of truth

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Still wrestling with Orlando… why? Because it was awful.

Why else? Because it continues to be challenging the way many respond… again, this past weekend.

Borrowing from one of the Intramuralist’s fave sites, RealClearPolitics.com…

The Washington Post reported last week that the gunman made multiple phone calls while holding hostages: “The gunman who opened fire inside a nightclub here said he carried out the attack because he wanted ‘Americans to stop bombing his country,’ according to a witness who survived the rampage.”

Salon reported that: “Everybody who was in the bathroom who survived could hear him talking to 911, saying the reason why he’s doing this is because he wanted America to stop bombing his country.”

The Washington Post also noted that during his 911 call from the club, the gunman referenced the Boston Marathon bombers and claimed “that he carried out the shooting to prevent bombings, [echoing] a message the younger Boston attacker had scrawled in a note before he was taken into custody by police.”

In other words, the murderer clearly claimed his allegiance to radical Islamic terrorism.

On Sunday, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced that the Justice Dept. would be intentionally editing the 911 transcripts from that fateful evening — removing those Islamic pledges of allegiance. They then released the redacted transcript  — no audio  — later on Monday morning.

Her motive?

“The reason why we’re going to limit these transcripts is to avoid revictimizing those who went through this horror,” said Lynch.

Interesting…

If such is the full, sole motive, then I am assuming this precedent will be set for other horrific, violent acts…

… if someone attempts to blow up an abortion clinic… if someone is viciously raped… if someone targets black people… Jewish people… police officers…

So “revictimizing” is a justified reason to omit details?

As simply a semi-humble current events observer (and as always, the emphasis is on the “semi”), I question whether it’s rational, logical, and wise that the full and only motive is as the Attorney General states. With all due respect, I am not suggesting lies or deceit; I do not claim to know. I am merely saying that in our ongoing desire to wrestle with all aspects of the truth — hard as that may be some days — this just doesn’t make sense to me. The fact that the Orlando murderer was motivated by his violent interpretation of Islam is relevant to this crime. It is one aspect of the truth.

Let me also not assert that I know the entire motive for scrubbing the 911 transcripts; there is much I don’t understand… I don’t understand, for example, the purging of references regarding radical Islamic terrorism in government agent training manuals in recent years. My thought is that it would be wisest to include all aspects as a part of those trained to recognize potential problems.

So I wonder… Can we not deal with all aspects of the truth?

And if we decide it’s best to omit specific aspects, will we be consistent in the way we wrestle with others who commit such awful crimes? Will re-victimization be an acceptable reason for withholding details then? … for the non radical Islamic terrorist?

As usual, my wondering sometimes gets the best of me…

[Added update:  after strong negative reaction to the Justice Dept.’s arbitrary decision to redact all references to Islam in the murderer’s 911 calls — from far more than the Intramuralist — the Justice Dept. reversed their Sunday declaration, releasing an uncensored transcript later on Monday. As for this observer, I continue to wonder…]

Respectfully…
AR

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redirecting anger

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The examples are seemingly endless. First is Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret.): “If anybody is directly responsible for Orlando, it’s the Republican Party for stymieing all manner of gun control.”

Next is Sen. John McCain: “Barack Obama is directly responsible for it because when he pulled everybody out of Iraq, Al-Qaeda went to Syria, became ISIS, and ISIS is what it is today thanks to Barack Obama’s failures, utter failures, by pulling everybody out of Iraq.”

And let’s not omit ACLU attorney Chase Strangio, suggesting Christians are to blame: “You know what is gross — your [Christian] thoughts and prayers and Islamophobia after you created this anti-queer climate.”

I get it. We’re mad. We’re mad that someone could annihilate the innocent. It makes no sense. To all of us.

While conversations regarding gun control, Obama’s military strategy, and the truths in Christianity can and should be respectfully had, each of the above arguments directs the anger more at something other than the source. As stated in a recent post, we don’t know all the details yet in regard to what happened at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. What we do know is that a Muslim man who claimed loyalty to ISIS, an Islamic terrorist organization that routinely executes homosexuals, took it upon himself to brutally murder 49 more.

My sense is our most intense anger should be directed at him.

It concerns me, nonetheless, when we redirect our anger. It’s as if when someone does not match the intensity of our passion, we assume they should be looped into the opposition. It’s as if we’ve changed the idea of “if you’re not for us, you’re against us” to “if you’re not as loud and angry as we are, you are just as bad as them.”

