Attack in Nice, France

[Mindful]

MENTAL ILLNESS

By David Vance On August 7th, 2016 at 9:51 am


Let’s cut to the chase. Many people struggle with mental illness yet have constructive and happy lives. They cope with it, they get on with it. We can all admire their fortitude and endeavour. However we now face a situation across the West where every time we witness an obvious act of terror by radical Islamists the authorities and media trot out the “suffering from mental illness” line, even as the culprits shout Allahu Akbar. This is SUCH an insult to those who suffer genuine mental illness in my book.

Now we COULD argue that to be an Islamist IS a form of mental illness but that’s not the media game. They are seeking to sanitise evil acts lest we come to the conclusion that there is a REAL danger amongst it and it’s called Islam.

I covered the jihad knife terror a few days ago. The Police were INSISTENT that this was a case of “mental illness” and that the killer, Zakaria Bulhan, had NO terror connections. This was repeated by an obliging media and the case was effectively reduced to one of street crime.

Except it wasn’t that simple.

In the past few days, on the social networks, the following facts have been revealed.

Heat Street has found evidence that a person using the same name – Zakaria Bulhan – has listed at least one book advocating violent jihadism in their personal account on the Good Reads website since 2014.

Update: An exhaustive search of UK records by Heat Street shows there appears to be only one person in the whole of Britain with the name Zakaria Bulhan. He is registered as living at an address in Tooting, South London.

It is a near-certainty that this is the same person arrested by police and said to have “no links” to terrorism, but merely to be mentally ill.

Between January 2014 and September 2015, Zakaria Bulhan flagged up on Good Reads three books on Islam and Islamist theology as texts they intended to read. The most interesting, and the one that shows that at the age of 17 this person was at the very least exploring a book which is very clear on urging violent jihadism as a duty of Muslims, is Riyad-us-Saliheen, a 13th century text.

Meanwhile, in Belgium, this…

A crazed man hacked at a policewoman’s face with a machete and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ before turning on another officer just seconds before a third cop shot him dead in a suspected terror attack.

One can argue that these demented people DO suffer from mental illness. One can argue that they are being manipulated by others to carry out such acts. But one cannot distance them from the fact they carry out their terrorism in the name of Islam. It is Jihad and trying to redefine it is cowardly.

There is an attempt to 'condition' the public to associate Islamic terrorists not with the filthy butchering animals they are, but instead with vulnerability and mental illness - which - arguably-is easier to identify with than terrorism, and which elicits sympathy rather than anger or hatred. However, judging by the comments sections of the various media where these near instantaneous 'diagnoses' appear, people just aren't that stupid. Yet.

Prominent Psychiatrist Blasts Mainstream Media For Blaming Mental Health For Attacks
2149 by OLIVER JJ LANE5 Aug 2016359


A senior Viennese mental health expert has expressed his concern at the speed with which the media leaps to blame high-profile attacks across Europe on mental health issues, remarking those suffering from genuine conditions should not be “lumped together with criminals”.

Chief doctor at the leading Vienna Social-Psychiatric Clinic and vice president of the Austrian Society of Psychiatry, Dr. Georg Psota, is a respected name in mental health in central European Austria.
Speaking to the nation’s best-selling newspaper
Kronen Zeitung he has said that “too often and too quickly atrocities and the frequently perpetrated attacks in Europe are mixed with mental illness”.

Clearly concerned at the very negative press for genuine mental health patients the several recent attacks may have generated, the psychiatrist said: “The acts of political extremists and religious fanatics are not the result of depression or other mental illness, but of the highest criminal energy.”

The Austrian newspaper featured a number of examples of recent attacks where, rightly or wrongly, mental health has been cited as a likely cause very quickly after the event including Wednesday’s stabbing in London, an axe attack by an Afghan migrant in Wurzburg, Germany, and the ram-raid attack in Nice that killed 84.

The comments of Dr. Psota were backed by the chairman of Austrian mental health and human rights charity Ganznormal Christian Deutsch. He remarked: “Attacks by terrorists have achieved their goal of spreading fear and loathing in Europe. It happened primarily due to fanatical criminal energy and terrorist strategy. This [motivation] should be kept strictly separate from the possible mental illness of the offender.

“On one hand, it is not easy to explain the cruel acts by [terrorists], but on the other hand, the many thousands of mentally ill people should not be lumped together with criminals to be stigmatised together.”

A statement from the charity read: “Terrorist bombers are frequently presented as being affected by mental illness, leading to a stigmatisation of mentally ill people. And this stigma makes it even harder for those who need help to benefit from it…We therefore call for acts of terrorism and acts of violence to be seen for what they are, namely expressions of aggressive criminal energy.

Prominent Psychiatrist Blasts Mainstream Media For Blaming Mental Health For Attacks

So the attacker can be delusional, hearing voices or outright psychotic but he's not mentally ill?

No idea. We're not doctors.

But you are expert enough to identify a religious motive?

What have I identified exactly?

 

[MaryL]

How can we tell the difference between racism, insanity or terrorism of any stripe? What is the difference between a hate crime, terrorism or act of insanity? Why try to color these things?

 

[Mindful]

MENTAL ILLNESS

By David Vance On August 7th, 2016 at 9:51 am


Let’s cut to the chase. Many people struggle with mental illness yet have constructive and happy lives. They cope with it, they get on with it. We can all admire their fortitude and endeavour. However we now face a situation across the West where every time we witness an obvious act of terror by radical Islamists the authorities and media trot out the “suffering from mental illness” line, even as the culprits shout Allahu Akbar. This is SUCH an insult to those who suffer genuine mental illness in my book.

Now we COULD argue that to be an Islamist IS a form of mental illness but that’s not the media game. They are seeking to sanitise evil acts lest we come to the conclusion that there is a REAL danger amongst it and it’s called Islam.

I covered the jihad knife terror a few days ago. The Police were INSISTENT that this was a case of “mental illness” and that the killer, Zakaria Bulhan, had NO terror connections. This was repeated by an obliging media and the case was effectively reduced to one of street crime.

Except it wasn’t that simple.

In the past few days, on the social networks, the following facts have been revealed.

Heat Street has found evidence that a person using the same name – Zakaria Bulhan – has listed at least one book advocating violent jihadism in their personal account on the Good Reads website since 2014.

Update: An exhaustive search of UK records by Heat Street shows there appears to be only one person in the whole of Britain with the name Zakaria Bulhan. He is registered as living at an address in Tooting, South London.

It is a near-certainty that this is the same person arrested by police and said to have “no links” to terrorism, but merely to be mentally ill.

Between January 2014 and September 2015, Zakaria Bulhan flagged up on Good Reads three books on Islam and Islamist theology as texts they intended to read. The most interesting, and the one that shows that at the age of 17 this person was at the very least exploring a book which is very clear on urging violent jihadism as a duty of Muslims, is Riyad-us-Saliheen, a 13th century text.

Meanwhile, in Belgium, this…

A crazed man hacked at a policewoman’s face with a machete and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ before turning on another officer just seconds before a third cop shot him dead in a suspected terror attack.

One can argue that these demented people DO suffer from mental illness. One can argue that they are being manipulated by others to carry out such acts. But one cannot distance them from the fact they carry out their terrorism in the name of Islam. It is Jihad and trying to redefine it is cowardly.

There is an attempt to 'condition' the public to associate Islamic terrorists not with the filthy butchering animals they are, but instead with vulnerability and mental illness - which - arguably-is easier to identify with than terrorism, and which elicits sympathy rather than anger or hatred. However, judging by the comments sections of the various media where these near instantaneous 'diagnoses' appear, people just aren't that stupid. Yet.

Prominent Psychiatrist Blasts Mainstream Media For Blaming Mental Health For Attacks
2149 by OLIVER JJ LANE5 Aug 2016359


A senior Viennese mental health expert has expressed his concern at the speed with which the media leaps to blame high-profile attacks across Europe on mental health issues, remarking those suffering from genuine conditions should not be “lumped together with criminals”.

Chief doctor at the leading Vienna Social-Psychiatric Clinic and vice president of the Austrian Society of Psychiatry, Dr. Georg Psota, is a respected name in mental health in central European Austria.
Speaking to the nation’s best-selling newspaper
Kronen Zeitung he has said that “too often and too quickly atrocities and the frequently perpetrated attacks in Europe are mixed with mental illness”.

Clearly concerned at the very negative press for genuine mental health patients the several recent attacks may have generated, the psychiatrist said: “The acts of political extremists and religious fanatics are not the result of depression or other mental illness, but of the highest criminal energy.”

The Austrian newspaper featured a number of examples of recent attacks where, rightly or wrongly, mental health has been cited as a likely cause very quickly after the event including Wednesday’s stabbing in London, an axe attack by an Afghan migrant in Wurzburg, Germany, and the ram-raid attack in Nice that killed 84.

The comments of Dr. Psota were backed by the chairman of Austrian mental health and human rights charity Ganznormal Christian Deutsch. He remarked: “Attacks by terrorists have achieved their goal of spreading fear and loathing in Europe. It happened primarily due to fanatical criminal energy and terrorist strategy. This [motivation] should be kept strictly separate from the possible mental illness of the offender.

“On one hand, it is not easy to explain the cruel acts by [terrorists], but on the other hand, the many thousands of mentally ill people should not be lumped together with criminals to be stigmatised together.”

A statement from the charity read: “Terrorist bombers are frequently presented as being affected by mental illness, leading to a stigmatisation of mentally ill people. And this stigma makes it even harder for those who need help to benefit from it…We therefore call for acts of terrorism and acts of violence to be seen for what they are, namely expressions of aggressive criminal energy.

Prominent Psychiatrist Blasts Mainstream Media For Blaming Mental Health For Attacks

So the attacker can be delusional, hearing voices or outright psychotic but he's not mentally ill?

No idea. We're not doctors.

And there are plenty of psychiatrists who are getting fed up with this tactic of using mental ill health in this way.

Were all those sexually motivated attacks in Cologne on New Year's Eve, carried out by mentally ill people, I wonder.

 

[Coyote]

MENTAL ILLNESS

By David Vance On August 7th, 2016 at 9:51 am


Let’s cut to the chase. Many people struggle with mental illness yet have constructive and happy lives. They cope with it, they get on with it. We can all admire their fortitude and endeavour. However we now face a situation across the West where every time we witness an obvious act of terror by radical Islamists the authorities and media trot out the “suffering from mental illness” line, even as the culprits shout Allahu Akbar. This is SUCH an insult to those who suffer genuine mental illness in my book.

Now we COULD argue that to be an Islamist IS a form of mental illness but that’s not the media game. They are seeking to sanitise evil acts lest we come to the conclusion that there is a REAL danger amongst it and it’s called Islam.

I covered the jihad knife terror a few days ago. The Police were INSISTENT that this was a case of “mental illness” and that the killer, Zakaria Bulhan, had NO terror connections. This was repeated by an obliging media and the case was effectively reduced to one of street crime.

Except it wasn’t that simple.

In the past few days, on the social networks, the following facts have been revealed.

Heat Street has found evidence that a person using the same name – Zakaria Bulhan – has listed at least one book advocating violent jihadism in their personal account on the Good Reads website since 2014.

Update: An exhaustive search of UK records by Heat Street shows there appears to be only one person in the whole of Britain with the name Zakaria Bulhan. He is registered as living at an address in Tooting, South London.

It is a near-certainty that this is the same person arrested by police and said to have “no links” to terrorism, but merely to be mentally ill.

Between January 2014 and September 2015, Zakaria Bulhan flagged up on Good Reads three books on Islam and Islamist theology as texts they intended to read. The most interesting, and the one that shows that at the age of 17 this person was at the very least exploring a book which is very clear on urging violent jihadism as a duty of Muslims, is Riyad-us-Saliheen, a 13th century text.

Meanwhile, in Belgium, this…

A crazed man hacked at a policewoman’s face with a machete and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ before turning on another officer just seconds before a third cop shot him dead in a suspected terror attack.

One can argue that these demented people DO suffer from mental illness. One can argue that they are being manipulated by others to carry out such acts. But one cannot distance them from the fact they carry out their terrorism in the name of Islam. It is Jihad and trying to redefine it is cowardly.

There is an attempt to 'condition' the public to associate Islamic terrorists not with the filthy butchering animals they are, but instead with vulnerability and mental illness - which - arguably-is easier to identify with than terrorism, and which elicits sympathy rather than anger or hatred. However, judging by the comments sections of the various media where these near instantaneous 'diagnoses' appear, people just aren't that stupid. Yet.

Prominent Psychiatrist Blasts Mainstream Media For Blaming Mental Health For Attacks
2149 by OLIVER JJ LANE5 Aug 2016359


A senior Viennese mental health expert has expressed his concern at the speed with which the media leaps to blame high-profile attacks across Europe on mental health issues, remarking those suffering from genuine conditions should not be “lumped together with criminals”.

Chief doctor at the leading Vienna Social-Psychiatric Clinic and vice president of the Austrian Society of Psychiatry, Dr. Georg Psota, is a respected name in mental health in central European Austria.
Speaking to the nation’s best-selling newspaper
Kronen Zeitung he has said that “too often and too quickly atrocities and the frequently perpetrated attacks in Europe are mixed with mental illness”.

Clearly concerned at the very negative press for genuine mental health patients the several recent attacks may have generated, the psychiatrist said: “The acts of political extremists and religious fanatics are not the result of depression or other mental illness, but of the highest criminal energy.”

The Austrian newspaper featured a number of examples of recent attacks where, rightly or wrongly, mental health has been cited as a likely cause very quickly after the event including Wednesday’s stabbing in London, an axe attack by an Afghan migrant in Wurzburg, Germany, and the ram-raid attack in Nice that killed 84.

The comments of Dr. Psota were backed by the chairman of Austrian mental health and human rights charity Ganznormal Christian Deutsch. He remarked: “Attacks by terrorists have achieved their goal of spreading fear and loathing in Europe. It happened primarily due to fanatical criminal energy and terrorist strategy. This [motivation] should be kept strictly separate from the possible mental illness of the offender.

“On one hand, it is not easy to explain the cruel acts by [terrorists], but on the other hand, the many thousands of mentally ill people should not be lumped together with criminals to be stigmatised together.”

A statement from the charity read: “Terrorist bombers are frequently presented as being affected by mental illness, leading to a stigmatisation of mentally ill people. And this stigma makes it even harder for those who need help to benefit from it…We therefore call for acts of terrorism and acts of violence to be seen for what they are, namely expressions of aggressive criminal energy.

Prominent Psychiatrist Blasts Mainstream Media For Blaming Mental Health For Attacks

So the attacker can be delusional, hearing voices or outright psychotic but he's not mentally ill?

No idea. We're not doctors.

But you are expert enough to identify a religious motive?

What have I identified exactly?

You've never questioned a religious motive, but you've questioned "mental illness" as a motive. You've never required an expert opinion on whether it's religious, but you seem to demand an expert opinion when it's mental illness. It's more in what you don't question isn't it? For example, here: Motive for Beheading of French Priest Remains a Mystery. Or here, where you seem to be an expert on motive: ISIS Attacks Church in France.

 

[Coyote]

MENTAL ILLNESS

By David Vance On August 7th, 2016 at 9:51 am


Let’s cut to the chase. Many people struggle with mental illness yet have constructive and happy lives. They cope with it, they get on with it. We can all admire their fortitude and endeavour. However we now face a situation across the West where every time we witness an obvious act of terror by radical Islamists the authorities and media trot out the “suffering from mental illness” line, even as the culprits shout Allahu Akbar. This is SUCH an insult to those who suffer genuine mental illness in my book.

Now we COULD argue that to be an Islamist IS a form of mental illness but that’s not the media game. They are seeking to sanitise evil acts lest we come to the conclusion that there is a REAL danger amongst it and it’s called Islam.

