ISIS: Terror In America

[Lauren Johnson]

Many here know or soon will know about the San Bernardino, CA mass shooting. Here are the headlines from the LA Times:

• Around 11 a.m., at least one shooter opened fire in San Bernardino at the Inland Regional Center, a facility that serves people with developmental disabilities.
  
  
• Preliminary numbers: At least 14 people were killed and 17 wounded, San Bernardino police said.
  
• Police said there were one to three assailants, who were heavily armed and possibly wearing body armor.
  
• After a car chase, one suspect has been shot by police, and authorities said one might be at large. The status of another person seen in a vehicle at the end of the chase is unclear.
  
  
• Investigators are not sure whether the shooting was an act of terrorism, an FBI official said.
  

I think we should pay attention to the narratives that are going out over the networks. I will pick Fox News: Bill O'Reilly is pushing the ISIS theme -- it could be ISIS, it could inspired by ISIS, they are in our midst right now, and because of the neutrality of the target, nobody is safe. He brings in a counter-terror expert from Israel, who reports this is what Israelis live with all the time. They have become tougher and have pulled together because they know who the enemy is. And so on, ...

Timing: right on schedule, considering the news about the mass expelling from Turkey of Syrian refugees. O'Reilly reports that there are 300 or so know ISIS sympathizers in the US and who knows how many unknown. Some of them (no doubt) have come over to export jihad globally. Once again, O'Reilly: if this proves to be ISIS, then we really are going to have to go after them in a serious way.

Obviously, the investigation whatever its quality has not been completed. But now, the expected narrative of 'ISIS in America' has now been inserted into the consciousness of Americans.