This is a mirror of a post at Gates of Vienna. It is an important issue and so is mirrored in full
The Baron has responded again to yet another commenter who left a link to yet another assertion that the Germanwings co-pilot who deliberately crashed the plane was a convert to Islam.
BB says:
Jim Hoft, like everyone else, is sourcing his post to Michael Mannheimer, who is well-respected. However, this is Mannheimer’s only source.
Mr. Mannheimer made a mistake when he based his assertion on that post. It provides the flimsiest of evidence — virtually non-existent. This story is being spun out of less than gossamer. If it is ever definitively refuted, it will discredit everyone who jumped on it.
I still think there’s a fair possibility that the guy was a convert. But we have no evidence to support it yet, NONE. The fact that he lived in Marseille and Bremen and suffered from depression proves nothing.
People need to be more careful in their assertions, and label outright speculation clearly as such.
This “co-pilot = Muslim” meme is reminiscent of that old childhood game “Telephone”. Do you remember when kids sat in a circle and one person was chosen to whisper into the ear of the child next to him some random sentence? That child in turn whispered it to the one next to him and so on, till it came to the last person in the circle. He would then repeat what he’d heard and the child next to him, who’d said the original sentence, would repeat that starter statement. The ending was so garbled compared to the beginning that the participants would have a real ROFL moment before beginning another round. [In their games, children are pretty good rule enforcers. The implicit rule here was to repeat as faithfully as possible what you thought you’d heard; it was no fun if spoilers just made up something.]
On Twitter this morning the same thing was going on. One fellow, John Galt, proposed there was no Islam involved and I agreed with him. A third person said we were wrong so I asked him for sourced information. I don’t understand his non-sequitur response. Maybe it was a form of “shut up”??
Here’s the screen cap. See for yourself: