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 | Family conflict: Muhammad's ex-wife, Mildred, suggests that the
killing spree was a ruse to draw attention away from Muhammad's main goal.
That was to kill her and gain custody of their children. She has pointed out
that:
Her suggestion is that that he planned to kill her as one of many victims. She would then simply appear to be a person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. This way, police might not investigate her former husband as a suspect. 4 | ||||||||
| Race: The Associated Press reported that, according to his wife, "He wanted to be a career soldier, but he returned from his tour of duty in the Gulf War a changed man, saying black soldiers like himself had been discriminated against." She said "When he got back, he was a very angry man." 4 He might have shot white strangers at random, only killing a few black victims to make it seem as if race was not an issue. | ||||||||
| Sexual orientation: The National Enquirer deviated from their usual fare of cancer cures, UFO sightings and end of the world prophecies by featuring an article titled: "Snipers: Their secret gay life - & why it made them kill." They suggest that Muhammad and Malvo were homosexual lovers, and that "their gay secret fueled the terrifying rage that left 10 victims dead." They quoted Dr. Andrew Hodges, allegedly a forensic psychiatrist, as saying that "When Muhammad's wife regained custody of their three children, Muhammad's latent homosexuality was triggered." They also quoted Dr. Carole Lieberman, allegedly a Beverly Hills psychiatrist, who suggested that "Muhammad has an obsession with control...he solved a problem [with women] by getting a partner -- Malvo -- who was much younger and completely dependent on him." The National Enquirer concluded -- without any stated evidence -- that "His ultimate act of control, triggered by his new gay relationship, was to snuff out the lives of other people." They don't explain how having a partner to control would somehow drive him to seek more control by killing others. 9 | ||||||||
| Extortion: In one of his notes, the shooter promised to stop killing people if he was given $10 million. The entire shooting spree might have been a mechanism to make a lot of money. | ||||||||
| Mental illness: Muhammad and/or Malvo might have been psychopaths, and had little or no regard for the value of human life. One or both might have been excited by the publicity given the case, and simply killed people for the thrill. Brian Levin, California State University professor of criminal justice and a former NYC police officer commented on CNBC: "This fellow is a sociopath. He was probably a sociopath for some time. That's someone who knows right from wrong but gets a sense of power. And unfortunately, when you put into that the hatefulness of the Nation of Islam, which is a bigoted, extreme theology. It is not the same thing as Islam. Louis Farrakhan has called white people devils and has criticized the United States. This kind of rhetoric can label regular Americans as legitimate targets for violence when you have someone who is a festering ball of anger." 5 | ||||||||
| Military training: "Spooky" posted an article on the CyberSheherazade web site, referring to Muhammad as a " 'penniless' Gulf War Army vet., trained at Fort Lewis, aka 'sniper school'." She/he suggests that violence might be a natural outcome of armed forces training. Spooky wonders whether: "...those dead of the sniper's bullets [can] be considered victims of 'friendly fire'? And the women murdered in Fort Bragg by their husbands, recently returned from serving in Afghanistan, are they 'collateral damage'? Past wars are already haunting us, and this future war will come home in many ways. In any war the enemy combatant, the shadow, looks a hell of a lot like us." 6 | ||||||||
| Multiple causes: "Max" at MaxSpeak.org suggested that it is simplistic to look for a single motivation for the sniper attacks: "If I had to profile this sort of thing, I'd look for the intersection of such factors as: a prior history of violence or problems with the law; adherence to a relatively uncommon religious or political view; association with an isolated, extremist organization requiring total commitment of one's time and resources; and a background of failure in the military." 7 | ||||||||
| Religion: We will deal with this possibility in more detail because
this web site has a religious theme. Muhammad very definitely considers
himself to be a Muslim. But that fact alone would not make him an Islamic
terrorist. Otherwise, Timothy McVeigh should be considered a Christian
terrorist, and David Berkowitz -- the Son of Sam killer -- could be
labeled a Jewish
terrorist. Muhammad was active in Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam,
apparently helping with security. However "traditional
Islam and the Nation of Islam have very little in common; Islam and Judaism
are, in fact, more closely related than Islam and the Nation of Islam."
8 In spite of this rather vague connection between a sniper
suspect and Islam, several politically conservative commentators have suggested a link
between the killings and Muslim terrorism. According to an editorial in the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
On the other hand "Max" at MaxSpeak.org commented on the lack of a connection to Islam: "The murderers are neither Middle Eastern, 'olive skinned,' nor Islamic fundamentalist. There is no indication that the killers had ever set foot in one of those notorious Saudi-subsidized Islamic schools in the U.S. The NOI [Nation of Islam] brand of Islam is distinct from the [Fundamentalist] Wahhabi variety tied to the 9-11 terrorists." 7 |
While it may be interesting challenge to speculate what motivation was behind the mass killing, it is quite impossible at this stage to reach any solid conclusion. There is simply not enough information currently available to the public.
Sponsored link:
References:
- "Sniper Deserves 'Ultimate Sanction,' Ashcroft Says," 2002-NOV-7, at: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,69373,00.html
- "Raw Data: The Muhammad Files," Fox News, 2002-NOV-1, at: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,66639,00.html
- "Sniper suspects may be tied to Maryland, Arizona cases," The Seattle Times, 2002=-NOV-6, at: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/
- "Sniper Suspect's Ex-Wife Links Killings to Custody Fight," Associated Press, 2002-NOV-8, at: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,69538,00.html
- "Snipers an 'Army Veteran' & 'Jamaican Teenager'," CyberAlert, 2002-OCT-25, at: http://www.mediaresearch.org/
- "Spooky," "Cyber-Scheherazade," 2002-OCT-25, at: http://www.cybersheherazade
- "10/25/2002 Archived Entry: 'The drumbeat of religious bigotry'." MaxSpeak.com, 2002-OCT-25, at: http://maxspeak.org/gm/
- "Sniper wasn't shooting for Islam," Editorial, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2002-NOV-8. at: http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/opinion/1102/08snipe.html
- "Gay secret that made snipers kill," The National Enquirer, 2002-NOV-12, Pages 34, 35 & 37. Online at http://www.freerepublic.com/
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Site navigation: Home page > World Religions > Islam > here |
Copyright © 2002 by Ontario Consultants on Religious
Tolerance
Originally written: 2002-NOV-9
Latest update: 2002-NOV-9
Author: B.A. Robinson
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