I covered the jihad knife terror a few days ago. The Police were INSISTENT that this was a case of “mental illness” and that the killer, Zakaria Bulhan, had NO terror connections. This was repeated by an obliging media and the case was effectively reduced to one of street crime.

Except it wasn’t that simple.

In the past few days, on the social networks, the following facts have been revealed.

Heat Street has found evidence that a person using the same name – Zakaria Bulhan – has listed at least one book advocating violent jihadism in their personal account on the Good Reads website since 2014.

Update: An exhaustive search of UK records by Heat Street shows there appears to be only one person in the whole of Britain with the name Zakaria Bulhan. He is registered as living at an address in Tooting, South London.

It is a near-certainty that this is the same person arrested by police and said to have “no links” to terrorism, but merely to be mentally ill.

Between January 2014 and September 2015, Zakaria Bulhan flagged up on Good Reads three books on Islam and Islamist theology as texts they intended to read. The most interesting, and the one that shows that at the age of 17 this person was at the very least exploring a book which is very clear on urging violent jihadism as a duty of Muslims, is Riyad-us-Saliheen, a 13th century text.

Meanwhile, in Belgium, this…

A crazed man hacked at a policewoman’s face with a machete and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ before turning on another officer just seconds before a third cop shot him dead in a suspected terror attack.

One can argue that these demented people DO suffer from mental illness. One can argue that they are being manipulated by others to carry out such acts. But one cannot distance them from the fact they carry out their terrorism in the name of Islam. It is Jihad and trying to redefine it is cowardly.

There is an attempt to 'condition' the public to associate Islamic terrorists not with the filthy butchering animals they are, but instead with vulnerability and mental illness - which - arguably-is easier to identify with than terrorism, and which elicits sympathy rather than anger or hatred. However, judging by the comments sections of the various media where these near instantaneous 'diagnoses' appear, people just aren't that stupid. Yet.

Prominent Psychiatrist Blasts Mainstream Media For Blaming Mental Health For Attacks
2149 by OLIVER JJ LANE5 Aug 2016359


A senior Viennese mental health expert has expressed his concern at the speed with which the media leaps to blame high-profile attacks across Europe on mental health issues, remarking those suffering from genuine conditions should not be “lumped together with criminals”.

Chief doctor at the leading Vienna Social-Psychiatric Clinic and vice president of the Austrian Society of Psychiatry, Dr. Georg Psota, is a respected name in mental health in central European Austria.
Speaking to the nation’s best-selling newspaper
Kronen Zeitung he has said that “too often and too quickly atrocities and the frequently perpetrated attacks in Europe are mixed with mental illness”.

Clearly concerned at the very negative press for genuine mental health patients the several recent attacks may have generated, the psychiatrist said: “The acts of political extremists and religious fanatics are not the result of depression or other mental illness, but of the highest criminal energy.”

The Austrian newspaper featured a number of examples of recent attacks where, rightly or wrongly, mental health has been cited as a likely cause very quickly after the event including Wednesday’s stabbing in London, an axe attack by an Afghan migrant in Wurzburg, Germany, and the ram-raid attack in Nice that killed 84.

The comments of Dr. Psota were backed by the chairman of Austrian mental health and human rights charity Ganznormal Christian Deutsch. He remarked: “Attacks by terrorists have achieved their goal of spreading fear and loathing in Europe. It happened primarily due to fanatical criminal energy and terrorist strategy. This [motivation] should be kept strictly separate from the possible mental illness of the offender.

“On one hand, it is not easy to explain the cruel acts by [terrorists], but on the other hand, the many thousands of mentally ill people should not be lumped together with criminals to be stigmatised together.”

A statement from the charity read: “Terrorist bombers are frequently presented as being affected by mental illness, leading to a stigmatisation of mentally ill people. And this stigma makes it even harder for those who need help to benefit from it…We therefore call for acts of terrorism and acts of violence to be seen for what they are, namely expressions of aggressive criminal energy.

Prominent Psychiatrist Blasts Mainstream Media For Blaming Mental Health For Attacks

So the attacker can be delusional, hearing voices or outright psychotic but he's not mentally ill?

No idea. We're not doctors.

And there are plenty of psychiatrists who are getting fed up with this tactic of using mental ill health in this way.

Were all those sexually motivated attacks in Cologne on New Year's Eve, carried out by mentally ill people, I wonder.

Has anyone said they were? Or...is this a strawman you are building?

 

[Mindful]

There is an attempt to 'condition' the public to associate Islamic terrorists not with the filthy butchering animals they are, but instead with vulnerability and mental illness - which - arguably-is easier to identify with than terrorism, and which elicits sympathy rather than anger or hatred. However, judging by the comments sections of the various media where these near instantaneous 'diagnoses' appear, people just aren't that stupid. Yet.

Prominent Psychiatrist Blasts Mainstream Media For Blaming Mental Health For Attacks
2149 by OLIVER JJ LANE5 Aug 2016359


A senior Viennese mental health expert has expressed his concern at the speed with which the media leaps to blame high-profile attacks across Europe on mental health issues, remarking those suffering from genuine conditions should not be “lumped together with criminals”.

Chief doctor at the leading Vienna Social-Psychiatric Clinic and vice president of the Austrian Society of Psychiatry, Dr. Georg Psota, is a respected name in mental health in central European Austria.
Speaking to the nation’s best-selling newspaper
Kronen Zeitung he has said that “too often and too quickly atrocities and the frequently perpetrated attacks in Europe are mixed with mental illness”.

Clearly concerned at the very negative press for genuine mental health patients the several recent attacks may have generated, the psychiatrist said: “The acts of political extremists and religious fanatics are not the result of depression or other mental illness, but of the highest criminal energy.”

The Austrian newspaper featured a number of examples of recent attacks where, rightly or wrongly, mental health has been cited as a likely cause very quickly after the event including Wednesday’s stabbing in London, an axe attack by an Afghan migrant in Wurzburg, Germany, and the ram-raid attack in Nice that killed 84.

The comments of Dr. Psota were backed by the chairman of Austrian mental health and human rights charity Ganznormal Christian Deutsch. He remarked: “Attacks by terrorists have achieved their goal of spreading fear and loathing in Europe. It happened primarily due to fanatical criminal energy and terrorist strategy. This [motivation] should be kept strictly separate from the possible mental illness of the offender.

“On one hand, it is not easy to explain the cruel acts by [terrorists], but on the other hand, the many thousands of mentally ill people should not be lumped together with criminals to be stigmatised together.”

A statement from the charity read: “Terrorist bombers are frequently presented as being affected by mental illness, leading to a stigmatisation of mentally ill people. And this stigma makes it even harder for those who need help to benefit from it…We therefore call for acts of terrorism and acts of violence to be seen for what they are, namely expressions of aggressive criminal energy.

Prominent Psychiatrist Blasts Mainstream Media For Blaming Mental Health For Attacks

So the attacker can be delusional, hearing voices or outright psychotic but he's not mentally ill?

No idea. We're not doctors.

And there are plenty of psychiatrists who are getting fed up with this tactic of using mental ill health in this way.

Were all those sexually motivated attacks in Cologne on New Year's Eve, carried out by mentally ill people, I wonder.

Has anyone said they were? Or...is this a strawman you are building?

No, not yet.

Don't understand that last bit.

 

[Coyote]

So the attacker can be delusional, hearing voices or outright psychotic but he's not mentally ill?

No idea. We're not doctors.

And there are plenty of psychiatrists who are getting fed up with this tactic of using mental ill health in this way.

Were all those sexually motivated attacks in Cologne on New Year's Eve, carried out by mentally ill people, I wonder.

Has anyone said they were? Or...is this a strawman you are building?

No, not yet.

Don't understand that last bit.

Just wondering.

 

[Tilly]

Terrorism is not a symptom of mental illness.

 

[depotoo]

Thanks, Tilly. I vaguely remember hearing about since it happened the day after the nightclub terrorist attack killing 49 here in Fl. Thanks for the updated info. It is so horrific what that child had to endure.
They are just happening more and more.

