Active shooters in San Bernardino, California

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

That list makes it seem about neck-and-neck, however I notice that there are several high-profile mass shootings from the last few years that are missing. The attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords, the Newtown theater shooting, the Sandy Hook attack, and the recent Planned Parenthood shooting (the last of which should definitely be considered terrorism), just off the top of my head. I don't have stats on political or religious motivations specifically, but that wasn't the point I was trying to make, which is that there are a lot more mass shootings and attacks committed by white people in this country than Muslims.

[Tanasinn]

There are a lot more "white people" in this country than Muslims, too.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I found it interesting that he actually wrote a book with Sam Harris, who has been incredibly critical of Islam.

Yes, exactly. Although Nawaz and Harris don't always see eye-to-eye on every bit of theological navel-gazing (Harris being an atheist and Nawaz being a Muslim), they do generally agree that Islam needs to be criticized, and Islamism in particular is a problem which the political left (or parts of it, to be clear) is having trouble acknowledging. (The book in question for those wondering)

I don´t know. To me it seems that the amount of people who "coddle islam" isn´t that significant.
I think a lot of people misinterpret being interested in minority protection with "cuddling without questoining", though.

Okay. I see where you're coming from. Granted, I don't know what the situation is in Germany, though I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Germany has a very different relationship with this sort of issue.

In the Anglosphere at least, there is quite a bit of pushback against the classical-intellectual liberal position of "fuck Islam, and double-fuck Islamism" (granted, not generally stated so blithely, and with the caveat that Muslims as people are as deserving of rights and freedoms as everyone else, including a right to practice their religion however silly it may be), opposed by the regressive wannabe-liberal position of "Muslims are a minority, therefore any criticism of them is bigotry and must be stopped." Again, it's admirable to stick up for a minority, but the wannabe-liberals do it at the expense of the minority within the minority - gay Muslims, female Muslims, atheist ex-Muslims, and so on, who are cruelly persecuted in conservative Muslim environments.

Here's a (relatively tame) example - some on the left are like Asra Nomani here and want to be forthright in taking Islamic doctrine to task, but there's a lot of apologists like Dalia Mogahed who tirelessly obfuscate and deflect away from Islam. The nastier proponents of the latter tack are the ones who immediately trot out the "Islamophobia" fiction, which is a ridiculous made-up grievance which conflates real anti-Muslim bigotry (such as that espoused by Donald Trump et al) with criticism of the religion, its doctrines, and its adherents' behavior.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

There are a lot more "white people" in this country than Muslims, too.

Irrelevant. The point is that you're more likely to be killed by a white mass shooter / terrorist than a Muslim one in America, so if you're going to associate a demographic group with mass murder (which you absolutely should not), it's whites. Since no one in power is eager to do that, we should stop pretending that millions of American Muslims are somehow suspect because of the actions of a few nutcases and instead examine the causes and catalysts that isolate and radicalize unstable people and drive them to commit violence.

[Wild Zontargs]

There are a lot more "white people" in this country than Muslims, too.

Irrelevant. The point is that you're more likely to be killed by a white mass shooter / terrorist than a Muslim one in America, so if you're going to associate a demographic group with mass murder (which you absolutely should not), it's whites. Since no one in power is eager to do that, we should stop pretending that millions of American Muslims are somehow suspect because of the actions of a few nutcases and instead examine the causes and catalysts that isolate and radicalize unstable people and drive them to commit violence.

Irrelevant. The point is that you're more likely to be killed by a cough syrup than a pesticide in America, so if you're going to associate a substance with poison (which you absolutely should not), it's cough syrup. Since no one in power is eager to do that, we should stop pretending that millions of pesticides are somehow suspect....

Wait, no, that's dumb. Even though you're statistically less likely to be poisoned by pesticides than cough syrup, pesticides are more dangerous to ingest than cough syrups. We should take that into account.

