San Bernardino Shooter was Radicalized by Wife

San Bernardino Shooter Radicalized by Wife

Entrenched stereotypes about Muslim women's lack of agency are hampering the FBI investigation into the San Bernardino attack.   The psychopath in this week's mass murder in which fourteen people in San Bernardino, California were killed and seventeen others wounded was Syed Rizwan Farook's wife, Tashfeen Malik.      The husband, on the other hand, was just a weak-minded (and probably passive aggressive man), drawn into her world of grievances and adventure by the lonely search for a sexual partner.

I won't speculate as to whether Ms. Malik was an operative of ISIS, but I will lay out what probably happened in this case.  Two years ago, Syed Farook decided to get married.   Lacking the requisite social skills needed to find what he hoped to be a virgin, on his own, he signed up with several Muslim dating sites.  Malik was laying in wait. 

The reason law enforcement officials are having trouble piecing this story together is because they're unable to fathom how a young woman would marry, get pregnant and leave a six month old child in order to die in a burst of gunfire.  But the reality is that she didn't intend to die. She merely underestimated the skill of her adversary in finding her.  Building a family was, or so she thought, the perfect cover for creating a Bonnie and Clyde-type existence, in which massacring people, then fading back into the landscape of a Muslim woman's veiled privacy, matched a warped, thrill-seeking personality.  

Perhaps the FBI should work more closely with the CIA, in order to grasp the true nature of radical Islam.  The spy agency could certainly educate American law enforcement officials to the fact that hundreds of young women with Tashfeen Malik's psychological profile have been flocking to radical groups. They are trying  to escape what they perceive to be the death-like boredom of traditional Muslim female life.  Not surprisingly, the lives of many of these young women end up badly.  Take for example the case of the two young Austrian Muslim women, who ran off to join ISIS. One was killed in fighting, while they other was beaten to death when she changed her mind and tried to escape the religious cartel's grip.     According to an article in The New York Times:

Many are single and young, typically in their teens or early 20s (the youngest known was 13). Their profiles differ in terms of socioeconomic background, ethnicity and nationality, but often they are more educated and studious than their male counterparts. Security officials now say they may present as much of a threat to the West as the men: Less likely to be killed and more likely to lose a spouse in combat, they may try to return home, indoctrinated and embittered.

UPDATE:  I just came across the following CNN report, confirming my suspicious.  It states that the wife, Tashfeen Malik, had pledged allegiance to ISIS.