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Backlash Hogwash
· Tuesday, November 10, 2009
"U.S. Homeland Security officials are working with groups around the United States to head off any possible anti-Muslim backlash following the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas."
The Department of Homeland Security is in good company in its confusion. Gen. George Casey, the Army's top general, also worried that "this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And I've asked our Army leaders to be on the lookout for that." And President Obama cautioned against "jumping to conclusions."
The backlash trope is trotted out after every episode of terrorist violence. But it is as false as it is dangerous. This image of a nation on a hair trigger for violence against Muslims is a calumny. Even in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, though millions were inflamed by grief and outrage, there was no broad-based "backlash" against Muslim Americans. There were a handful of crimes including the murder of a Sikh who may have been mistaken for a Muslim, a few broken windows, some insults, and some hurt feelings. But the overwhelming majority of Americans did not seek out scapegoats, nor engage in vigilantism.
The repeated invocation of this libel has had an effect, though. It has succeeded in intimidating many Americans about the proper bounds of discussion. Gen. Casey reinforces this timidity when he frets that "our diversity" may be a casualty of the attack at Fort Hood. He and the Obama administration are obscuring the real challenge Americans face.
Our challenge is not to transcend the demons of vengeance clawing at our souls. Our challenge is to deal intelligently with a threat that arises from religious convictions. Non-bigoted observers can see that while the vast majority of the world's Muslims are not extremists, a significant minority are. And it matters what people believe.
We don't like to pass judgment on others' religious convictions. That's fine. But when a religious belief spurs violence and mass murder, it becomes political, and it becomes a proper concern of the military and security services.
Worldwide, Muslims believing themselves to be advancing the faith have committed more than 14,000 acts of violence just since 9/11. You know the litany: Madrid, London, Bali, Jerusalem, Mumbai, Amman. The list is long and bloody -- and it includes many innocent Muslims.
Many hit home. In 2003, Hasan Akbar, a Muslim convert, rolled a grenade into the tent of his fellow soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. In June, Abdulhakim Muhammad, another convert, killed one Army recruiter and wounded another in Little Rock. Naveed Haq shot six women at the Seattle Jewish Federation office in 2006.
Federal agents have thwarted planned terror attacks on Fort Dix, N.J., folded up a terror ring in Lackawanna, N.Y., and uncovered plots against the nation's financial centers, the World Bank, the Sears Tower, the New York subway system, the Los Angeles airport, the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles, 10 airliners landing in the U.S. (the liquid bomb plot), JFK airport, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Prudential Building in Newark, N.J., among others.
So shall we arrest all the Muslims in America? That's the caricature that is encouraged by the "backlash" peddlers. Obviously not. But what we must do is to discriminate -- that is, to make distinctions based on what kind of Islam Muslims embrace. We have created a climate in which members of the military were afraid to raise questions about the bald and blatant Islamist comments Major Nidal Hasan expressed over many years. He was overhead saying, "maybe people should strap bombs on themselves and go to Times Square." He was caught proselytizing his patients. He argued frequently to colleagues that the U.S. was engaged in a "war against Islam."
Yet no one raised a red flag. Might be interpreted as anti-Muslim bigotry. And so the military took no action against a man who loudly advertised his extremist sympathies. Thirteen Americans paid for that with their lives.
If any good were to come out of the Fort Hood massacre, it would be a new clarity about what we are fighting. Islamism is the enemy. Moderate Muslims are allies in the cause. We should no more shrink from confronting and battling Islamism than we would from any of the "isms" we destroyed in the 20th century.
Muddled thinking and misplaced delicacy have proved deadly.
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Bob W
Re: Muslim Killer who happened to be an Army Major
Muslim religion apparently exists in a perpetually primitive, conditioned, irreversible fundamentalist state. Any religion as perverted and archaic as Islam, that continues to teach...,no not teach, program its legions of followers to murder in the name of God, will without end be an on-going menace and threat to civilized societies.
As we have seen time and again, even seemingly highly educated, 'learned' Muslims can be deceptive psychopaths; their sadistic existential pathologies are so entrenched in their doctrinaire ideological beliefs, that any signs of humanity, intellectual and social development, or moral deliberation, are disingenuous at best.
Here we had both a medical doctor (Hippocratic oath to preserve life) and a psychiatrist (to do no psychological harm) indifferently slaughter and psychologically scar innocent people. This pestilence called Islam threatens modern man essentially as a result of an incensed ancient sheep herder, over a millennium ago, who likely possessed the reasoning of a dictatorial paranoid schizoid personality.
These people, or cave-dwellers, who believe that killing innocent men, women, and children will bring God's glory and the reward of virgins, are so abysmally defective psychically, that logical reasoning is unattainable.
To use a modern adage, "you can take the boy out of the hood, but you can't take the hood out of the boy," is true for both.
It's time to call the black kettle for what it really is, black; and handle it with the necessary precautions and equipment.
Posted November 10, 2009 at 9:48:04 AM
Michael F
Right On! Bob W.
Its disappointing that our Military leaders are also intimidated by the "political correctness" of the Left. I wonder if the JAG corp are in the middle of this intimidation?
Posted November 10, 2009 at 3:38:55 PM
Meredith C.
On this Veterans Day it is necessary to observe that our brave veterans and volunteer servicemen and women are being hindered by the increase in political correctness. I think it is heartbreaking that a man clearly derelict in his duty and being monitored by the FBI was somehow allowed to stay on active duty to "treat" soldiers who were suffering.