No, I'm not comparing Muslims to pesticides. I'm just pointing out a flaw in that sort of argument. Even if you accept a definition of "mass shooter / terrorist", a definition of "white", and a time frame which gives us more deaths due to "white mass shooters" than any other demographic, that doesn't mean that you should ignore individually more dangerous per capita demographics.

[Broomstick]

Yeah, but the white boy Timothy McVeigh had the largest body count.

[Patroklos]

There are a lot more "white people" in this country than Muslims, too.

Irrelevant. The point is that you're more likely to be killed by a white mass shooter / terrorist than a Muslim one in America, so if you're going to associate a demographic group with mass murder (which you absolutely should not), it's whites. Since no one in power is eager to do that, we should stop pretending that millions of American Muslims are somehow suspect because of the actions of a few nutcases and instead examine the causes and catalysts that isolate and radicalize unstable people and drive them to commit violence.

By the way, if we're going to single out a demographic for propensity to commit mass shootings and acts of terrorism in this country, it's white Christian conservatives by a landslide.

You argument was the propensity for a demographic to do something, the appropriate statistical analysis for that takes into account population size effects. If you have a problem with math take it up with the universe.

As a side note, who do you think is more likely to be the victims of all terrorism? White Christian males or muslims?

Yeah, but the white boy Timothy McVeigh had the largest body count.

For a single act, probably. Nothing else comes to mind that is completely domestic anyway. That would be an interesting analysis. Are white Christian males more successful when they are terrorists or mass shooters over Muslims? How do you measure that as you are just as successful in your attack if you kill the one person you wanted to assassinate as the guy who wanted a random body count over 10.

In any case as far as relevance the 1990s lack vs the 2010s. Even without the outliers like the Oklahoma shooting and the 9/11 attacks the results don't show what AT wants them to.

[Channel72]

In the Anglosphere at least, there is quite a bit of pushback against the classical-intellectual liberal position of "fuck Islam, and double-fuck Islamism" (granted, not generally stated so blithely, and with the caveat that Muslims as people are as deserving of rights and freedoms as everyone else, including a right to practice their religion however silly it may be), opposed by the regressive wannabe-liberal position of "Muslims are a minority, therefore any criticism of them is bigotry and must be stopped." Again, it's admirable to stick up for a minority, but the wannabe-liberals do it at the expense of the minority within the minority - gay Muslims, female Muslims, atheist ex-Muslims, and so on, who are cruelly persecuted in conservative Muslim environments.

What you say is true... I just don't understand why you're so concerned. Yes, there are clueless student activists and liberal groups who want us to believe that Islam is AMAZING and needs to be coddled and insulated from criticism, but ... really, I mean, in a political environment where the Republican front-runner can literally propose BANNING ALL MUSLIMS from entering the US, (which I sadly doubt will affect his poll numbers too badly) ... I think you have your priorities a little fucked up here.

Yeah, but the white boy Timothy McVeigh had the largest body count.

Until he was totally schooled by Osama bin Laden, of course.

Anyway, what is all this debate about anyway? Are we trying to prove that right-wing Christian conservatives are fundamentally more dangerous than Jihadist fanatics, or vice-versa? Whatever. The reality is that, in theory, both are equally dangerous. But in practice, only Jihadists have large-scale training camps, state-sanctioned safe havens, billions of dollars in oil revenue, and the financial backing of the world's leading energy supplier worth over $700 billion annually. Jihadists clearly win, several times over. Sorry but American redneck anti-government terrorists, with their hilarious "manifestos" and log cabins, simply aren't even in the same league as the global Sunni Jihadist movement.

Not to mention the fact that the two most high-profile domestic terrorists, Tim McVeigh and the Unabomber, weren't even motivated by Christianity. Tim McVeigh was Christian, but his motives were more anti-government (specifically as revenge for the Waco incident) rather than any kind of Biblical mandate - in fact, if I recall he identified himself as agnostic or at least was not really religious. And the Unabomber was some kind of left-wing anti-technology Luddite nutcase with no religious agenda.