Here it is-
Two police officers attacked by man with machete in Charleroi
Two police officers got injured in a machete attack in Charleroi this afternoon. The assailant reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar" before the attack

Another mental case on the rampage?

A machete attack on two police officers in Charleroi.

About 6 weeks ago a French policeman and his wife were stabbed to death in their home, in front of their toddler. Didn't seem to get much coverage at the time. Horrific.

French police officer and partner murdered in 'odious terrorist attack'

 

[irosie91]

MENTAL ILLNESS

By David Vance On August 7th, 2016 at 9:51 am


Let’s cut to the chase. Many people struggle with mental illness yet have constructive and happy lives. They cope with it, they get on with it. We can all admire their fortitude and endeavour. However we now face a situation across the West where every time we witness an obvious act of terror by radical Islamists the authorities and media trot out the “suffering from mental illness” line, even as the culprits shout Allahu Akbar. This is SUCH an insult to those who suffer genuine mental illness in my book.

Now we COULD argue that to be an Islamist IS a form of mental illness but that’s not the media game. They are seeking to sanitise evil acts lest we come to the conclusion that there is a REAL danger amongst it and it’s called Islam.

I covered the jihad knife terror a few days ago. The Police were INSISTENT that this was a case of “mental illness” and that the killer, Zakaria Bulhan, had NO terror connections. This was repeated by an obliging media and the case was effectively reduced to one of street crime.

Except it wasn’t that simple.

In the past few days, on the social networks, the following facts have been revealed.

Heat Street has found evidence that a person using the same name – Zakaria Bulhan – has listed at least one book advocating violent jihadism in their personal account on the Good Reads website since 2014.

Update: An exhaustive search of UK records by Heat Street shows there appears to be only one person in the whole of Britain with the name Zakaria Bulhan. He is registered as living at an address in Tooting, South London.

It is a near-certainty that this is the same person arrested by police and said to have “no links” to terrorism, but merely to be mentally ill.

Between January 2014 and September 2015, Zakaria Bulhan flagged up on Good Reads three books on Islam and Islamist theology as texts they intended to read. The most interesting, and the one that shows that at the age of 17 this person was at the very least exploring a book which is very clear on urging violent jihadism as a duty of Muslims, is Riyad-us-Saliheen, a 13th century text.

Meanwhile, in Belgium, this…

A crazed man hacked at a policewoman’s face with a machete and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ before turning on another officer just seconds before a third cop shot him dead in a suspected terror attack.

One can argue that these demented people DO suffer from mental illness. One can argue that they are being manipulated by others to carry out such acts. But one cannot distance them from the fact they carry out their terrorism in the name of Islam. It is Jihad and trying to redefine it is cowardly.

Well...except, it's not everytime. That's the dishonesty in your argument. Only times, like when people and authorities who know the person, or have examined the person state there are mental health issues. The odd thing is, people have no trouble accepting that with the Jared Loughners of the world, but refuse to when it's a Muslim. I wonder why? The person can be psychotic, delusional, etc. and it's still a "jihadi". A woman was psychotic with a history of mental illness when she killed her kids because "God told her to"...but no one insists it's her religion making her do it- she's mentally ill.

David Vance, also, is an interesting figure - his website was apparently closed down for hate speech...if it's the same David Vance.

David Vance is a regular contributer to The Big Question on BBC TV, Sunday mornings.

What was hateful about his article? I don't like discrediting tactics.

I like to know what's behind a writer or source.

As to what is "hateful" - mostly, it's what I already wrote - the sudden claim that when it comes a violent act by someone who happens to be Muslim, mental illness is now automatically ruled out by you folks. It makes no sense since it is clearly behind certain violent acts by non-Muslims. A Muslim can be psychotic, delusional, hearing voices, claiming God is telling him to do this, authorities can state that there are "significant mental health issues" (as in a recent case) and you will deny mental illness is a factor in that case solely on the basis of that person's religion. I like things to make sense, that does not. It's not like folks are attributing every violent act to mental illness.

wrong again----"mental illness as a factor" is absolutely not
even close to mental illness as a cause. Mental illness
is VERY VERY prevalent in the human population----most
crime is not CAUSED by mental illness. Al Capone had
neurosyphilis----want to blame his life of crime on that illness?

 

[irosie91]

Terrorism is not a symptom of mental illness.

Till-----your statement should be "Terrorism is not a SIGN
of mental illness" <<< >>>>a sign of my obsessive personality

 

[Phoenall]

MENTAL ILLNESS

By David Vance On August 7th, 2016 at 9:51 am


Let’s cut to the chase. Many people struggle with mental illness yet have constructive and happy lives. They cope with it, they get on with it. We can all admire their fortitude and endeavour. However we now face a situation across the West where every time we witness an obvious act of terror by radical Islamists the authorities and media trot out the “suffering from mental illness” line, even as the culprits shout Allahu Akbar. This is SUCH an insult to those who suffer genuine mental illness in my book.

Now we COULD argue that to be an Islamist IS a form of mental illness but that’s not the media game. They are seeking to sanitise evil acts lest we come to the conclusion that there is a REAL danger amongst it and it’s called Islam.

I covered the jihad knife terror a few days ago. The Police were INSISTENT that this was a case of “mental illness” and that the killer, Zakaria Bulhan, had NO terror connections. This was repeated by an obliging media and the case was effectively reduced to one of street crime.

Except it wasn’t that simple.

In the past few days, on the social networks, the following facts have been revealed.

Heat Street has found evidence that a person using the same name – Zakaria Bulhan – has listed at least one book advocating violent jihadism in their personal account on the Good Reads website since 2014.

Update: An exhaustive search of UK records by Heat Street shows there appears to be only one person in the whole of Britain with the name Zakaria Bulhan. He is registered as living at an address in Tooting, South London.

It is a near-certainty that this is the same person arrested by police and said to have “no links” to terrorism, but merely to be mentally ill.

Between January 2014 and September 2015, Zakaria Bulhan flagged up on Good Reads three books on Islam and Islamist theology as texts they intended to read. The most interesting, and the one that shows that at the age of 17 this person was at the very least exploring a book which is very clear on urging violent jihadism as a duty of Muslims, is Riyad-us-Saliheen, a 13th century text.

Meanwhile, in Belgium, this…

A crazed man hacked at a policewoman’s face with a machete and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ before turning on another officer just seconds before a third cop shot him dead in a suspected terror attack.

One can argue that these demented people DO suffer from mental illness. One can argue that they are being manipulated by others to carry out such acts. But one cannot distance them from the fact they carry out their terrorism in the name of Islam. It is Jihad and trying to redefine it is cowardly.

Well...except, it's not everytime. That's the dishonesty in your argument. Only times, like when people and authorities who know the person, or have examined the person state there are mental health issues. The odd thing is, people have no trouble accepting that with the Jared Loughners of the world, but refuse to when it's a Muslim. I wonder why? The person can be psychotic, delusional, etc. and it's still a "jihadi". A woman was psychotic with a history of mental illness when she killed her kids because "God told her to"...but no one insists it's her religion making her do it- she's mentally ill.

David Vance, also, is an interesting figure - his website was apparently closed down for hate speech...if it's the same David Vance.

Because that is what the muslim themsevles claim, as a means of excusing the attacks. They have learnt to make such claims so the sympathy goes away from their victims and towards the attackers. They will claim it is because of PTSD due to them living in palestine or syria

 

[Mindful]

Bill Maher with Charlie Rose.

 

[yiostheoy]

Maher is a shameless atheist.

Good analysis of Islam however.

Good data on Islam as well.

 

[Lucy Hamilton]

ISIS is exceptionally good at drawing in people who are already vulnerable or mentally ill. Denying that means you're overlooking a critical component of how ISIS recruits and why people can get drawn into it. You're also ignoring something that should be looked into.

