Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Media Coverage of the Orlando Mass Shootings. The FBI, G4S, CIA, ISIS Nexus, “No Hard Questions Asked”


As with most mass shooting cases in the United States, initial news reports are sensational and uninformative, focusing mainly on the number of dead and wounded.  There is also an emphasis on the criminal’s use of unattractive firearms, usually AR-15 semi-automatic rifles, generally obtained legally.

After a time, embarrassing facts start to trickle out, usually tied to prior official knowledge of the shooter’s dubious background along with statements from long-time friends, relatives, and acquaintances, noting that the person was always known to be mentally unbalanced.

The Orlando, Florida killings follow this pattern–but with a great difference.  The actor’s father, Seddique Mateen, according to the Washington Post, praised the Taliban, saying “Our brothers in Waziristan, our warrior brothers in [the] Taliban movement and the national Afghan Taliban are rising up.”   The elder Mateen was also a candidate for president of Afghanistan.

Omar Mateen, the shooter, had earlier been under investigation by the FBI for ties to Moner Abusalha, an American suicide bomber in Syria.

Omar was an armed security guard at a firm, G4S, founded in Denmark at the beginning of the last century.  A major company supplying, inter alia, guard services, risk consulting, and investigations worldwide, it bought Wackenhut Corp., a similar purveyor of investigations and security services, in 2010.  G4S unsurprisingly, has offices in Crystal City in Arlington, Va., a Washington, D.C. suburb known for its ties to the U.S. armed forces and intelligence services.  (more...)




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