[Wild Zontargs]

Well, this certainly helps explain certain aspects of the media coverage of this event:

— Cover the victims of harassment, murder and other hate crimes as thoroughly as you cover the victims of overt terrorist attacks.

— When writing about terrorism, remember to include white supremacist, radical anti-abortionists and other groups with a history of such activity.

— Do not imply that kneeling on the floor praying, listening to Arabic music or reciting from the Quran are peculiar activities.

— Avoid using word combinations such as "Islamic terrorist" or "Muslim extremist" that are misleading because they link whole religions to criminal activity. Be specific: Alternate choices, depending on context, include "Al Qaeda terrorists" or, to describe the broad range of groups involved in Islamic politics, "political Islamists." Do not use religious characterizations as shorthand when geographic, political, socioeconomic or other distinctions might be more accurate.

— Avoid using terms such as "jihad" unless you are certain of their precise meaning and include the context when they are used in quotations. The basic meaning of "jihad" is to exert oneself for the good of Islam and to better oneself.

— Ask men and women from within targeted communities to review your coverage and make suggestions.

Yes, Virginia, "the nation’s most broad-based journalism organization, dedicated to encouraging the free practice of journalism and stimulating high standards of ethical behavior" explicitly tells their members to downplay the religious and terrorist aspects of this shooting, and to remind everyone that the White Christian Bogeyman is much, much scarier than the people actually involved in the attack.

The train is fine. Carry on.

[Channel72]

^
I don't really see anything wrong with this. If anything, terms like "Islamic terrorist", while not incorrect, cast a bit of a wide net - which is at worst harmful and at best useless. People keep forgetting, Islamic terrorism as we know it is mostly a specifically Sunni, Salafist phenomenon. In particular, there really aren't any Shiite terrorists or suicide bombers (there are some exceptions to this, but they are not really significant.) Specific terminology helps reduce the threat of blanket biases forming in the American psyche. I mean, the danger of casting a wide net is that it causes uneducated Americans to be suspicious of, say, Iranian (Shi'ite) immigrants, who have literally zero chance of being affiliated with ISIS or Al Qaeda. And in the Muslim world, "Jihad" has a wide range of meanings, including a generic term for personal struggles.

I mean, "Islamic terrorist" is almost as meaningless as saying "Christian terrorist", when talking about some abortion clinic bomber. Yeah, the guy that bombed the clinic was Christian, but he was probably Evangelical/Baptist/7th-Day Adventist and thus we needn't use a blanket term that includes a billion Catholics/Orthodox Christians, as if they're all just ticking time bombs just waiting for the opportunity to drop a MOAB on the nearest planned parenthood.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Irrelevant. The point is that you're more likely to be killed by a white mass shooter / terrorist than a Muslim one in America, so if you're going to associate a demographic group with mass murder (which you absolutely should not), it's whites. Since no one in power is eager to do that, we should stop pretending that millions of American Muslims are somehow suspect because of the actions of a few nutcases and instead examine the causes and catalysts that isolate and radicalize unstable people and drive them to commit violence.

Irrelevant. The point is that you're more likely to be killed by a cough syrup than a pesticide in America, so if you're going to associate a substance with poison (which you absolutely should not), it's cough syrup. Since no one in power is eager to do that, we should stop pretending that millions of pesticides are somehow suspect....

Wait, no, that's dumb. Even though you're statistically less likely to be poisoned by pesticides than cough syrup, pesticides are more dangerous to ingest than cough syrups. We should take that into account.

And how should we take that into account, exactly? State-sanctioned religious discrimination? Name a cure that isn't far worse than the disease and I'll hop on board.

No, I'm not comparing Muslims to pesticides. I'm just pointing out a flaw in that sort of argument. Even if you accept a definition of "mass shooter / terrorist", a definition of "white", and a time frame which gives us more deaths due to "white mass shooters" than any other demographic, that doesn't mean that you should ignore individually more dangerous per capita demographics.