The Line Between Terrorism and Mental Illness - The New Yorker

“Islamic-extremist online recruiters are very good at pulling in people who are mentally vulnerable,” Heather Hurlburt, of the Washington-based think tank New America, said. She suggests that an effective response to the problem will draw at least as much on the insights of mental health as on the intrusions of the security state. The constant balance that needs to be struck, she said, is between monitoring dangers without alienating allies in the community, as happened with New York City Police Department’s polarizing surveillance of mosques. As Hurlburt noted, “Some of the efforts, such as surveillance of college students’ social-media accounts and police informers in mosques, have been controversial and counterproductive. Insights from mental health, especially post-Columbine, tend to focus on more community-centered efforts, which may give family and clergy tools and non-stigmatizing places to turn for help. Tragically, the father of the Canadian who killed a Canadian soldier with his car on Monday had previously reported him to the authorities.”


Recruiting troubled individuals who can be pushed toward violence ties in well with ISIS’s larger strategy. As Hurlburt observed, ISIS “seems to calculate—correctly, in my view—that small-scale lone-wolf attacks on symbolic targets will get it outsized attention. So you see these propaganda broadcasts encouraging individuals who may be mentally unstable, who may have had little or no actual training, to use weapons like knives and cars that will surely lead to the attackers’ capture or death. The propagandists seem to understand the link between certain forms of mental illness and susceptibility to mass violence, even if we don’t.”


Couture-Rouleau was identified as a “high-risk traveller” by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and was prevented from leaving the country for fear that he would join up with foreign fighters abroad. Zehaf-Bibeau had applied for a passport and talked about travelling to Saudi Arabia; R.C.M.P. officials suggested that difficulty in renewing his passport may have played a role in the shooting.* Zehaf-Bibeau is, according to Hegghammer, “one of several examples of what I’ve called the ‘obstruction effect’—the tendency for some candidate foreign fighters to attack at home when they are prevented from leaving.” He cited the Holsworthy Barracks plot, in a suburb of Sydney, as one such example.


A decade ago, in the early days of the Iraq War, we were told that, if we don’t fight them overseas, we’ll have to fight them at home; absent some deeper form of intervention, the implication is now that, if we don’t let them fight there, we will have to fight them here. Perhaps in recognition of the danger of playing into grand martial fantasies, the Canadian military advised its soldiers on Wednesday not to wear uniforms unless they’re on active duty.


It’s natural to see terrorism and counter-terrorism as a drama of violence and retribution played out on the international stage. Both Zehaf-Bibeau and Couture-Rouleau certainly seem to have seen themselves as part of a similarly apocalyptic saga—Zehaf-Bibeau, in particular, was said by people at the shelter where he was staying in Ottawa to have spoken in his last days about the end of the world. But it’s worth remembering that Zehaf-Bibeau talked not just about an external battle but an internal struggle with demons, spiritual beings he felt had a real existence. That was a battle he was fighting in his own mind, which may have been the ultimate source of the violence that he inflicted on the world.​

"ISIS is exceptionally good at drawing in people who are already vulnerable or mentally ill. Denying that means you're overlooking a critical component of how ISIS recruits and why people can get drawn into it. You're also ignoring something that should be looked into."

One could say, like in all societies, that a proportion would have mental health issues, but that the majority of them don't. Islam is a religion/political philosophy who's foundations in the Qu'ran are built on violent rhetoric towards non-Muslims, to the point where the call is to put non-Muslims "to the sword", in the Name of Allah, to behead them, them being us.

ISIS is indoctrinating young children under the age of 10 years-old, boys and girls. This includes the full Jihadi deal and also teaching them to decapitate teddy bears and dolls, getting them ready for when they reach their teenage years, so they can then decapitate human beings.

There are a myriad of videos which show this, the below is just one of them, it's a young girl, already in full Niqāb and spewing all the usual anti-Western Civilisation hate speech whilst waving a knife about, it culminates with this young girl decapitating a doll. We're also "entertained" with her singing an ISIS song.

WHAT other so-called religion teaches young children this sort of thing? Does Christianity? Does Judaism? Does Buddhism?

Watch the below video and tell me your thoughts about WTF is going on with these people? Please don't automatically say it's because of mental health issues, it's simply bizarre to suggest that ALL of this crowd have mental health issues.

This is the next generation, we already have immense problems with the current generation, unless concrete measures are taken, we're going to be facing this....virus, this cancer upon Western Civilisation for the next what 50 years, 60 years. I don't want my children having to fight this evil and then their children having to have to fight this evil, I don't want them saying to me:

"Why didn't your generation fight this evil? Why have you left it to us?"

Anyhow, here's the video, it was uploaded on August 4th.

 

[Tilly]

ISIS is exceptionally good at drawing in people who are already vulnerable or mentally ill. Denying that means you're overlooking a critical component of how ISIS recruits and why people can get drawn into it. You're also ignoring something that should be looked into.

The Line Between Terrorism and Mental Illness - The New Yorker

“Islamic-extremist online recruiters are very good at pulling in people who are mentally vulnerable,” Heather Hurlburt, of the Washington-based think tank New America, said. She suggests that an effective response to the problem will draw at least as much on the insights of mental health as on the intrusions of the security state. The constant balance that needs to be struck, she said, is between monitoring dangers without alienating allies in the community, as happened with New York City Police Department’s polarizing surveillance of mosques. As Hurlburt noted, “Some of the efforts, such as surveillance of college students’ social-media accounts and police informers in mosques, have been controversial and counterproductive. Insights from mental health, especially post-Columbine, tend to focus on more community-centered efforts, which may give family and clergy tools and non-stigmatizing places to turn for help. Tragically, the father of the Canadian who killed a Canadian soldier with his car on Monday had previously reported him to the authorities.”


Recruiting troubled individuals who can be pushed toward violence ties in well with ISIS’s larger strategy. As Hurlburt observed, ISIS “seems to calculate—correctly, in my view—that small-scale lone-wolf attacks on symbolic targets will get it outsized attention. So you see these propaganda broadcasts encouraging individuals who may be mentally unstable, who may have had little or no actual training, to use weapons like knives and cars that will surely lead to the attackers’ capture or death. The propagandists seem to understand the link between certain forms of mental illness and susceptibility to mass violence, even if we don’t.”


Couture-Rouleau was identified as a “high-risk traveller” by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and was prevented from leaving the country for fear that he would join up with foreign fighters abroad. Zehaf-Bibeau had applied for a passport and talked about travelling to Saudi Arabia; R.C.M.P. officials suggested that difficulty in renewing his passport may have played a role in the shooting.* Zehaf-Bibeau is, according to Hegghammer, “one of several examples of what I’ve called the ‘obstruction effect’—the tendency for some candidate foreign fighters to attack at home when they are prevented from leaving.” He cited the Holsworthy Barracks plot, in a suburb of Sydney, as one such example.


A decade ago, in the early days of the Iraq War, we were told that, if we don’t fight them overseas, we’ll have to fight them at home; absent some deeper form of intervention, the implication is now that, if we don’t let them fight there, we will have to fight them here. Perhaps in recognition of the danger of playing into grand martial fantasies, the Canadian military advised its soldiers on Wednesday not to wear uniforms unless they’re on active duty.


It’s natural to see terrorism and counter-terrorism as a drama of violence and retribution played out on the international stage. Both Zehaf-Bibeau and Couture-Rouleau certainly seem to have seen themselves as part of a similarly apocalyptic saga—Zehaf-Bibeau, in particular, was said by people at the shelter where he was staying in Ottawa to have spoken in his last days about the end of the world. But it’s worth remembering that Zehaf-Bibeau talked not just about an external battle but an internal struggle with demons, spiritual beings he felt had a real existence. That was a battle he was fighting in his own mind, which may have been the ultimate source of the violence that he inflicted on the world.​

"ISIS is exceptionally good at drawing in people who are already vulnerable or mentally ill. Denying that means you're overlooking a critical component of how ISIS recruits and why people can get drawn into it. You're also ignoring something that should be looked into."

One could say, like in all societies, that a proportion would have mental health issues, but that the majority of them don't. Islam is a religion/political philosophy who's foundations in the Qu'ran are built on violent rhetoric towards non-Muslims, to the point where the call is to put non-Muslims "to the sword", in the Name of Allah, to behead them, them being us.

