Man screaming "Allahu Akbar" attacks guardsmen... we may never know the motive (12-03-2025--Hour3)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all of the links, become a patron, go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. All Right, So I was on vacation last week, but I was following, obviously the news about the two National guardsmen that were shot in Washington, d C. One of whom passed away Army specialist Sarah Beckstrom. This was the day before Thanksgiving. The other victim, air Force staff Sergeant Andrew Wolf. I think I saw the latest report yesterday was that he that he was awake, He is in critical condition, he remains hospitalized, and so that's good news. The suspect, a fellow by the name of Rachmana la lacha laawah. I think is how he pronounces all of that, lakhanwa, lakanawa, lachanwaw Lackenwow, there we go that's probably yeah, that's probably it. He He was charged with murder as well as assault with intent to kill while armed. He's twenty nine years old. He's been ordered held without bond. During an initial court appearance that happened yesterday, he appeared virtually he was not there in the courtroom because he's still in the hospital because he got shot by law enforcement that was responding to his murdering of Army Specialist Ecstrum, twenty years old, and the attempted murder of Air Force Sergeant staff Sergeant Wolf. The magistrate judge that's overseeing the initial appearance said, or that did oversee the initial appearance, said that the government's case was quote exceedingly strong. According to the charging documents in the District of Columbia Superior Court, lock Awhall allegedly yelled a Loha snack bar or something that sounded something like that. It could be a llahu akbar, could also be that, in which case we may never know the motive. It's just a it's an enigma wrapped in a mystery, embedded in a riddle as to what may have motivated this guy. As he was screaming, Allahu akbar, this is from CBS news dot com and they helpfully point out that the phrase allahau wak bar is Arabic for God is great, see, and that's really all you need to know about that phrase. There's no other uh, no other uh context provided nothing else here from this uh you know Firefighter of Democracy that's reporting the story at CBS News. Uh. This has been going on for twenty five years, almost twenty five years, since nine to eleven, and since the latest phase, you know, bringing the Jihad to to the American shores. All of a sudden, we started hearing this phrase, a lahuak bar, a lahuac bars. People were, you know, beheading other people at the workplace or driving their vehicles through crowded streets during a parade. A lahaak bar, a lahauac bar. And we always got this same explanation and it has not changed. I've talked about this in different ways over the years. There are there are sort of templates that get written for stories that particularly for stories that have legs. As we would say in the industry in journalism, a story has legs means that you can do a bunch of different follow up stories to the initial report. Right, So the story has legs, so it will keep on moving throughout subsequent news cycles. Right, and so when you write the first draft of the very first story, you know, an event happens, and you're writing a story, you're going to use a lot of different words and to try to explain what's happening. Right, You've you probably don't have as much information because it's you know, a discrete event, and so you're just saying this thing happened, and so you have more space because you don't have a lot of details, So you have more space to try to explain the few details that you do have. But over time, as the story keeps moving and you keep getting more additions to the initial story, you end up with sort of a distilled down boilerplate language template that you can then use in every other story subsequently. And that's how narratives are calcified. That's how they stick. Okay, the initial version of a story may take three paragraphs to describe the event, but by the time you're in week two or year four, those three paragraphs have now been distilled down into one or two sentences, and that becomes the truth. That's the template, and that is what has occurred with a lahaakbar, which is the Arabic phrase for God is great, and that's it. You get no other context when we all know the context, right, we all understand what that means, but they don't want to say it. Well, why doesn't the media reporter here? Actually there's four reporters on this story from CBS News, four reporters and all they give us is God is great and that's what all huakbar means? Does it mean anything else? Is there a context in which somebody would be screaming it while they murder people? I know that that is true. They do. There is a connective tissue, if you will, that runs through attacks with this phrase. When people are launching attacks against other people and they're screaming a lat houakbar, it speaks to motive. There's also another element to the story that I have not seen anybody reported reporting on. It's not in this story. Did you see any of the images from the crime scene. I'm not talking about the victims, talking about the suspect, lock Awhaw. Did you see the picture of him being loaded into the ambulance? He was he was naked or darn close to it, I don't know. He may have been wearing like some jockeys or something, some briefs, I'm not sure, but because it was like a drone or helicopter overhead and they were loading him in and he had no pants on and he had no shirt on, and people were like, why is he naked? Now, there could be an explanation like maybe somebody law enforcement was there and they wanted to make sure that the guy didn't have like a bunch of explosives strapped to his body. Now, why would you make that kind of why would you leap to that kind of a conclusion, Right, couldn't you just search him, just pat him down, make sure that he doesn't have anything on him? Why would you have to strip him completely down in order to search for any weapons? And why would it be explosives per se? Well, that ties back to the use of the frame is Allahu ak Bar meaning God is great, and that's all