LA Times goes all root causes on US consul attackers

Gee, Officer Krupke. They're depraved on account they're deprived.

Attackers of U.S. Consulate in Turkey shared a bleak background

Their profiles are similar to those of young men involved in Al Qaeda-inspired attacks: uneducated, poor, not known to be devout until they met a charismatic 'elder brother.'

Boo-hoo. The poor attackers included: A former goat herder with a grade school education and two textile workers, one who is believed to have trained in Afghanistan and one, whose family claimed was 'mentally unbalanced'.

Boo-hoo-hoo.

The drab, run-down district where the attackers lived is a world apart from the deep-blue Bosporus, the chic cafes, the minarets and monuments of tourist Istanbul, though the city center is only a 40-minute drive away. Tens of thousands of economic migrants from Turkey's poorest corners have come here to seek better lives. Often, they find only greater hardship.

Boo-freaking-hoo. No mention is made of the real root cause: ISLAM.

They do manage to work the anti-America angle, though...

The attack galvanized anti-American sentiment that is never far from the surface here. One of the police officers wounded in the attack, Osman Dagli, said he tried to take shelter in the consulate after he was hit, but the doors were not opened to him.

The U.S. ambassador, Ross Wilson, said American security staff did aid the injured policemen. But the consulate goes into a state of automatic lockdown at the first sign of attack, and no consulate guards came outside during the gunfight.

Dagli, who killed two of the attackers before running out of bullets, told Turkish newspapers that consular officials sent him flowers in the hospital but that he refused to accept them.

I don't know about you, but it sounds to me like the Turkish guards were woefully unprepared and ill trained. In this 9/11 world you'd think more professional security precautions would already be in place at our consuls and embassies around the world.

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