No, you should ignore it because a vanishingly small percentage of American Muslims commit mass shootings or acts of terrorism. The point I was trying to make was not to say that American whites or Muslims are more or less attackey, which is a pointless debate, but to show how silly it is to single out a demographic for likelihood to commit them (which is asymptotic to zero in all cases). The proper steps to reduce these attacks do not involve singling out a particular religion or ethnicity for scrutiny and distrust, which would be extremely counter-productive and would shit on the principles upon which this nation is supposed to represent.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

What you say is true... I just don't understand why you're so concerned. Yes, there are clueless student activists and liberal groups who want us to believe that Islam is AMAZING and needs to be coddled and insulated from criticism, but ... really, I mean, in a political environment where the Republican front-runner can literally propose BANNING ALL MUSLIMS from entering the US, (which I sadly doubt will affect his poll numbers too badly) ... I think you have your priorities a little fucked up here.

I'm concerned because, as I said, a failure to confront Islamic bullshit for fear of "bigotry" throws the minority-within-minority under a bus. I'm concerned because I don't want to see the American left commit the same seppuku the American right did. Trump will do what Trump will do and I've long since abandoned the fantasy of trying to engage the American right wing in anything resembling rational thought, outside of a handful of moderates like Rand Paul and Michael Steele. I've seen right wing thugs at work and they're no different than Islamist thugs (they just wear smoky-branch camo caps and drape themselves in the American flag instead of draping themselves in Islam), and I oppose them just the same, but that doesn't mean I can't also oppose left-wing idiocy at the same time - something this forum in particular is rather poor at giving voice to sometimes.

I would rather be the voice of dissent than the voice of lockstep agreement. Adding "me too!" to all the predictable responses in the Trump Wants to Ban Muslims thread strikes me as the epitome of useless insipidity, so I focus my efforts on things people don't want to hear instead.

[Channel72]

I would rather be the voice of dissent than the voice of lockstep agreement. Adding "me too!" to all the predictable responses in the Trump Wants to Ban Muslims thread strikes me as the epitome of useless insipidity, so I focus my efforts on things people don't want to hear instead.

You're really rocking the boat. Please don't try to challenge the SDN status quo too much, or I might have an epileptic seizure.

Anyway, I don't really see the American Left in general rallying behind Islam. Not when the majority of Democrats approve the drone war, and a sizeable number of Democrats (>40%) want Guantanamo Bay to remain open.

But maybe that's not the "Left" you mean.

So really, what the hell is the "American Left" anyway? Is it the Democratic Party (hah!)? Or is it just like, Bernie Sanders, Ralph Nader, Michael Moore, and some clueless college students who will soon forget about their ephemeral political passions in light of crushing student loans and an impossible job market? I mean really, there is no organized, cohesive American Left that has any sort of consistent voice. The fact that you think a bunch of clueless college students with their hearts in the right place are an actual cultural danger at the moment just seems to me like your threat-detection sensors are totally miscalibrated. There is far more of a serious threat at the moment facing Muslim Americans in light of the current political climate, than there is from Muslim Americans, regardless of what some stupid college students are doing. The fact that someone critical of Islam was banned from speaking at some college is like... a meaningless blip on the radar as Trump rages on against Muslims and a large portion of his red-state base cheer along. Meanwhile, actual Leftist politicians like Bernie Sanders aren't exactly "coddling" Islam - their views about ISIS and combating terrorism are pretty much identical to Obama's - in fact, Sanders seems slightly more hawkish than Obama in terms of confronting ISIS.

So... what exactly is the problem here? I don't see some sort of major problem with "coddling" Islam on the American left. I just see you worrying about a bunch of 18-21 year-olds who have no real-world experience and are currently incapable of forming nuanced thoughts.

Plus, conflating criticism of religious ideas with actual bigotry is a standard tactic among religious leaders. You know how many Jewish activists will call out any criticism of the Old Testament or Israel as "anti-Semitism"? It's so common, it's basically just a joke. It's not surprising that Muslims also try to conflate criticism of Islamic doctrine, or criticism of the Koran, with anti-Muslim bigotry, nor is it surprising that a bunch of idealist college students who have no clue about anything would conclude that defending this sort of thing is a good idea.