right, there's something more to it. Or maybe they stripped him naked because they he had gotten shot and they were trying to, you know, perform all sorts of medical interventions to try to, you know, save his life, because that's what we do in the West. We shoot the suspects and then try to save their lives. So maybe that was it. Haven't seen any reporting on it. But there is another There is another potential explanation. See, when people yell Allahu akbar during the commission of a murderous rampage, they believe that. Oftentimes they believe that after they die in the assault, they will go immediately to a paradise where they get to have sex for the rest of their eternity. And so you want to be ready for when you roll in there. And this is actually pretty standard. People will get dressed up very nice or they strip down because they're like, you know, when I get there, I'm ready for action. Again, that's the connective tissue here to the allahuac bar phrase. But CBS doesn't tell you that. I'm telling you that I'm a giver. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. 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Call her text eight two eight, three, six, seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at Cabins Offashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. All right, back to the CBS story here about the National Guard shooting suspect who's now charged with murder. Being held without bond. Attorney General Pam Bondi said she's considering the death penalty for lock Amwall. Which, oh, by the way, I did get a text from j T who says, Pete, you get ninety nine percent of these pronunciations correct. The one that I think you need a little help with, though, is mom dummy or at least I think that's correct. That's good to know, Thank you, JT. I appreciate that. After the shooting, sources told CBS News that Lockenwall served on a CIA backed operations team for about eight years in Afghanistan and said he suffered from PTSD. He and his family fled Taliban threats in Afghanistan and were brought into the United States in twenty twenty one, and his asylum case was approved earlier this year. Over the weekend, Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noms suggested that he could have radicalized after he came to the US. Emails obtained by CBS also indicate that Lockenwal's mental health had deteriorated in recent years, and that he had become more isolated and detached from his family. The Trumpet Minute stration has cited the attack as reason to further expand its ongoing immigration crackdown, halting all visa and immigration processing for Afghan nationals and ordering a review of green card cases for immigrants from nineteen different countries. This from The New York Post. A leading national refugee agency, was warned multiple times that this shooter was spiraling into mania and mental illness, beginning in twenty twenty three. Despite this, and an alleged failure to maintain his mandated contact with state social services, he still managed to win asylum in April of this year. So, once again, as Brett Winterbole would say, the system failed. A system failed, right, that's going to be the explanation for this. And I know right now there are you know, people trying to blame Joe Biden. Other people are trying to blame Donald Trump because you know, the guy fled Afghanistan during the calamitous fall as we as we left and we were trying to get everybody out and we couldn't vet everybody sufficiently. And they're like, this is on Biden. And then the Biden defender's like, nah uh, Trump drew up the plan and then h uh, he was here in America and he got his asylum approved in this year a couple months ago in April. So it's on Trump. So everybody's trying to blame like the President for this guy being here and for his actions. But the mental health part of this is real, and I'm not saying that as like this guy, you know, if they put you know, they put him to death. Like I'm not going I'm not going to shed any tears for him because like the stuff that I've come across so far indicates that, yeah, like he he he was not assimilating. And I'm going to get into the CIA connection here as well. So he was supposed to be staying in contact with state social services and he wasn't. He had his his his handlers, the people that were here that were like helping him assimilate, an integrate or whatever, giving him, you know, access to the services and you know, lining them up with jobs to take and stuff that. Like they got emails that were like this guy is he's you know, the the cheese is sliding off the cracker with this guy, but he still gets asylum. Why his behavior was so disturbing that a local community advocate reached out to a refugee organization for help. According to emails that the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants had and were apparently seen by the Associated Press. This is called the us CRI, the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. One of the emails said, rachman Aha has not been functional as a person, father and provider since March of last year. This so that would have been twenty twenty three, So this has been going on for over a year. He quit his job that month and his behavior has changed greatly, said one community member. In January of twenty twenty four, the community member said he feared that Lackenwaal had become suicidal. He reportedly struggled to assimilate. He failed to hold down a steady job. He did not commit to learning English. He would go through periods of dark isolation and what they called reckless travel. He would spend weeks in a darkened room, not speaking to anyone, not even his wife or his older children. If only there were signs, you know. Stories are powerful. 