The December 2, 2015, killings of 14 people in San Bernardino, California, by Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, is the sort of story that garners the label “only in America,” with plot twists that include arranged marriage, Facebook jihad, and irrelevant gun laws. It also includes Enrique Marquez, Jr., an Hispanic-American.
Farook and Malik died shortly after the massacre in a shoot-out with police, leaving Marquez as the face of the crime. A Facebook image of him with a funny grin under his widow’s peak was featured in many stories. He allegedly wrote to someone in a Facebook chat on November 5, almost a month earlier, “Involved in terrorist plots, drugs, anti-social behavior, marriage, might go to prison for fraud, etc.”
The FBI’s December 17 criminal complaint against Marquez is chilling reading, a disturbing glimpse into what’s going on in America right under our noses. Based mainly on Marquez’s own voluntary confession, it details how Farook, in 2005,
introduced Marquez to Islam and began educating Marquez about religion. . . . In 2007, Marquez converted to Islam. Shortly thereafter, Farook introduced Marquez to radical Islamic ideology . . . discussing the extremist views of now-deceased imam and Islamic lecturer Anwar al-Aulaqi.
Al-Aulaqi (also rendered “Awlaki”)...