Literary Corner: Tragic Event

 

A Tragic Event

By Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America

I think they had
a tragic event
in Buffalo.

Tragic event
in Buffalo with
numerous people being killed.

In 18 months in Afghanistan,
we lost nobody.

No, agreed, it's not funny.

I might as well note that, if he's really trying to brag about how he managed the US war against Afghanistan better than President Biden is managing the race war Trump is busy fomenting in New York State and elsewhere in the US, it wouldn't be true at all. The Trump administration was prosecuting a was in Afghanistan for all 48 months. Though the toll of dead American military was greatly reduced for its last 11 months, after the administration negotiated the surrender to the Taliban in February 2020 (leaving the Biden administration to carry the surrender terms out in August 2021, when the Taliban were unable to prevent their Qa'eda enemies from killing another 13 American soldiers), and included no further combat deaths, but I have no idea what "18 months" he would be talking about.

Via Wikipedia.

While the last year of stochastic terrorism on US soil under the Trump administration included 22 murders:

• Of the 7,750 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against persons in 2020, 53.1% were for intimidation, 27.9% were for simple assault, and 17.9% were for aggravated assault. Twenty-two (22) murders and 21 rapes were reported as hate crimes. The remaining 32 hate crime offenses were reported in the category of other.
• Of the 3,147 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against property, most (74.1%) were acts of destruction/damage/vandalism. Robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, and other offenses accounted for the remaining 25.9% of crimes against property.

That's following up on the 51 hate crime murders reported in 2019, including the killing of 22 in an El Paso Walmart in February in "response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas" (an imaginary invasion that was a big element of Trump's 2016 election campaign). 

Official statistics aren't out yet for 2021, but my impression is in spite of the horrific spike in hate crimes against Asian Americans and African Americans, there really have been fewer fatalities since President Biden took office (eight deaths last year from the Atlanta serial killer who claimed to be driven not by hate but by "sex addiction", three awful murders of women in New York City this year so far before Saturday's white nationalist massacre of 10 in Buffalo). It's idiotic trying to keep score anyway (remembering the times Norway and New Zealand jumped to the top of the world list), but I can't seem to help myself, sorry.

We interrupt this program

Friends and relatives outside Orlando Regional Medical Center waiting for news. Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP.

Again everything has to stop because something has happened so terrible it does not fit into our rational political discourse, a mass shooting at a club in Orlando, Florida, with a death toll so far (writing just after noon) upwards of 50. I'm following updates at The Guardian. The site was a gay club near downtown called Pulse. The shooter, who has been killed by police liberating the hostages he'd taken, was a 29-year-old American of Afghan roots from Fort Pierce, with the (yes, Muslim) name of Omar Mateen. Senator Nelson thought he had been told by the FBI that there was a suspected connection with ISIS, which he later corrected to "radicalism" of some unspecified kind and not necessarily any organization. Imam Muhammad Musri, president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, said:

I call on everybody in the community who has any info to please call the FBI share what you know. I call on my fellow faith leaders, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, whatever faith you follow, please pray for the victims and their families.

It’s supposed to be a beautiful morning but it is already an incredibly heartbreaking morning. It’s like lightning. This person is not likely to be connected to a network. I also want to caution the media from rushing to judgment and sensationalizing the story, we do not want the story to be shifted from the focus where it is.

It’s a horrible tragedy. We are mourning. We are sad. We are heartbroken. It’s not really time for any sensational news and rushing to judgment. As a nation we need to look at this issue of mass shootings, we just had one too many today.

That's the best I can do for now except to add that there is no value in hatred for any community of human beings, whether it is gay people or Muslims or anybody else, and that assault weapons of the type used by the shooter, with their diabolical efficiency, need to be banned.

Cross-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.