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They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit creativideo dot com. So the New York Post reporting that the gunman who murdered a National guardsman and attempted to murder a second the day before Thanksgiving up in Washington, d C. Had all sorts of mental health problems. These periods of dark isolation, reckless travel, as it was described, he would just take off driving during these manic episodes, he would take off in the family car, drive non stop, leaving for up to two weeks at a time on his own, going as far as Chicago or Arizona. The shooter also failed to stay in contact with the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, which was required of him by the terms of his entry into the US. They did say that, you know, he would, for you know, a short period of time, a couple of weeks, he would, you know, do the right things, but then he would descend again into these manic episodes. In these emails that the Associated Press obtained, his when his wife would leave him with the kids for a week while she traveled to visit relatives, his children would go to school unwashed and in dirty clothes, without having eaten well. The children's school raised concerns about his behavior, and the family even faced eviction at one point in twenty twenty three after months of not paying the rent. Now the USCRI this the immigration relocation folks. They tried to visit him and his family back in March of twenty four, but it's unclear whether anybody reported the mental distress to immigration authorities or to law enforcement. Right so, there were all of these signs. Now, this guy got into America along with his family because he worked with the CIA during the war in Afghanistan. He was a member of what is called a zero unit. I had never heard this term before, the zero unit. I'll tell you what that is here in a minute. The Washington Post, they reported that he appeared to struggle to adapt to his new circumstances and refused to take many of the entry level jobs available to him as a recent immigrant. These guys were elite soldiers who had a career and homes in Afghanistan, but when they came here they lost everything. They're told, you need to work, but they don't have the skills. This according to a former senior Afghan commander now living in the US who did not know the shooter personally, but has extensive contacts in the Afghan refugee commute unity, including with other former zero unit fighters. This guy said quote, they're not ready to just integrate themselves into the community. Okay, well, I feel like that's part of the deal though. Right, you're worried that you worked with the CIA, you worked with the Americans, and so now you're worried that when the American When America leaves and the Taliban takes over again, now you're worried that they're going to come after you in retribution for you going after them, right, so you flee. But part of that deal is that when you come to America, you integrate into America. I don't know, like, what did you think you were going to do when we brought you here, that you were just going to live on the dole not after work, or maybe like continue to do these nighttime raids on behalf of the CIA against Americans or something like what exactly what were your expectations. They're just not ready to integrate into the community. So the zero units thousands of Afghans. This is, by the way, a story from NBC News back in twenty twenty three. Okay, thousands of Afghans who fought under the command of the CIA for years and provided security for American intel officers say they face a debilitating legal limbo in the US and are appealing to Congress and the Biden administration for help again twenty twenty three. August twenty ninth, twenty twenty three, about ten thousand to twelve thousand members of the Afghan National Strike unit, a clandestine force known as the Zero Units. They were evacuated from Afghanistan when the US military withdrew from the country in August of twenty twenty one, but their two year work permits in the US are due to expire within days or weeks, and these veterans worry they will no longer be able to support their families, and some worry that the work they did for the CIA may even be hurting their chances of getting green cards. So we brought them over here and just gave them a two year work permit. That's that was the plan. Nasir Adar, a veteran of the force, said his comrades are struggling with depression as the clock ticks on their work permits. Quote, some of them are feeling hopeless. They don't know what to do. This was two years ago. At least two veterans from the CIA trained force have taken their own lives since arriving in the US, according to Andar and other advocates at Famil or Femil, the nonprofit that's trying to help these Afghan veterans since they arrived. Most of the veterans of the force have not received special immigrant US visas which were created for Afghans and Iraqis who worked for the US government. Without those visas, the veterans cannot apply for Green cards, leaving them in a legal gray zone. So yet another way that the pullout of Afghanistan was botched. Like, that's what this is obviously telling me is that this is yet another example of how the Biden administration screwed this up. Seriously, you were supposed to get one kind of visa, and you didn't get that kind of visa, so they just handed out work permits. And to be fair, the Biden administration was handing out work permits to like millions of people. So maybe they're just like, look, we got all these extra work permits, We're just going to give them to you, you know. But the problem is that if you go to apply for the Green card and you start answering the questionnaire. One of the questions is have you ever received any type of military, paramilitary or weapons training? And you answer yes from your CIA, and now your application just it just dies like nothing happens. This is what they were saying. When they answer yes to that question and similar questions, their applications never seem to advance through the bureaucracy. Advocates for the Afghan veterans say the bureaucratic process has proven frustrating and that standard questions for green card applications do not take into account their unusual circumstances having been drained by the CIA as operators, right, these are veterans. According to Geta Bekshi, a former CIA officer who worked with the National Strike Unit in Afghanistan, said, these are veterans who should be celebrated in America. I could never have imagined that they'd be so disadvantaged by our bureaucratic processes. Really, you never thought