FBI, Media, Play Dumb on Chattanooga Shooter

The FBI and the media continue to appear completely dumbfounded as to what caused Mohammed Youssef Abdulazeez to open fire on a Tennessee recruiting station. That’s despite evidence, (cited on this blog and elsewhere) that identified Abdulazeez’s preferred mosque, the Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga (ISGC) for its Muslim Brotherhood ties and overt support for Jihad. It’s also despite the FBI’s own assertion that Abdulazeez was a supporter of the late MB and Al Qaeda ideologue Anwar Al-Awlaki.

And yet utter cluelessness reigns in the ranks of the media and, at least publicly, in the FBI:

The test-drive [of a Ford Mustang, the same model vehicle used to commit the crime] could be an indication of the level of premeditation Abdulazeez put into his attack. The Hixson resident also researched martyrdom online, bought ammunition on July 11 and donned a load-bearing vest that allowed him to carry extra ammunition. Although it’s been more than two months since the shooting brought Chattanooga to a halt, Federal Bureau of Investigation officials have not yet said what motivated Abdulazeez or whether he was connected to known terrorist groups.

One thing that is clear is that Abdulazeez was thousands of dollars in debt.

The author goes on to focus on debts owed by Abdulazeez before his death. The intended inference appears to be that Abdulazeez was motivated not by thoughts of jihad, but due to a feeling of helplessness at his financial situation.

As ludicrous as this is, its not the first time this motivation substitution has been tried. In the case of would be Time Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, the media likewise attempted to paint Shahzad as down on his luck, rather than up to no good:

But unable to pay the mortgage or a $65,000 home equity loan, the couple abandoned their home to foreclosure last summer, putting broken furniture and old clothes up for sale. A heating oil company chased them for non-payment of bills.

The portrait of failure that emerged Tuesday sheds new light on the 31-year-old former financial analyst — reportedly the son of a senior Pakistani Air Force officer — who U.S. officials say has admitted parking a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder packed with fireworks, gasoline and propane on one of New York’s busiest streets Saturday. The car bomb failed to explode.

Shahzad also admitted to the FBI that he was trained at a Pakistani Taliban training camp for terrorists, and was also identified as having ties to Al-awlaki.

The stubborn refusal to even consider ideological factors, and to ignore them even when they are evident, has turned U.S. terrorism investigations and certainly U.S. media coverage, into a farce.

Is it too much to ask for a restoration of the principle of Occam’s razor instead of what appears to be a pathological need to propose some motive, any motive, other than the clear and obvious one stated by the perpetrators themselves?