So I am among those who think Oswald acted alone. I kind of look down on people who insist it was the Russians, or the CIA, or Lyndon Johnson, or whomever. How about some evidence? The views of the conspiracy theorists, with all the bizarre moving parts that fit together to form a kind of Rube Goldberg machine in the mind, seem to me so preposterous that the problem becomes to account for why millions can't accept the simple truth. And my theory about that is that something in the psychology of people rebels at the notion that one crazy guy with a rifle can slip away from work, climb some stairs, arrange some boxes by a window, and perform a world historical act. According to the Warren Commission, that's the conclusion to be drawn from the evidence--but, of course, the Warren Commission was itself part of the conspiracy! When people want to believe something, there's no stopping them.
Which brings me to Omar Mateen and the mass murder last weekend at Pulse, a gay club in Orlando. So far, the evidence indicates we have a disturbed guy with a gun acting alone and performing a horrific crime. To shoot more than a hundred people, killing 49, you don't need to be directed by a terrorist organization. An AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle is helpful, however. Yes, he apparently "pledged allegiance" to ISIS in the 911 call he placed during the killing spree. But he has expressed sympathy for an array of terrorist organizations, including some that are mortal enemies of each other. On the evidence, he's a confused loner attempting to aggrandize his dark psychology by associating it with a terror group. According to his father, he hated homosexuals. According to regulars at Pulse, he was himself a semiregular. According to his ex-wife, he was violent and abusive. According to acquaintances, he sometimes messaged them on a gay hook-up app to which he subscribed. According to the director of the CIA, there is no link between him and ISIS.
In other words, he is a garden-variety psychological wreck, not an ISIS killer.
ISIS is the obvious winner. It doesn't even have to do anything to cause Americans to flip out. John McCain says Obama made Mateen do it--I guess we should be thankful that so far his running mate hasn't weighed in. (Oh, no, I see now that she has!) Donald Trump says the killing rampage proves we can't let in Muslim immigrants. Since Trump and the killer were born in the same New York City borough, the logic is foggy. A better prescription might be an updated version of what the British government recommended during the blitz: Keep calm, mourn the dead, carry on, and remember to vote against candidates who want to keep it easy to pick up a Subway and an AR-15 over the lunch break.
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