our bureaucracy at America would disadvantage people. This is America, like this is It's pretty far for the course, I would think. Advocates for the Zero Unit veterans say they were heavily vetted before they even joined the force for any possible terrorism links, and regularly underwent security checks, a level of screening that interpreters for the US military and other Afghan employees were never subjected to. And this raises there's a question about you know, well, is this an example of what you may remember was called green on blue attacks, where you know people that were trained up by the US military to be part of the Afghan army, and then they would, you know, go and attack the Americans green on blue attacks. But according to this report, in the entire twenty year war, members of the zero Units never launched an attack on their US advisors. They have no reported incidents of that occurring with these Zero Unit guys. Such Green on Blue attacks against Americans became frequent occurrences among Afghan recruits to the army and to the police force, but never the Zero Units. All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check Dot Ground, dot News slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. The Zero Units in Afghanistan, these guys were They were locals, They were Afghans. They were trained in the overseen by the CIA. They operated under a veil of secrecy. During the war. They would conduct combat operations and secure intelligence outposts. According to NBC News story from two years ago, even now, US officials cannot explicitly acknowledge the connection between the CIA and the Zero Units because it's all still classified the force. The Zero Units played a crucial role in the US led effort to weaken al Qaeda after the attacks of September eleventh, two thousand and one, and as its troop presence was scaled back, the US increasingly relied on these Zero Units to safeguard US and coalition personnel, including at the Kabl Airport in the final days of the twenty year US presence, So they were helping to provide the security at the airport that was then attacked and we lost thirteen service members. Right, the Zero Units have faced scrutiny over their operations. Human rights organizations accused these troops of committing abuses and maybe war crimes, including extra judicial executions, as well as at tax on medical facilities. However, Afghan veterans of the force, as well as former CIA officers who worked with the Zero Units, they say that's not true. They say the Zero Units were trained in the laws of armed conflict and that each operation was carefully vetted beforehand. But some former CIA officers are worried that the allegations of abuses could undermine or delay the effort to resolve the legal status of the Afghan veterans. So this has been going on for four years. Right, These people who became part of the CIA Zero Unit operators, they've been trying to get their paperwork in order to remain and they've been unable to do so because of the federal government bureaucracy. CIA spokesperson said that there's a false narrative that exists about these forces that has persisted over the years due to a systemic propaganda campaign by the Taliban, which makes sense, right, if that's true, that makes sense. The Taliban would be very angry at the zero Units because the Zero Units were working with the CIA to take out the Taliban, So that does make some sense. And of course anybody who opposes, you know, the Afghan war, they would also then, you know, want to believe that these allegations are true. I don't know if they're true or not. I have no idea how many zero units there are. All that stuff is classified, and the CIA is saying no, no, no, they never did any of these abuses, nothing like that ever happened. And yeah, but you're the CIA, so like, I'm not really, I'm not really going to believe what you tell me because you're the CIA. You guys are trained specifically to lie about things and to misdirect stuff. So I don't know if that's true either. However, I will point out against all of this backdrop that beginning December first, teachers and staff and even volunteers in North Carolina private schools are now allowed to conceal carry at the schools. This is a new state law that supporters say will enhance security. Critics say it'll endanger students. It could endanger them. House Bill one ninety three became law back in July after the legislature overrode the governor's veto on this. This is not for public schools. This is only for private schools. Right. The bill went into effect on Monday. The measure allows private schools to permit employees and volunteers to carry concealed on campus. Proponents of this bill said, look, these are small schools, they're private schools. They cannot afford security, and so this is the only way that they're going to be able to provide armed security on campus. Think in you know, Jewish schools, for example, might want to consider, you know, having some armed guards at the school. It's very expensive. So if you can get people to volunteer and theyre concealed carry permit holder and you put them through some extra training, right, You've got to have written authorization from the school's board of trustees or administrative director. You have to have a valid concealed handgun permit. You have to complete eight hours of annual training in gun safety and appropriate firearm use. And that is in addition to what is already required to obtain the concealed carry permit. Right, and so this is a way that people said, look, we want to allow schools to provide this kind of security, and so this was the way they went about doing it. A lot of schools they're small, they only have a couple dozen students, they don't have the money to hire professional security. The volunteer approach allows schools to enhance security without additional cost. Then, of course the gun control advocates, or as the WC and C report calls them, gun safety advocates, they say there could be unintended consequences. Well, yes, as with all laws, I assume there could be. All Right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to vpetecalanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone,