Threats Over the Horizon

America has had a rough start to 2025.

Shamsud Din-Jabbar, a 42 year-old Texas man, drove a rented truck into a crowd in New Orleans, killing 14 and injuring 30 others. After leaving the vehicle, he opened fire on police, but was shot dead. Police say he had also placed explosives, concealed in coolers near the Bourbon Street precinct but thankfully, failed to detonate them. Police found explosives and an ISIS flag in his vehicle.

According to Acadiana news sites, Din-Jabbar’s grandparents were black Creole born in Louisiana, but his father changed the family name when he converted to Islam. Din-Jabbar had recently converted to Islam himself, leaving social media posts pledging allegiance to the Salafi Muslim group, Islamic State. ISIS “pines to imitate the earliest days of Islam”, explains A S Ibrahim, where followers “launched attacks against non-Muslims, occupying lands and massacring enemies”, actions which are “not despised but rather sacred and to be emulated by believers.” ISIS calls on adherents to come up with their own terrorist plans, wherever they are. Din-Jabbar had posted about his desire to kill his family and others.

As with many tragedies recently, there were warnings that were ignored. Media analysis pointed out that Homeland Security had warned a year ago that American cities weren’t prepared for “soft” attacks such as this. Bollards to prevent drivers turning down Bourbon Street had been removed for repair months ago. Police had parked a squad car to act as a barricade, but the attacker drove around on the pavement. Independent media were also quick to suggest the New Orleans Police Department may be a touch distracted with woke policies. Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick has a motley record of service in Baltimore and Chicago and instructs trainees in Bias and Diversity.

Over in Las Vegas, a man identified as 37 year-old as Matthew Livelsberger, a Green Beret from Colorado, set off explosives inside a rented Tesla Cybertruck parked outside Trump International Hotel. Investigators say Livelsberger fatally shot himself before the truck became engulfed in flames. Only Livelsberger died but seven other people were injured.

According to family, Livelsberger was a fan of Donald Trump and loved America. One friend told reporters his “behavior changed after he returned from a tour in the Middle East suffering from a traumatic brain injury in 2019.” In a note left behind, which police made partially public, he wrote of his apparent suicide: “I needed to cleanse my mind of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.” While much was made online of the Musk/Trump connection, it may just have been part of his stated desire to issue a “wake up call” about the “collapse of America”. “Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives?” he wrote.

As is natural in the face of such horror, the routine of asking ‘why’ begins and everyone tries to find the pattern, the explanation. The amount of similarities between the attackers is puzzling enough. Both men were military veterans. Both had rented cars. Both had traveled to carry out their attacks. Both had been stationed at Fort Bragg at one time (although, it is a massive place, as I’ve been told). Both had relationship trouble and Din-Jabbar, at least, was in financial difficulty. But this could all be coincidence.

No doubt, there is an Islamic threat that Washington elites have failed to acknowledge. Journalist Matthew Continetti connects President Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, open borders policies and much-too-faint criticism of pro-Hamas campus “tentifada” with hostilities on our home soil. With Syria now in political flux, threats from ISIS operatives might increase. “This aimlessness and passivity [among our leaders] create openings for terrorists. It gives them the sense of impending victory.”

On cue, a march celebrating the New Orleans attack was held in New York just hours later. And as if to illustrate Continetti’s point, some news outlets blamed the military as the most radicalizing influence on men, not Islam! But you only need to look across the pond to the United Kingdom to see what happens when leaders are too cowardly to call out Muslims for fear of looking like racists.

Another conversation worth having is about the way America lets its veterans fall through the cracks. You don’t have to look far to find someone cataloging the terrible treatment and lack of resources provided for those who return wounded in their minds and bodies after fighting abroad. While many vets who despair of life or question what they fought for do so privately, it makes sense that some wish to make society aware of the pain they are in.

But even beneath all that, whether the violence of Islamic teachings or a broken soldier’s loss of hope, there is a nebulous evil in the form of nihilism which is driving people mad. British consultant Chris Bayliss notes that many terrorist attacks today are not even carried out in the name of a specific cause. Dislocated men (usually) whether immigrant (often) or native are enticed with the intangible offer of community by a digital ecosystem or foreign ideology. Engaging with their physical world in violence “is the ultimate expression of contempt and resentment for a society they do not understand, and feel no connection to.” Men who have been pushed aside by a globally-focused apparatus feel there is no recourse in the face of bureaucratic power – where do they go for hope or justice? Bayliss says an “unpredictable brand of nihilism is being incubated amidst the deracinated cosmopolitanism of post-2015 Europe.” Is America destined to follow suit?

We live in an age where threats unimagined by our forefathers exist. Dangers both faceless and nameless press in in ways we can’t understand and we have no solution. But we do have hope. The answer is always Jesus. The light is always in His saints and in His church. Life is always found in His Word and sacraments. The hope for mankind is always in his birth, death and resurrection. The work is always slow and generally unspectacular but the harvest is sure. In this world we will have tribulation, but we are ever called to be ready to give an account for the hope we have. Seek out the broken, build a community, raise your family and boldly live your faith. We cannot stop the world from its destruction, but we may pull some out of the fire.