ISIS is indoctrinating young children under the age of 10 years-old, boys and girls. This includes the full Jihadi deal and also teaching them to decapitate teddy bears and dolls, getting them ready for when they reach their teenage years, so they can then decapitate human beings.

There are a myriad of videos which show this, the below is just one of them, it's a young girl, already in full Niqāb and spewing all the usual anti-Western Civilisation hate speech whilst waving a knife about, it culminates with this young girl decapitating a doll. We're also "entertained" with her singing an ISIS song.

WHAT other so-called religion teaches young children this sort of thing? Does Christianity? Does Judaism? Does Buddhism?

Watch the below video and tell me your thoughts about WTF is going on with these people? Please don't automatically say it's because of mental health issues, it's simply bizarre to suggest that ALL of this crowd have mental health issues.

This is the next generation, we already have immense problems with the current generation, unless concrete measures are taken, we're going to be facing this....virus, this cancer upon Western Civilisation for the next what 50 years, 60 years. I don't want my children having to fight this evil and then their children having to have to fight this evil, I don't want them saying to me:

"Why didn't your generation fight this evil? Why have you left it to us?"

Anyhow, here's the video, it was uploaded on August 4th.

Seems we have been allowing the radicalisation of children on our own doorstep too:

Clampdown on 'abusive' secret Muslim schools: Illegal madrassas to face prosecution after Ofsted warns children are at risk of radicalisation

• Ofsted said it has uncovered unregistered Muslim faith schools which keep pupils in squalid conditions and teach a ‘narrow’ Islamic curriculum
• Education watchdog found 15 such ‘hidden’ schools in the past year
• Taskforce will be set up to investigate and prosecute such schools

By ELEANOR HARDING, EDUCATION CORRESPONDENT FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 01:16, 12 December 2015 | UPDATED: 14:48, 15 December 2015


+2
Sir Michael Wilshaw, pictured, has said he is forming a taskforce to investigate unregistered schools

Illegal secret madrassas will face prosecution after inspectors warned children are at risk of being ‘abused and radicalised’ in them.

Ofsted said it has uncovered unregistered Muslim faith schools which keep pupils in squalid conditions and teach a ‘narrow’ Islamic curriculum.

The schools regulator said they pose ‘a serious and growing threat’ to the safety of hundreds of children, who may be vulnerable to extremism.

Inspectors revealed they have shut three unregistered schools in Birmingham in the past month, with one using ‘anti-Semitic, homophobic and misogynistic material’. Conditions in one were described as ‘unhygienic and filthy’. A total of 94 pupils were being taught by adults who had not been suitably checked for work with children....

Clampdown on 'abusive' secret Muslim schools

 

[Coyote]

MENTAL ILLNESS

By David Vance On August 7th, 2016 at 9:51 am


Let’s cut to the chase. Many people struggle with mental illness yet have constructive and happy lives. They cope with it, they get on with it. We can all admire their fortitude and endeavour. However we now face a situation across the West where every time we witness an obvious act of terror by radical Islamists the authorities and media trot out the “suffering from mental illness” line, even as the culprits shout Allahu Akbar. This is SUCH an insult to those who suffer genuine mental illness in my book.

Now we COULD argue that to be an Islamist IS a form of mental illness but that’s not the media game. They are seeking to sanitise evil acts lest we come to the conclusion that there is a REAL danger amongst it and it’s called Islam.

I covered the jihad knife terror a few days ago. The Police were INSISTENT that this was a case of “mental illness” and that the killer, Zakaria Bulhan, had NO terror connections. This was repeated by an obliging media and the case was effectively reduced to one of street crime.

Except it wasn’t that simple.

In the past few days, on the social networks, the following facts have been revealed.

Heat Street has found evidence that a person using the same name – Zakaria Bulhan – has listed at least one book advocating violent jihadism in their personal account on the Good Reads website since 2014.

Update: An exhaustive search of UK records by Heat Street shows there appears to be only one person in the whole of Britain with the name Zakaria Bulhan. He is registered as living at an address in Tooting, South London.

It is a near-certainty that this is the same person arrested by police and said to have “no links” to terrorism, but merely to be mentally ill.

Between January 2014 and September 2015, Zakaria Bulhan flagged up on Good Reads three books on Islam and Islamist theology as texts they intended to read. The most interesting, and the one that shows that at the age of 17 this person was at the very least exploring a book which is very clear on urging violent jihadism as a duty of Muslims, is Riyad-us-Saliheen, a 13th century text.

Meanwhile, in Belgium, this…

A crazed man hacked at a policewoman’s face with a machete and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ before turning on another officer just seconds before a third cop shot him dead in a suspected terror attack.

One can argue that these demented people DO suffer from mental illness. One can argue that they are being manipulated by others to carry out such acts. But one cannot distance them from the fact they carry out their terrorism in the name of Islam. It is Jihad and trying to redefine it is cowardly.

Well...except, it's not everytime. That's the dishonesty in your argument. Only times, like when people and authorities who know the person, or have examined the person state there are mental health issues. The odd thing is, people have no trouble accepting that with the Jared Loughners of the world, but refuse to when it's a Muslim. I wonder why? The person can be psychotic, delusional, etc. and it's still a "jihadi". A woman was psychotic with a history of mental illness when she killed her kids because "God told her to"...but no one insists it's her religion making her do it- she's mentally ill.

David Vance, also, is an interesting figure - his website was apparently closed down for hate speech...if it's the same David Vance.

David Vance is a regular contributer to The Big Question on BBC TV, Sunday mornings.

What was hateful about his article? I don't like discrediting tactics.

I like to know what's behind a writer or source.

As to what is "hateful" - mostly, it's what I already wrote - the sudden claim that when it comes a violent act by someone who happens to be Muslim, mental illness is now automatically ruled out by you folks. It makes no sense since it is clearly behind certain violent acts by non-Muslims. A Muslim can be psychotic, delusional, hearing voices, claiming God is telling him to do this, authorities can state that there are "significant mental health issues" (as in a recent case) and you will deny mental illness is a factor in that case solely on the basis of that person's religion. I like things to make sense, that does not. It's not like folks are attributing every violent act to mental illness.

wrong again----"mental illness as a factor" is absolutely not
even close to mental illness as a cause. Mental illness
is VERY VERY prevalent in the human population----most
crime is not CAUSED by mental illness. Al Capone had
neurosyphilis----want to blame his life of crime on that illness?

I'm not sure the distinction between "a factor" and "a cause" is always that clear. Also - there is a huge variation across the spectrum of the different mental illness' so it's not even very accurate to lump it together as if it were one disease.

If you're looking at "causes" - you're looking at a whole variety factors and sometimes the cause is the intersection of two or more of those factors rather than one.

For example, everyone want's immediately pin it on religion, but yet there are millions of followers of a religion who don't go and run down innocent people with a truck, or blow up abortion clinics.

There are also millions of mentally ill people who never commit a violent act.

If a person is suffering from an untreated mental illness - what does his world look like? If he delusional or hearing voices - what are those voices telling him and how capable is he of sorting them out? What do ordinary people look like to him? Are they looming, menacing and evil? How frightening is the world to someone in a psychotic state - especially someone from a culture or family background that doesn't recognize it as an illness or someone so paranoid he refuses treatment?

I agree - it is a factor, often one of many. NAMI wrote an article on mental illness and violence that pointed out what increased the risk for violent behavior in conjunction with mental illness:

NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness | Violence and Gun Reporting Laws and Mental Health
Most people with mental illness are not violent. In fact, people with mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence. Research on the relationship between mental illness and violence shows that there are certain factors that may increase risks of violence among a small number of individuals with mental illness. These factors include:

• Co-occurring abuse of alcohol or illegal drugs
• Past history of violence
• Being young and male
• Untreated psychosis

The best way to reduce this risk is through treatment. Yet fewer than one-third of adults and half of children with a diagnosed mental illness receive mental health services in a given year.

