Plano, Texas is one of the most conservative cities in America, typically coming in among the top ten when data-based analyses are performed. That does not mean, despite the expectations of some, that bigotry is encouraged. Quite the opposite, as one city councilman learned; he now faces a recall election after a Facebook post asking people to respond if they thought President Trump should ban Islam (NBC).
His recall just became considerably more uncertain as the people of Plano were reminded of how destructive Islamists can be. From the Dallas News:
A Plano West Senior High School student was arrested on suspicion of making an ISIS-inspired plan to commit a mass shooting at Frisco’s Stonebriar Centre mall with help from others, authorities announced Wednesday.
Authorities say Azizi-Yarand was planning to carry out the attack in mid-May. He had sent more than $1,400 to others to buy weapons and tactical gear. He had also written a “Message to America” explaining his reasons for the attack.
The timing of the proposed attack was simple: he wanted it to occur during Ramadan, the Islamic commemoration of the birth of the Koran. The religious element also played a part in his choice of target; he reportedly initially bypassed school shootings because they might have devout muslims present, finally settling on a mall where, in his mind, devout muslims would not be present during Ramadan.
From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
Last December, less than a month after he turned 17, Azizi-Yarand began communicating with an FBI source online and via a mobile messaging application, according to the FBI’s arrest affidavit.
“Look at all the other lone wolves,” Azizi-Yarand said, according to the affidavit. “What training did they have, yet they simply killed the kuffar?”
“Kuffar” is Arabic for “disbelievers.”
Thinking he was communicating with a fellow Islamist, and not an FBI agent, he expounded:
Azizi-Yarand allegedly told the source he was reading ISIS magazine guides “for performing operations and making bombs.”
“I want to put America in the state that Europe is in, which is having to have soldiers deployed in streets,” Azizi-Yarand said, according to the affidavit.
Thankfully, he was stopped. He’s currently facing up to life in prison if found guilty of all charges.
Strangely, however, the story has received virtually no national attention – despite it having a terrorism connection and being planned as a mass shooting in addition to a bombing. This story undermines the narrative that guns, not insanity or ideology, are the biggest threat. It also risks bringing Islam under scrutiny, at a time when the legality of a travel ban is before the Supreme Court.
I believe that the majority of Americans can differentiate between, as an example, the Iranian muslim who fled the rise of fanaticism in her home country and has become a teacher or doctor in America and the jihadi who defends the murder of children by those same Islamist fanatics. It’s for that reason that I believe the councilman may still be recalled.
By failing to promote coverage of averted attacks, however, it seems as if many story editors in television and the press do not share my faith in the American people.
