Thomas Lifson "It took only a day for the cable news propagandists to find guests who would blame the truck attack on bicyclists in Lower Manhattan on the personal troubles of the perp.
"On MSNBC, as noticed by Justin Caruso of the Daily Caller, guest Mubin Shaikh, a "former Islamic extremist," told viewers:
"They go online, they get most of their ideology, but, this is something that they've already decided to engage in. A person doesn't go online and read something and decide, 'Oh, I'm going to be – oh, I believe this. I'm going to go and act on this.' They already have this going on inside them before they turn to the internet or somebody like in a real human network."What we need to look into is why this person even feels they need to look that way. And one of the things is hatred – is hatred, and alienation, and marginalization. Think about it this way – when you tell a kid that he's dumb, he's stupid, he's going to amount to nothing, what do you think is going to happen with that kid? He's going to take that, internalize that, and externalize it by acting it out onto other people," he continued.
"Here's a news flash for Mr. Shaikh: teens and young adults go through all sorts of misery finding their place in the world. Everyone has frustrations, setbacks, and critical voices. The Quran and other scriptures teach such people that killing infidels is a way to solve all their problems by becoming a martyr and thereby gaining entrance to heaven with virgins available for their pleasure.
"Absent the enabling ideology of jihad, such young people work out their problems in a more constructive fashion, sometimes even by studying or working harder, and showing people they were wrong to denigrate them." . . .