Hat Tip: Free Republic
1. Cho’s father lived in Saudi Arabia as a young, single man. His sister works for a State Department contractor which oversees billions of dollars of aid for Iraq. Previously, she worked in Bangkok.
2. Both of Cho’s plays are about sexual abuse. Bangkok is a city famous for its sex trade, which caters especially to Muslim businessmen.
3. Cho’s rampage was on Holocaust Remembrance day. Although probably a happenstance, one of the professors he killed was a Jewish holocaust survivor.
4. Cho used the pseudonym Ismael Ax. Ismael (or, Ismail) is the son of Abraham who became the ancestor of all Arabs, as opposed to Israel who became ancestor of all Jews. Although there are many Western references to this person, and many literary characters named “Ishmael,” that spelling is Hebraic. “Ismael” or “Ismail” is uniquely Arabic. Ismaili is also a branch of Shiite Islam.
5. In each play, Cho’s characters rant about the horrible decadence of American life. Targets include McDonalds, the Roman Catholic church, Michael Jackson and the NFL.
6. Cho is from Fairfax County, Virginia. This is also the home of 1 in 8 Virginians, but it is also the home of Yong Ki Kwon, a 29-year-old graduate of Virginia Tech, who, like Cho, is also from South Korea. Kwon was convicted of terrorism, one of the so-called “paintball Jihadis,” who practiced massacres with paintball guns.
Draw your own conclusions, but for me the answer is clear: he was inpired by islam, pure and simple.
-MZ