[Grumman]

Please, for the love of god, more people need to listen to Maajid Nawaz. Maybe I'm preaching to the choir here, but if not:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fCDa0OZeS4

He and I have said the same thing about ISIL not radicalising Muslims, just recruiting Muslims who are already radicalised, but I don't know if we mean the same thing by that. Looking at his Wikipedia page he was a recruiter for an Islamist organisation, but not one that was openly evil the way ISIL is, and so I wonder whether his own experience as an Islamist is representative of the ones we're really worried about, or whether he would inevitably have recoiled if a bunch of genocidal rapists suggested he join up with them to establish a caliphate in their image.

[Broomstick]

As a side note, who do you think is more likely to be the victims of all terrorism? White Christian males or muslims?

Globally? Muslims, no question.

In any case as far as relevance the 1990s lack vs the 2010s. Even without the outliers like the Oklahoma shooting and the 9/11 attacks the results don't show what AT wants them to.

Oklahoma wasn't a "shooting". It was a truck bomb. Helps if you can get the details correct.

[Patroklos]

AT said mass shootings AND terrorism.

[Captain Seafort]

In particular, there really aren't any Shiite terrorists or suicide bombers (there are some exceptions to this, but they are not really significant.)

I suspect the inhabitants of Lebanon and northern Israel would disagree with this assertion.

[Channel72]

In particular, there really aren't any Shiite terrorists or suicide bombers (there are some exceptions to this, but they are not really significant.)

I suspect the inhabitants of Lebanon and northern Israel would disagree with this assertion.

Please. Hezbollah is hardly the equal of the Sunni Jihadists in terms of suicide bombings and terrorist acts. Their leadership condemns the practice of suicide bombing, and it's still not entirely clear which attacks, if any, they are responsible for (Israel blames just about everything on them). It's not like the Sunni Jihadists, who openly and continuously send in wave after wave of suicide bombers with the blessing of radical Imams, targeting civilians and people praying at mosque. Hezbollah's behavior isn't even close to that - they mostly fight guerrilla-style battles in urban areas or fire rockets at Israel, rather than specifically targeting civilians with suicide bombers like Al Qaeda in Iraq and ISIS. Even in the incidents where they are accused of terror attacks, their targets are largely Israeli/US military or government installations. In contrast, ISIS and Al Qaeda in Iraq will blow up children and civilians by luring them with fucking ice cream trucks. The two groups are not even remotely comparable.

Regardless, I'm not interested in defending Hezbollah - I don't particularly like them and I'm sure they are probably responsible for at least some of the attacks blamed on them, particularly the attacks against the military barracks in Beirut in the 80s. But they are not even close to the absolute depravity we've seen from Sunni Jihadists. They are more like a "normal" militant group - I wouldn't hesitate to compare them with the IRA for example (they're actually probably better than the IRA, since they don't normally blow up restaurants and bars to take out civilians). But the Sunni Jihadists are in a whole other league of insanity.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

You're really rocking the boat. Please don't try to challenge the SDN status quo too much, or I might have an epileptic seizure.

Anyway, I don't really see the American Left in general rallying behind Islam. Not when the majority of Democrats approve the drone war, and a sizeable number of Democrats (>40%) want Guantanamo Bay to remain open.

But maybe that's not the "Left" you mean. [...]

Well, I'm sorry. If white-knighting for Islamists and Islam in general goes the way of PETA and tree-huggers, then great, I'll shut up and you can rub "I told you so," in my face all day long, and I'll be happy about it. As long as things like "Islamophobia" and "privilege" and a societal unwillingness to modernize Islam (as Christianity and Judaism have) continue to have traction, however, you'll just have to suffer through my occasional post in N&P. Terrible, I know.

Loathe as I am to admit it, I am starting to have some sympathy for the Fox News crowd. Not that their politics or tactics are any more palatable, but the frustration we generally feel at the right's constant denial and obfuscation on climate change must be how they in turn feel about the left's denial and obfuscation of its own influence. American politics may hew more to center-left than "true" left (whatever that is, however you want to define such things; and I certainly wish conservatives would acknowledge this, but that's another topic), but the more I watch, the more I understand how conservatives feel.

[ArmorPierce]

Why is it that when we talk about muslims we only speak of the terrorist acts rather than the overall crime and murder rate? If the purpose that we are discussing the issue is due to it's net negative impact on society that the religion supposedly has relative to the 'mainstream' religion, then we must consider murder and other crime outside the narrow scope of terrorist acts, right?

Muslims tend to have a lower overall crime rate than non-muslims

One explanation we can rule out is that Muslims are violent people. Predominantly, Muslim countries average 2.4 murders per annum per 100,000 people, compared to 7.5 in non-Muslim countries. The percentage of the society that is made up of Muslims is an extraordinarily good predictor of a country’s murder rate. More authoritarianism in Muslim countries does not account for the difference. I have found that controlling for political regime in statistical analysis does not change the findings. More Muslims, less homicide.

http://www.loonwatch.com/2015/02/this-s ... e-violent/
https://books.google.com/books?id=0UGEM ... dy&f=false

[Patroklos]

Crime is generally, but not always, targeted. It can thus be mitigated away to a reasonable degree by most people. We fear these events more because there is no way to actively avoid them.

[LaCroix]

Slight necro, but relevant:

FBI says the have never found any jihadist postings from the two shooters....

Wednesday, Dec 16, 2015 05:45 PM +0100
FBI on San Bernardino massacre: Alleged shooters did NOT post support for jihad on social media
"We have found no evidence of a posting on social media by" the alleged shooters, said FBI Director James Comey
Ben Norton

FBI on San Bernardino massacre: Alleged shooters did NOT post support for jihad on social mediaEnlarge
(Credit: AP/KTTV)

The alleged San Bernardino shooters in fact did not post messages in support of jihad on social media, the FBI revealed Wednesday morning.

FBI Director James Comey told the media in a news conference that “We have found no evidence of a posting on social media by either of them,” according to NBC journalist Bradd Jaffy.

14 people were killed and 22 were injured in the shootings in the southern California town on December 2, 2015.

http://www.salon.com/2015/12/16/fbi_on_ ... ial_media/

So it seems it is not as clear-cut as it seemed. It might still be a jihadist thing, but maybe just a "going postal" event by people who might or might not have gone jihadist in the future. News are still a bit too fresh and scarce to comment on that.

[Channel72]

Um... not everybody fucking uses Facebook or Twitter. The fact that somebody doesn't plaster their beliefs all over social media doesn't really mean much. I believe pretty strongly in various ideas... but I don't use Facebook or Twitter, nor am I compelled to constantly stream my ideas over HTTP (except at SDnet, naturally).

In this case, it simply means there really weren't any obvious warning signs that the FBI might have picked up on. (Either that or the FBI just fucked up and is trying to cover their asses - but most likely these two were just very quiet and nothing they did registered as much of a potential threat.) Apparently they were in contact with other "terror suspects", whatever that means, but those details are pretty vague. I mean these two literally just don't fit the profile: they were married, had a 6 month old daughter, a pretty good job. At a certain point we need to admit that it's just not possible 100% of the time to stop really bad things from happening, if we care at all about not living in a total police state.

[The Romulan Republic]

That list makes it seem about neck-and-neck, however I notice that there are several high-profile mass shootings from the last few years that are missing. The attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords, the Newtown theater shooting, the Sandy Hook attack, and the recent Planned Parenthood shooting (the last of which should definitely be considered terrorism), just off the top of my head. I don't have stats on political or religious motivations specifically, but that wasn't the point I was trying to make, which is that there are a lot more mass shootings and attacks committed by white people in this country than Muslims.

There are a lot more "white people" in this country than Muslims, too.

I must object to the fact that you are both implicitly treating Muslims and white people as completely separate groups, as if it is impossible for a white person to be Muslim.

