You may have noticed that I haven’t written about the San Diego Islamic Center shootings yet. That doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about the event; I have. From the start, I had a hunch about the killers, but I didn’t want to write about the topic until I knew more. Now we know more, although the subject has started to depart from the news.
The day of the killings, one of the first statements of authorities was that the perps had written “Hate crime” on the weapons they used, and that they were teenagers who had committed suicide afterward in their car. This immediately made me think “Columbine.”
Now, for those who only vaguely remember Columbine – did it have to do with school bullying, as the early reporting (erroneously, it turns out) said? – the connection may seem obscure. But for those who have delved into it more deeply, the connection is obvious. Harris and Kelbold were extremely hate-filled and nihilistic, their hatred went in many directions, they meant to kill a great many more people than they ended up killing, and they were also suicidal. They shot themselves in the school library.
I’ve written a great deal about the Columbine killers; you can find a list of posts here. I have also written about what I call “dark duos,” which is the synergistic effect that sometimes occurs when two people (usually young men) with psychopathic and depressive tendencies get together. Here is a relevant post about dark duos.
The Islamic Center killers seem to have been another dark duo. That was my sense from the start, and nothing I’ve seen so far has convinced me otherwise.
But there are some elements of this crime that make it an updated version of an old story. The two met online in some sort of chatroom or discussion board; that’s a relatively new phenomenon for such killers, as far as I know, but quite appropriate for the current young generation, many of whom seem to live their emotional lives online and get their viewpoints there.
Another thing I noticed immediately – and which is very unusual – is that one of the perpetrators was given the first name “Cain.” That particular spelling of the name, which is the name of the first murderer in the Bible, is very uncommon and to me it would tend to indicate something unusual or tone deaf in a parent. Even if it’s a family surname, it’s very odd to spell it that way as a first name. Names can help shape a person’s identity, and although I think it would be ridiculous to put too much emphasis on this element, it still strikes me as highly negative.
When I read a bit more about the killers, I wrote in my draft notes: “I bet online radicalization of a groyper type.” And that also turns out to have been correct.
For example:
Investigators said they recovered a manifesto, as well as writings outlining religious and racial beliefs “of how the world they envision should look,” according to FBI Special Agent in Charge Mark Remily.
“These subjects did not discriminate in who they hated, and let me be very clear to anyone who thinks they can end the world through violence: They’re sorely mistaken,” Remily said. “The FBI, our law enforcement partners and our community are much stronger than you think.”
Mark Remily of the FBI said during a news conference that authorities have uncovered writings by the suspects. Authorities declined to specify what ideologies or views were expressed by the shooters, only that they met online and shared a “broad hatred” toward different religions and races.
There was no specific threat against the Islamic center, which is the largest mosque in San Diego, but authorities found that the suspects engaged in “generalized hate rhetoric,” [San Diego Police Department Chief Scott] Wahl said.
That’s the way it’s been covered. But it’s not exactly the case. I will get to that in a moment. First, about the suicides, which they apparently livestreamed:
San Diego mosque killer Caleb Vasquez urged his accomplice to shoot him in the head in a twisted exchange captured on a livestream broadcast after the pair murdered three people.
Vasquez, 18, is seen in the passenger seat of the white BMW he and 17-year-old Cain Clark used to flee the Islamic Center of San Diego, in footage captured by a camera the pair placed on the car’s dashcam while the vehicle was stopped.
Vasquez grabs the barrel of Clark’s rifle and brings it to his own forehead at multiple points in the livestream clip. The video, circulating on social media, did not have audio.
Finally, the camera turns to include only Clark — sitting in the driver’s seat — who uses his pistol to shoot Vasquez in the head twice and then turn the gun on himself.
About their manifesto:
The teenage San Diego mosque gunmen appear to have left behind a shocking, hate-filled manifesto, which praised Adolf Hitler and a slew of mass murderers, before the attack, The California Post has learned.
Authorities are investigating whether 17-year-old Cain Clark and 19-year-old Caleb Vasquez wrote the nihilistic missive before killing three people and then each other, according to law enforcement sources.
The document espouses a desire to spark a race war and bring about the end of civilization.
That is very much the Columbine impulse; they wanted a huge conflagration to follow. Also, it is somewhat similar to the Manson “Helter Skelter” motive, which was to spark a race war in a convoluted fantasy of what would follow the Tate and LaBianca murders.
