FBI: San Bernardino Shooting Suspects Are Probably Americans, Not "Terrorists" [Updated]
[There was a video here]
David Bowdich, the Assistant Director of the FBI, spoke at a press conference addressing the ongoing situation in San Bernardino earlier today. And he is apparently very, very confused about their own definition of the word “terrorism.”
From Bowdich’s statement:
I know one of your questions will be, “Is this a terrorist incident?” I will tell you right now, we do not know if this is a terrorist incident. We start from the beginning, working with our local partners. We take the presumption that it may be or it may not be
In this case, “we do not know if this is a terrorist incident,” actually means, “we do not know if this is related to Islam from overseas.” Because by almost any definition of the word, the slaughtering of 14 innocent people is, of course, terrorism.
Officer says no indication it's "terrorism in the traditional sense people might be thinking of" which is a hell of a euphemism.
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) December 2, 2015
Then again the current suspects are supposedly white. In which case this is just another isolated incident of a loner gone wrong—isolated like the hundreds that came before it.
Update 3:05 p.m 12/3/15.
The New York Times reports that FBI has now begun treating the case as a counterterrorism investigation, citing “the suspects’ extensive arsenal, their recent Middle East travels and evidence that one had been in touch with people with Islamist extremist views, both in the United States and abroad.”