We seem to keep feeding the growing divide… the divide that too many of the politically expedient immediately succumb to. I was saddened, I will say, that in the immediate aftermath of the atrocity in Orlando, some of the most prominent politicians attacked their partisan opposition more than focusing on the victims. When we pounce on politics first, we have fed the division more than wrestled with the truth.

What happened in Orlando was awful. As said here previously, I believe it was the clear manifestation of evil. So regardless of whether you’re a Republican or Democrat (or like the many more seemingly gathering somewhere in the middle), whether you’re a card-carrying member of the NRA or desire to abolish the 2nd Amendment, or even if you’re a supporter or not of gay marriage as the law of this land, it doesn’t change the fact that what happened in Orlando was horrendous. And we can each see that regardless of partisan stance.

Now is not the time to chastise those who don’t share our intensity. Now is not the time to demand that everyone “agree with me” because only “I” know what is right. Now is also, no less, not the time to feed any division.

What if we could pause long enough to see what we have in common?

Republicans and Democrats…
Gay and straight…
NRA members and non-members…
Trans-bathroom supporters and non-supporters…

What if we realized that regardless of where each of the above stand on the issues with which they most identify, their hearts still hurt for what happened to those 49 innocent men and women in Orlando?

What would happen if we took the time to take a deep breath and realize that?

Maybe, just maybe, we then could wrestle with the truth. Maybe, too, we could heal.

Respectfully…
AR

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this side of heaven

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Every time we witness such a horrific event, we struggle with how to react. We are mad, sad, outraged, and more. The existence of evil on Earth is profoundly disturbing, and I pray we are never numb to it.

And so we cry out… we rant and rave… scream “how dare they.” Many of us will even change our Facebook profiles. This just hurts too much.

I am actually, soberly thankful that we are not numb. A society that is numb and fully fails to recognize evil is a society that I’m afraid will soon cease to exist. A society unwilling to acknowledge evil — therefore discarding any semblance of a moral compass — would seem to have lost any blessing or coverage from an omniscient, almighty God.

Let’s be clear: any time mass murder is targeted against a specific people group, it is evil; it is the clear absence of God.

And so I wrestle… how should we react?

I wish I could say that there was only one right answer with a singular fix, a sole perfect way to respond, and each of us simply needs to support and follow suit. But there is not. I think God gets the ranting and the raving… I think he also gets the crying out… I think he weeps.

Some of us then insist that we do whatever it takes to ensure this horror never happens again, no one is ever hurt, nor must we ever feel as awful as we do today. I admire that motive and emotion. I admire the desire to extinguish the evil.

Others still, call for peace, love, and the playground mantra of “can’t we all just get along.” This, too, is admirable.

The wrestling is whether our reactions are effective in the fight against evil.

The man responsible for the Orlando shooting early Sunday morning killed at least 49 people seemingly solely because they were part of the LGBT community. For my dear friends also a part of that community, I can’t imagine how that must feel. I know if I shared the same specificity for which the people group was targeted, my heart would hurt even more.

It’s true that we don’t know all the details of what happened; we may never know. Just like in Boston, San Bernardino, Ft. Hood, etc., it takes multiple days for details to be divulged. What we do know, however, is that the man was a Muslim, claimed allegiance to Islamic State, and ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack. While it’s illogical to judge all or most Muslims as terrorists, it is also illogical to ignore that many Muslims abhor various threads of current American culture — including homosexuality. Homosexual behavior is subject to severe legal punishment in many Muslim countries. ISIS routinely executes homosexuals, and on Sunday, the radical Islamic terrorist group called for more shootings in gay nightclubs across the globe.

That makes my heart again hurt more.

I wish there was a more effective way to wrestle with this evil rather than solely calling for greater gun control or invoking playground mantras. While each is a valid angle and worthy of discussion, neither will stop the man motivated by terror — the man bent on destroying another simply because of what the other believes. We must do more than that.

I also wish that it didn’t take a breaking news report about a shooting massacre to bind us together, in the recognition of the preciousness of life — and even more so, recognizing the preciousness of lives that are different than our own.

And so I find myself still wrestling, wondering how best to respond.

I will pray for peace for the families of the victims. I will pray that we each learn a little more what love really is — and learn to love those who are different than we.

And then — just as I believe the God of the universe often does — I will weep this side of heaven.

Respectfully…
AR