I am a proud military wife, sister, and daughter who regrets the slippery slope we are on our way down in the interest of protecting peoples' feelings. It is becoming harder for our servicemen and women to do their jobs when they have this to be concerned with.
This incident will probably create even more "training" and paperwork they will need to endure instead of focusing on the mission at hand.
Thank you to all the veterans out there who have sacrificed to support and defend a Constitution that is becoming increasingly insignificant to our government leaders. It is only you who are continuing to make it relevant!
Posted November 11, 2009 at 4:13:31 AM
Songbird
I have no desire to be mean to Muslims, but I have to say that if I happen to pass some one who even looks like a Muslim, immediately, my doubts about that person's veracity is up. The saying "one bad apple spoils the bunch" is certainly true here as it has been in so many other things we have had accept as a result of one person being a jerk. Example, poisoning of the tylenol led to tamper proof packaging. Something in someone's shoe at the airport led to all humans having to remove their shoes at the airports. Just to name a couple.
No, I think this will back lash in another way: I think if people like me have doubts about this or that "Muslim looking like person", it won't be them that gets the grief, it will be me for even thinking that I might be in some possible danger.
What a mixed up world this has become.
Posted November 11, 2009 at 4:37:31 AM
Michael Eastes
We are at war with an ideology whose holy scriptures encourge them to lie to gain the confidence of their enemies, How can anyone truly trust any of them?
We face a foe whose stated goal is the destruction of our way of life. When will we take them at their word? So far, it seems that no tactic is too vile to use against their stated enemies: us.
We must be prepared to utterly destroy them, I'm sorry: I know that it isn't politically correct, but I must chose our way of life, and am willing to go down fighting for it, if that is what it takes.
Our civilisation is at a crossroad. We must make up our minds to prevail against an ancient enemy. We did not pick this fight, but we can, and must, finish it.
Posted November 11, 2009 at 7:08:30 AM
Bob W
Michael,
I couldn't agree with you more!
Our country has become so "politically correct" that we disregard the human rights of all law-abiding, innocent others, to their detriment of loss of life,limb and property.
Unfortunately, this political correctness is the heart of the twisted liberal idelogues who believe the perpetrators have more rights then the victums, simply because they believe perpetrators have been marginalized by society.
We see it all over our country with illegal immigrant crimninals who kill and maim, lower income inner city gang bangers who rob and kill, and like scum who steal and harm without reserve.
Let's call and identify those who perpetrate crimes for who they are. Profiling works 90% of the time, because unfortunately those who are commintting the majority of the crimes in our country, are simply the ones who do it, period.
Wake up America!
Posted November 11, 2009 at 10:41:57 AM
Bill
This is all well and fine, but it raises other questions. As a vetean of 20 plus years in the military I wonder how the DoD will handle this. Frankly, if I was on active duty, I would be hard pressed to go into combat with Muslims in my unit. They may be great people and moderate Muslims, but how do I know for sure? I would be hard pressed to turn my back on a Muslim in a foxhole. Itis sad but in view of what has happened how can you be sure they are not extremist? How can you be sure they don't have plans to take out as many American soldiers as possible? This is a tough fight but remember in WWII the 442nd was made up of all Japanese soldiers who fought in the Eruopean theater for the very same reasons.
Posted November 11, 2009 at 1:46:32 PM
K.W.
"...Even in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, though millions were inflamed by grief and outrage, there was no broad-based "backlash" against Muslim Americans...."
That's because American's haven't been pushed far enough... yet.
Posted November 12, 2009 at 4:04:55 PM
BuzzG
"That's because American's haven't been pushed far enough... yet."
I agree K.W.
In the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor raid a Japanese Admiral said; "I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant, and filled him with a terrible resolve."
Very prophetic words. One would think that the 9/11 attack would have filled us with a "terrible resolve".
Americans, as a society, are slow to rise up in the face of such tragedies. I'm not sure why, but we are. Even after Pearl, we had our peaceniks.
This enemy does not present us with an army or navy which we must destroy. They do not represent a nation-state, they typically wear no uniform nor fly a flag. Instead of several thousand at once they appear in ones,(Hassan)and twos and threes, and are gone in a flash. Literally.
An aspect of our social consciousness rebels against attacking a so-called religion or its representatives. We really are in unknown territory here and our current government and public press/media are not helping solidify a national response to the very real threat these people pose. 'Political Correctness' prevails.
It is up to those of us who perceive the threat to spread the word, one person at a time.
Posted November 13, 2009 at 11:39:45 AM
Bill R
What religion, age and sex were all of the rest of the terrorist? They just executed one in VA. Read the news about yesterdays IRAN connections
Posted November 13, 2009 at 11:54:53 AM
Dan Shamrock
It is really not as complicated as many are trying to make it. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, It is a duck.
No matter what precipitated this man's devolving into a radicalized killer of innocents as so many of his chosen faith are today, or when exactly that happened is of no consequence, He was a murdering Islamic Terrorist when he murdered those on Ft. Hood. The oath that he took when he entered the U.S. Military held no meaning for a man without honor nor for a member of a "religion" that does not hold truth in any regard. I suppose if your "religion" is a lie, then what is truth to you?
Posted November 14, 2009 at 1:26:49 PM
daryl seymour
I don't if I should be proud or not but I think we can coin a new hyphenated name that has american first. We have African-american, Hispanic-american, Asian-american and now alas we have
American-muslim to distingguish between those good muslims and the terorists. If a backlash does come w'll be usisng this term more often.
Posted November 15, 2009 at 12:39:43 AM
daryl seymour
Why has no one charged this man at Fort Hood with treason?
Posted November 15, 2009 at 12:44:12 AM