It is true, of course, that most Muslims are from predominantly non-white parts of the world. However, their is no inherent contradiction between white and Muslim, and the fact that people keep treating Muslim as a race is something I find infuriating both as a matter of technical accuracy and because it is racist- it is stereotyping Muslims as non-white, and treating ideology/culture as something that is a racial characteristic.

Edit: I'm not saying this was your intention. Probably a lot of people do it without thinking about it, because its become so common in the rhetoric these days for people (both the anti-Muslim crowd and those arguing against them) to treat Muslims as a race. Its just a particular brand of stupid that really gets under my skin.

[Channel72]

So anyway, the plot thickens...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35125435

A friend of one of the San Bernardino attackers has been charged in connection with the mass shooting that killed 14.

Enrique Marquez, 24, is the first person arrested in the deadliest terrorist attack in the US since 9/11.

Mr Marquez is charged with plotting with gunman Syed Farook to attack a university in 2011 and 2012.

He is also accused of illegally purchasing the two rifles that were used by Farook and Tashfeen Malik.

"While there is currently no evidence that Mr Marquez participated in the December 2 attack or had advance knowledge of it, his prior purchase of firearms and ongoing failure to warn authorities about Farook's intent to commit mass murder had fatal consequences," US Attorney Eileen Decker said.

According to the criminal complaint, Mr Marquez called emergency services hours after the San Bernardino shooting and told the dispatcher that the attackers "used my gun".

The charges against Enrique Marquez provide a chilling glimpse into an alleged terrorist cell on American soil.

According to the FBI, the details were obtained during 11 days of interviews with Mr Marquez in which he is said to have admitted his role in plotting murder.

Tomlinson Avenue in Riverside — where Mr Marquez and Syed Rizwan Farook once lived next door to one another — was the suburban street at the heart of the alleged plot.

It was here that Mr Marquez was introduced to Islam by Farook and it was here that the pair allegedly watched radical Islamist videos including lectures by a former Al Qaeda leader, Anwar Al-Awlaki.

Mr Marquez is also said to have viewed online videos produced by a "US-based tactical equipment manufacturer," to have trained at California gun ranges and to have studied an Al Qaeda magazine, written in English, on how to make bombs.

The extent of online plotting, undetected by the authorities, is sure to intensify the debate about the balance between liberty and security in the US.

Mr Marquez told authorities in detail about the earlier terrorist plots that were never carried out.

Mr Marquez and Farook planned to bomb a local university, where they had both been students, and shoot students as they ran away, according to court records.

They also had plans to attack a motorway during afternoon rush hour by dropping pipe bombs onto cars and shooting into cars and at law enforcement, the records said.
Although they did not explode, several pipe bombs were used in the San Bernardino attack.

Police killed Farook and his wife in a shootout a few hours after they open fired inside a holiday party attended by Farook's co-workers.

Mr Marquez told investigators he bought the weapons for Farook because he looked Caucasian while Farook looked Middle-Eastern.

In 2012, he and Farook visited firing ranges and continued to plot their attacks, authorities said, but then Marquez distanced himself from Farook, following the arrest of other suspected terrorists in the area.

Authorities also charged Mr Marquez with entering a sham marriage with Farook's relative so she could gain legal status in the US. He was paid each month for his participation in the sham, according to court records.

Federal agents raided his mother's home in Riverside, California, where he had been living, three days after the attack.

Mr Marquez worked as a security guard at Wal-Mart and dreamed of joining the US Navy, the Los Angeles Times reports.

He checked himself into a mental health facility shortly after the attack, posting a garbled message to Facebook: "I'm. Very sorry sguys. It was a pleasure."

Whatever. This is getting stupid. So apparently Farook recruited the help of some clueless idiot to help him out with "terrorism stuff". The media is reporting on this as if it was some more organized "terrorist cell", when in reality it just looks like a bunch of guys in California had big dreams about being the next Osama bin Laden, but didn't really amount to much.