I said that the San Diego Islamic Center killers seemed to hate just about everyone, and this is true. But there was one hatred they placed about all others: Jews. That fact is not being widely reported, as far as I can see. One would think that, because their targets were Muslims, hatred of Muslims would be their paramount motive. But no; it was Jew-hatred.
There’s coverage of that fact in some Jewish publications [emphasis mine]:
The shooters’ deepest resentment seemed reserved for Jewish people.
The manifesto listed previous antisemitic shootings at the Tree of Life synagogue and Chabad of Poway among the teens’ many sources of inspiration, calling the assailant in the latter incident a “saint.” It called the Jews “the children of Satan.” It denied the Holocaust as a “complete fabrication.” Vazquez called Adolf Hitler his hero; in his section, Clark wrote out the Fourteen Words, a neo-Nazi declaration.
“Everyone has their own idea of who is to blame for all the wrong in the world” Vazquez wrote in a section titled “The Universal Enemy.”
He printed his answer to the question four times in a row in all capital letters: “It’s the Jews.” …
Atomwaffen members are part of a network of mostly online extremist groups that subscribe to “accelerationism,” the idea that forcing societal collapse through an all-out race war is the only way to restore white supremacy and save civilization. The idea is propounded by a white nationalist named James Mason, author of a book called Siege that both shooters cited.
“Though officially I was not a part of any groups or organizations there are many I support, I would even go so far as to say I did it for Atomwaffen Division, Terrorgram, The Base, and North Korea,” Vazquez wrote….
Whereas the shooters were unsparing toward Jews in the manifesto, with Vazquez calling them the “most evil creature in the world,” they espoused mixed feelings about Muslims in the document before they killed three. “I don’t hate Muslims, at least not really,” Vazquez wrote. “What I hate is the religion of Islam itself and them invading my country.”
He added that Islam “is completely contradictory to both Western morals and values and Christianity.”
But he wrote only three paragraphs about Islam and Muslims — about one page — before the section ends with the word “unfinished” in brackets.
Clark appeared more committed to the eradication of Islam in his writing. Muslims and Jews, he said, “must be isolated and exterminated.” Yet he, like Vazquez, wrote several pages denigrating Jewish people.
The shooters did not state why they ultimately targeted a mosque. Vazquez wrote their plan was to “cause as much death and destruction” as fast as possible with a “diverse” selection of targets.
Here’s more, from the Times of Israel; they also hated women [my emphasis]:
The writings, some of which were circulating online in the days after the attack, glorified other terrorists and included hateful rhetoric toward Jews, Muslims, LGBT people, African-Americans, and both the political left and right.
They were also vitriolically sexist, asserting that “after the Jew the most evil creature in this world is the woman.” At least one of the shooters identified as an “incel,” a term used by men online to refer to their failure to have sex with women.
In a lengthy manifesto, which police said they believed to be authentic, the shooter declared Jews “the universal enemy,” responsible for war, famine, child abuse and various social ills, and wrote that the only solution is “to just kill them all.”
The document heaped praise on Adolf Hitler, yet denied the Holocaust.
It also bore the trademarks of more recent antisemitic conspiracy theories, claiming that Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes were religiously motivated, and fixating on supposed Jewish hatred for “goyim,” or non-Jews. ...
The shooters expressed beliefs that white people are being eliminated, explicitly citing the “Great Replacement” theory that Jews are facilitating mass migration to the West in order to wipe out white people.
Muslims were described as one such “invading” force, who must be “exterminated.”
So they blame the influx of Muslims on – the Jew.
Why have I gone into this in such detail? It’s simple: I see all of that online at many sites, and have for many years. It’s easy to find, not difficult at all, and almost mainstream these days. Fuentes didn’t invent it, nor did Carlson or Owens, but it’s the stuff they and others spew every single day. Of course some people saying this sort of thing are bots, and some are people in countries such as Pakistan. But I am convinced, and have been for quite some time, that many are Americans – especially young ones. There are more men than women, but there are women too (without the incel part).
Jew-hatred is like an entry drug to a whole world of nihilistic hatred. Which comes first, the philosophy or the rage? I don’t know the answer, and maybe it’s a meaningless question. But I think it’s far more widespread in this generation in the West than in previous ones in my lifetime. And that is very very dangerous to all of us.
[NOTE: RIP to the victims.]