 

[irosie91]

MENTAL ILLNESS

By David Vance On August 7th, 2016 at 9:51 am


Let’s cut to the chase. Many people struggle with mental illness yet have constructive and happy lives. They cope with it, they get on with it. We can all admire their fortitude and endeavour. However we now face a situation across the West where every time we witness an obvious act of terror by radical Islamists the authorities and media trot out the “suffering from mental illness” line, even as the culprits shout Allahu Akbar. This is SUCH an insult to those who suffer genuine mental illness in my book.

Now we COULD argue that to be an Islamist IS a form of mental illness but that’s not the media game. They are seeking to sanitise evil acts lest we come to the conclusion that there is a REAL danger amongst it and it’s called Islam.

I covered the jihad knife terror a few days ago. The Police were INSISTENT that this was a case of “mental illness” and that the killer, Zakaria Bulhan, had NO terror connections. This was repeated by an obliging media and the case was effectively reduced to one of street crime.

Except it wasn’t that simple.

In the past few days, on the social networks, the following facts have been revealed.

Heat Street has found evidence that a person using the same name – Zakaria Bulhan – has listed at least one book advocating violent jihadism in their personal account on the Good Reads website since 2014.

Update: An exhaustive search of UK records by Heat Street shows there appears to be only one person in the whole of Britain with the name Zakaria Bulhan. He is registered as living at an address in Tooting, South London.

It is a near-certainty that this is the same person arrested by police and said to have “no links” to terrorism, but merely to be mentally ill.

Between January 2014 and September 2015, Zakaria Bulhan flagged up on Good Reads three books on Islam and Islamist theology as texts they intended to read. The most interesting, and the one that shows that at the age of 17 this person was at the very least exploring a book which is very clear on urging violent jihadism as a duty of Muslims, is Riyad-us-Saliheen, a 13th century text.

Meanwhile, in Belgium, this…

A crazed man hacked at a policewoman’s face with a machete and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ before turning on another officer just seconds before a third cop shot him dead in a suspected terror attack.

One can argue that these demented people DO suffer from mental illness. One can argue that they are being manipulated by others to carry out such acts. But one cannot distance them from the fact they carry out their terrorism in the name of Islam. It is Jihad and trying to redefine it is cowardly.

Well...except, it's not everytime. That's the dishonesty in your argument. Only times, like when people and authorities who know the person, or have examined the person state there are mental health issues. The odd thing is, people have no trouble accepting that with the Jared Loughners of the world, but refuse to when it's a Muslim. I wonder why? The person can be psychotic, delusional, etc. and it's still a "jihadi". A woman was psychotic with a history of mental illness when she killed her kids because "God told her to"...but no one insists it's her religion making her do it- she's mentally ill.

David Vance, also, is an interesting figure - his website was apparently closed down for hate speech...if it's the same David Vance.

David Vance is a regular contributer to The Big Question on BBC TV, Sunday mornings.

What was hateful about his article? I don't like discrediting tactics.

I like to know what's behind a writer or source.

As to what is "hateful" - mostly, it's what I already wrote - the sudden claim that when it comes a violent act by someone who happens to be Muslim, mental illness is now automatically ruled out by you folks. It makes no sense since it is clearly behind certain violent acts by non-Muslims. A Muslim can be psychotic, delusional, hearing voices, claiming God is telling him to do this, authorities can state that there are "significant mental health issues" (as in a recent case) and you will deny mental illness is a factor in that case solely on the basis of that person's religion. I like things to make sense, that does not. It's not like folks are attributing every violent act to mental illness.

wrong again----"mental illness as a factor" is absolutely not
even close to mental illness as a cause. Mental illness
is VERY VERY prevalent in the human population----most
crime is not CAUSED by mental illness. Al Capone had
neurosyphilis----want to blame his life of crime on that illness?

I'm not sure the distinction between "a factor" and "a cause" is always that clear. Also - there is a huge variation across the spectrum of the different mental illness' so it's not even very accurate to lump it together as if it were one disease.

If you're looking at "causes" - you're looking at a whole variety factors and sometimes the cause is the intersection of two or more of those factors rather than one.

For example, everyone want's immediately pin it on religion, but yet there are millions of followers of a religion who don't go and run down innocent people with a truck, or blow up abortion clinics.

There are also millions of mentally ill people who never commit a violent act.

If a person is suffering from an untreated mental illness - what does his world look like? If he delusional or hearing voices - what are those voices telling him and how capable is he of sorting them out? What do ordinary people look like to him? Are they looming, menacing and evil? How frightening is the world to someone in a psychotic state - especially someone from a culture or family background that doesn't recognize it as an illness or someone so paranoid he refuses treatment?

I agree - it is a factor, often one of many. NAMI wrote an article on mental illness and violence that pointed out what increased the risk for violent behavior in conjunction with mental illness:

NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness | Violence and Gun Reporting Laws and Mental Health
Most people with mental illness are not violent. In fact, people with mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence. Research on the relationship between mental illness and violence shows that there are certain factors that may increase risks of violence among a small number of individuals with mental illness. These factors include:

• Co-occurring abuse of alcohol or illegal drugs
• Past history of violence
• Being young and male
• Untreated psychosis

The best way to reduce this risk is through treatment. Yet fewer than one-third of adults and half of children with a diagnosed mental illness receive mental health services in a given year.

you are right----all criminals should be released from jail----
because I would have no problem in FINDING a psychiatric
diagnosis for anyone. There was a big storm crisis----street people DYING of exposure----I found a diagnosis ----just to keep them in the lobby with a meal tray

 

[Coyote]

ISIS is exceptionally good at drawing in people who are already vulnerable or mentally ill. Denying that means you're overlooking a critical component of how ISIS recruits and why people can get drawn into it. You're also ignoring something that should be looked into.

The Line Between Terrorism and Mental Illness - The New Yorker

“Islamic-extremist online recruiters are very good at pulling in people who are mentally vulnerable,” Heather Hurlburt, of the Washington-based think tank New America, said. She suggests that an effective response to the problem will draw at least as much on the insights of mental health as on the intrusions of the security state. The constant balance that needs to be struck, she said, is between monitoring dangers without alienating allies in the community, as happened with New York City Police Department’s polarizing surveillance of mosques. As Hurlburt noted, “Some of the efforts, such as surveillance of college students’ social-media accounts and police informers in mosques, have been controversial and counterproductive. Insights from mental health, especially post-Columbine, tend to focus on more community-centered efforts, which may give family and clergy tools and non-stigmatizing places to turn for help. Tragically, the father of the Canadian who killed a Canadian soldier with his car on Monday had previously reported him to the authorities.”


Recruiting troubled individuals who can be pushed toward violence ties in well with ISIS’s larger strategy. As Hurlburt observed, ISIS “seems to calculate—correctly, in my view—that small-scale lone-wolf attacks on symbolic targets will get it outsized attention. So you see these propaganda broadcasts encouraging individuals who may be mentally unstable, who may have had little or no actual training, to use weapons like knives and cars that will surely lead to the attackers’ capture or death. The propagandists seem to understand the link between certain forms of mental illness and susceptibility to mass violence, even if we don’t.”


Couture-Rouleau was identified as a “high-risk traveller” by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and was prevented from leaving the country for fear that he would join up with foreign fighters abroad. Zehaf-Bibeau had applied for a passport and talked about travelling to Saudi Arabia; R.C.M.P. officials suggested that difficulty in renewing his passport may have played a role in the shooting.* Zehaf-Bibeau is, according to Hegghammer, “one of several examples of what I’ve called the ‘obstruction effect’—the tendency for some candidate foreign fighters to attack at home when they are prevented from leaving.” He cited the Holsworthy Barracks plot, in a suburb of Sydney, as one such example.


A decade ago, in the early days of the Iraq War, we were told that, if we don’t fight them overseas, we’ll have to fight them at home; absent some deeper form of intervention, the implication is now that, if we don’t let them fight there, we will have to fight them here. Perhaps in recognition of the danger of playing into grand martial fantasies, the Canadian military advised its soldiers on Wednesday not to wear uniforms unless they’re on active duty.


