After discovering the word “Ismail Ax” on the arm of the Virginian killer, the bright minds of the blogosphere quickly identified the name as being part of the opening sentence of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. “This is an obvious reference to the book,” said one blogging anti-Herman harridan. “They hate our way of life and our civilisation. They want to wind back the clock on American literature to the 19th century. We are engaged in an existential struggle with readers of Moby Dick.”
Actually, I jest. Some of the bright minds of the blogosphere did react to the name scrawled on the man’s arm, in the only way they knew how: by trying to cobble together some sort of link between the tragic murders and the War on Terror. “Was the killer an Islamist?” Well, Ismail is indeed a Muslim and/or Arab name and, let’s face the awful truth, Korean is just one letter short from Koran. And that’s pretty damning evidence in the bizarro world that some of these bloggers seem to inhabit.
On that note, the Herald Sun are reporting today:
There was speculation it could be a reference to a Muslim girl in Indonesia he was said to have befriended online or to a cultist focus on Islam and assassins.
Where did this speculation come from? Well, Reason Magazine’s excellent Hit and Run blog has the scoop on that particular meme:
“2005 Weblog Award Finalist” and C-list pundit Debbie Schlussel once again beat the Em-Ess-Em to the punch. This time, she has scooped Cho Seung-Hui’s connection to global jihad. Seems that with the help of other anti-jihadists, Debbie (as well as the equally loathsome Pamela Geller Oshry ) sleuthed her way to to the obscure Flickr account of a Muslim Indonesian woman who goes by the name “Eldarossell.” After baiting her readers with a completely gratuitous picture of one of Eldarossel’s female friends wrapped in an Islamic head dressing, Schlussel moves in for the kill. She next shows a picture of a South Korean friend of Eldarossell’s named Cho Seung Hoo (as opposed to “Hui”). Eldearossel befriended Hoo while he was studying computer science in Indonesia. While there, he took the name “Ishmael.” It’s not at all uncommon for Asian people to adopt local names while visiting foreign countries.
Read the entire post.
UPDATE: It’s Attack of the Libertarians, it seems, with Antiwar.com’s Justin Raimondo also commenting on Schlussel in his own inimitable style:
The news that the Lone Nut had the words “Ismail Ax” written on his arm when he died provoked a paroxysm of hope in the hearts of our haters. And, naturally, Debbie Schlussel beat Ann Coulter and her imitators to the punch. Debbie is a bleach-blonde triple-D-cup bimbo-pundit who sounds like a New York Post editorial and looks like someone with second billing at a tenderloin strip joint. She’s been peddling her … shtick for years as the neocons’ Madame Defarge, and if there’s anything she hates more than peaceniks it’s Muslims, to whom she attributes a great deal of the world’s ills. Debbie latched onto this “Ismail” meme like a barracuda on a diver’s leg. Having googled the killer’s name, Cho Seung-hui, she came upon some Flickr photos — posted by an Indonesian woman, in an album titled “My Family” — of someone with a very similar name, who also went under the name “Ismail.” She posted all the photos on her blog, and asked: “Is This ‘Ismail’ Cho Seung-Hui?”
Short answer: No. To begin with, the killer and this “Ismail” don’t look anything like each other. You would have to really want to believe they’re the same person in order to defy the visual evidence that they are two different people. Secondly, the woman who posted the photos, and who knows the person involved, has denied it is the same person, asked people to stop harrassing both her and the other “Ismail,” and is clearly (and justifiably) horrified by the unwanted attention.
9 comments ↓
On his video, Cho compares himself to Jesus Christ and the crucifixion.
That’s funny, because Islam doesn’t believe Jesus was crucified. They believe that he lived until old age, and died peacefully.
Could it be that Cho was a Christian who believed in the “end times”, and wanted to be martyred for Christ? Most of these end time nuts rail against hypocrisy, hedonism, liberalism, and consider non-psycho Christians as false.
We have a couple of posts related to this event:
Waleed Shaalan- A Tribute to a Muslim Hero at Virginia Tech [5 UPDATES]
Virginia Tech Tragedy, One Muslim Brother Dead. [5 UPDATES]== talking about some of the conspiracy theories.
Salaam,
He ranted about a lot of things. According to msnbc, the writing on his arm was “Ismael Ax”, not Ismail, and the return address on the package was to “A Ishmael.” In one part of his rantings he said “thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people.” He references the Columbine shooters. He rants against his rich classmates.
What I can gather from all this is……the man was severely mentally ill. Or clearly a jihadist. You know, either one.
This is a great summary, mashallah.
I was shocked that within a day of the tragedy, people were finding ways to link it to Muslims, or should I say “Islamists”?
It’s at least of some comfort that the blogosphere has its share of posts rejecting such links, going so far as to show how these erroneous ideas spread like wildfire, and also illustrating what happens when you leave the simple-minded unattended on the net.
[...] Update: Please check this post at Austrolabe for a good analysis of the Ismail ax thing. [...]
Hi .. I’m Eldarossell , the one who had been mentioned above.
I’m glad that now everybody understand that my friend is not the shooter and that there’s no connection between the murder and I.
Joey: you are right about Islam doesn’t believe Jesus was crucified. But not about he lived until old age, and died peacefully. We believe that he was lift up to heaven by God.
[...] Originally Posted by MossadConspiracy If he believes that mass murderers are mind controlled robots under the command of aerospace corporations because they played a certain type of video game and took SSRIs….. then he’s a moron ws Heres an interesting thought though… I know some people on this message board were personally and directly effected by the massacre because they attend Virginia Tech and knew some of the people who were murdered. I wonder if they will receive these idiotic half backed conspiracy fantasies differently when they are about a tragedy that had a personal impact on their lives allahu a3lam ws It may be a stupid theory, but its better than the ridiculous bull**** people like Debbie Slutschel are trying to push. They’ve been trying to make Cho into a Muslim(even though several Muslims were murdered by him). __________________ "Whoever builds his faith exclusively on demonstrative proofs and deductive arguments, builds a faith on which it is impossible to rely. For he is affected by the negativities of constant objections. Certainty does not derive from the evidences of the mind but pours out from the depths of the heart."-Shaykh al-Akbar, Ibn Arabi (Rahmatullah Alayhi) [...]
[...] Peter Black noted another subtle shift in news reporting: for the first time – in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings – MSM outlets purchased sponsored keyword google ads that ensured they weren’t bumped down the list. Ads aside, there’s never any shortage of loopy amateur psychology in the MSM, and Muslim blog Austrolabe discusses a particularly noxious example: the fact that killer Cho Seung-Hui had an allegedly Islamic name scrawled on his arm, and signed the narcissistic little package he sent to NBC as ‘A Ishmael’. Also in the wake of this psychological theorizing, Legal Eagle reflects on mental health issues, and the difficult balancing act between privacy and protection confronting us now. [...]
Truly Bizzare
Regards
Matt Stone
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