It’s natural to see terrorism and counter-terrorism as a drama of violence and retribution played out on the international stage. Both Zehaf-Bibeau and Couture-Rouleau certainly seem to have seen themselves as part of a similarly apocalyptic saga—Zehaf-Bibeau, in particular, was said by people at the shelter where he was staying in Ottawa to have spoken in his last days about the end of the world. But it’s worth remembering that Zehaf-Bibeau talked not just about an external battle but an internal struggle with demons, spiritual beings he felt had a real existence. That was a battle he was fighting in his own mind, which may have been the ultimate source of the violence that he inflicted on the world.​

"ISIS is exceptionally good at drawing in people who are already vulnerable or mentally ill. Denying that means you're overlooking a critical component of how ISIS recruits and why people can get drawn into it. You're also ignoring something that should be looked into."

One could say, like in all societies, that a proportion would have mental health issues, but that the majority of them don't. Islam is a religion/political philosophy who's foundations in the Qu'ran are built on violent rhetoric towards non-Muslims, to the point where the call is to put non-Muslims "to the sword", in the Name of Allah, to behead them, them being us.

ISIS is indoctrinating young children under the age of 10 years-old, boys and girls. This includes the full Jihadi deal and also teaching them to decapitate teddy bears and dolls, getting them ready for when they reach their teenage years, so they can then decapitate human beings.

There are a myriad of videos which show this, the below is just one of them, it's a young girl, already in full Niqāb and spewing all the usual anti-Western Civilisation hate speech whilst waving a knife about, it culminates with this young girl decapitating a doll. We're also "entertained" with her singing an ISIS song.

WHAT other so-called religion teaches young children this sort of thing? Does Christianity? Does Judaism? Does Buddhism?

Watch the below video and tell me your thoughts about WTF is going on with these people? Please don't automatically say it's because of mental health issues, it's simply bizarre to suggest that ALL of this crowd have mental health issues.

This is the next generation, we already have immense problems with the current generation, unless concrete measures are taken, we're going to be facing this....virus, this cancer upon Western Civilisation for the next what 50 years, 60 years. I don't want my children having to fight this evil and then their children having to have to fight this evil, I don't want them saying to me:

"Why didn't your generation fight this evil? Why have you left it to us?"

Anyhow, here's the video, it was uploaded on August 4th.

ISIS is best understood as a violent cult, and everything you say about them I absolutely agree with. We have not seen such evil since the Nazi's and ISIS is no more representative of mainstream Islam than the Nazi's were of mainstream Christianity. What they are doing to these kids...is simply beyond words. What they've done to entire populations is beyond words.

This is not just a cancer on western civilization - it's a cancer on ALL civilized people.

That said, I want to clarify something. I have never said it's all (or even mostly) caused by mental illness. What I've read is that ISIS has a tendancy to attract generic thugs (including those who aren't particularly religious but are attracted to violence and power) and vulnerable people - people who are alienated, or even suffering from mental illness. There is a close connection between extreme religiosity and mental illness.

My argument is when mental illness IS present - it shouldn't be denied as a factor (why is it?). In each of my arguments, I've listed specific cases where evidence and authorities pointed to mental illness: the somali immigrant woman who attacked a woman with her flag pole for example. Another one was a man who decapitated an elderly woman in London, and who had a mental illness history and authorties stated he had mental health issues. More recently - I don't remember which incident it was, the father had been trying to get his son hospitalized. In those incidences, blaming it on "religion" serves what purpose? Further demonizing of that religion? Ignoring the failures in mental health care in our respective countries? Acknowledging the influence of mental illness - when it's a factor - mean we can start to look for some solutions - where is the system failing these people? Jared Loughner shot and killed 6 people, and injured more, in Tucson Arizona. Family and people at college had tried to get him to submit to mental health evaluation and he refused. James Holmes, shot and killed 12 people and injured 70 others in the 2012 Colorado Theatre Shooting. He had a history of mental health problems, seeing psychiatrists, and was obsessed with violence. Should we insist that mental illness has nothing to do with it, or recognize and see if there are things that can be done differently to stop these people before something like this happens or before vulnerable people get sucked into violent cults.

That's why I bring up mental illness. I've never said it's all caused by mental illness, but where it IS a factor, we should be alerted - and ISIS DOES suck in these people. We need to stop it.

 

[Coyote]

Well...except, it's not everytime. That's the dishonesty in your argument. Only times, like when people and authorities who know the person, or have examined the person state there are mental health issues. The odd thing is, people have no trouble accepting that with the Jared Loughners of the world, but refuse to when it's a Muslim. I wonder why? The person can be psychotic, delusional, etc. and it's still a "jihadi". A woman was psychotic with a history of mental illness when she killed her kids because "God told her to"...but no one insists it's her religion making her do it- she's mentally ill.

David Vance, also, is an interesting figure - his website was apparently closed down for hate speech...if it's the same David Vance.

David Vance is a regular contributer to The Big Question on BBC TV, Sunday mornings.

What was hateful about his article? I don't like discrediting tactics.

I like to know what's behind a writer or source.

As to what is "hateful" - mostly, it's what I already wrote - the sudden claim that when it comes a violent act by someone who happens to be Muslim, mental illness is now automatically ruled out by you folks. It makes no sense since it is clearly behind certain violent acts by non-Muslims. A Muslim can be psychotic, delusional, hearing voices, claiming God is telling him to do this, authorities can state that there are "significant mental health issues" (as in a recent case) and you will deny mental illness is a factor in that case solely on the basis of that person's religion. I like things to make sense, that does not. It's not like folks are attributing every violent act to mental illness.

wrong again----"mental illness as a factor" is absolutely not
even close to mental illness as a cause. Mental illness
is VERY VERY prevalent in the human population----most
crime is not CAUSED by mental illness. Al Capone had
neurosyphilis----want to blame his life of crime on that illness?

I'm not sure the distinction between "a factor" and "a cause" is always that clear. Also - there is a huge variation across the spectrum of the different mental illness' so it's not even very accurate to lump it together as if it were one disease.

If you're looking at "causes" - you're looking at a whole variety factors and sometimes the cause is the intersection of two or more of those factors rather than one.

For example, everyone want's immediately pin it on religion, but yet there are millions of followers of a religion who don't go and run down innocent people with a truck, or blow up abortion clinics.

There are also millions of mentally ill people who never commit a violent act.

If a person is suffering from an untreated mental illness - what does his world look like? If he delusional or hearing voices - what are those voices telling him and how capable is he of sorting them out? What do ordinary people look like to him? Are they looming, menacing and evil? How frightening is the world to someone in a psychotic state - especially someone from a culture or family background that doesn't recognize it as an illness or someone so paranoid he refuses treatment?

I agree - it is a factor, often one of many. NAMI wrote an article on mental illness and violence that pointed out what increased the risk for violent behavior in conjunction with mental illness:

NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness | Violence and Gun Reporting Laws and Mental Health
Most people with mental illness are not violent. In fact, people with mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence. Research on the relationship between mental illness and violence shows that there are certain factors that may increase risks of violence among a small number of individuals with mental illness. These factors include:

• Co-occurring abuse of alcohol or illegal drugs
• Past history of violence
• Being young and male
• Untreated psychosis

The best way to reduce this risk is through treatment. Yet fewer than one-third of adults and half of children with a diagnosed mental illness receive mental health services in a given year.

you are right----all criminals should be released from jail----
because I would have no problem in FINDING a psychiatric
diagnosis for anyone. There was a big storm crisis----street people DYING of exposure----I found a diagnosis ----just to keep them in the lobby with a meal tray

Where did you come up with that crazy idea? But - people who truly have a mental illness diagnosis of a one of the major diseases like schitzophrenia do not belong in jail. That is the worst place for them to be. Jails are not equipt to handle them and they often end up there on substance abuse, vagrancy, or public nuisance charges. If they commit a violent crime - they need to be in a secure facility that can keep them confined and properly medicated.