Here’s my suggestion for the quote of the week:
“In war, uncertainty gets you killed. It just did” said Daniel Henninger, (WSJ 11/12/2009, p. A23) when he talked about the Fort Hood attack last week.
Jack Gamble in his article here, Media Refuses to call Fort Hood Shooting a terror attack, points to the same direction. You can’t blink around suspected terrorists. Hasan (please stop calling him Major) wasn’t born a lunatic. He acted in a mission as directed by an Islamic terrorist group. The bad news is that they might be still operating on American soil.
If the U.S. people, media or leadership, would not react now and investigate any spiritual leaders, cultural groups, or any organization that calls for the destruction or killing of U.S. civilians, attacks will follow. Take Israel for instance, the country has suffered many attacks from terrorist organizations that fight in the name of Islam. These groups tried in the past (with no success) to establish cells within the Israeli cities. One thing would always be a great help for this plan: Ignorance
Countries that fighting this blood war are subject to wide criticism, mainly by educated UN policy makers and former judges in the form of numberless reports and sanction votes. Among the latest one is the famous Goldstone report for Israel’s actions in Gaza. The report is a pure criticism on Israeli diplomacy and its actions in Gaza last year. Nobody remembers, however, that more than 30,000 Israeli citizens were in danger of rocket attacks before the Operation Cast in Gaza. Today, they can sleep better. Israel’s government did what it was supposed to do and no one can judge them for that.
Here in the U.S., the government is bound to “political correctness” when treating these organizations and their members. For years, policy makers try to define the enemy, the enemies rights and the legal status and scope of method if you want to fight the enemy, says Henninger. By doing this, you avoid the main question: how did Hasan grow among us?
And one last thing, don’t let the “national grief” and sad feelings go over your head. For 13 families, life won’t be normal ever again and we might be able to feel just a bit. But excessive grief might lead your actions and that is very dangerous.
Image Used in this Post
Shut up courtesy of Flickr user Tiago Rïbeiro published under the CC license.
8 Comments
There is no doubt in my mind that Political Correctness was a major factor in the Army’s inaction against Hasan when all the indicators were there.
I’m sorry, but your post pisses me off. Why are you are using a debate about a tragic terrorist attack on American soil as a platform to justify your belief about whether the Goldstone Report is valid or not. Oren, what does the Goldstone Report have to do with Fort Hood? I’ll tell you: absolutely nothing.
The Forthood debate is about how political correctness, denial, and ignoring blatant evidence can lead to more terrorist attacks. The Goldstone debate is about whether a government committed war crimes against a civilian population in an effort to weaken a terrorist organization. How are these related? They are not, because one is about prevention, and the other is about large-scale military strategy.
But since the Goldstone Report is clearly what you’d rather talk about, what do you think of the following quote:
Andrew,
I am talking about the reaction to the report. We put it behind us and made it unrelevant because the government took a smart decision to ignore it. If the US will do the same against outside (and sometmie inside) criticism about their defense and legal actions, you give no hope for terrorists, who are grouping against you, anywhere.
I don’t believe Hasan was alone. I simply don’t.
Ok…so which legal and defense actions are you referring to? I think that’s what I’m confused about. How do suggest we avoid this happening again?
I remember back in 2002 about two weeks into my first tour in Iraq a muslim soldier tossed a live hand grenade into a tent full of GI’s, killing some of them and wonding others. You have to understand that these terrorist are radical individuals. They’ll use the most randome and least expecyed ways of attack because they aren’t strong enough to fight us like men.
I have no doubt that they join the military in an attempt to kill American soldiers. Do they all go through with it? No, some of them actually see the error of their ways and decide they like the military and they probably become good soldiers and Americans. Nonetheless, and I say this with great remorse – the only way to avoid this in the future is to disallow anyone who is openly Muslim from joining our military.
I know that that statement will no doubt bring comments that I’m a racist or prejudiced against Muslims. On the contrary, I have met and still have contact with many good Muslim people. I realize that these radicals are a select few and definitely not indicative of the entire Muslim population. However, in a situation this serious, I’m afraid we must err on the side of caution in an effort to save lives. Sometimes that means we must be prejudicial and judgemental. It’s very unfortunate yet it’s necessary in these times.
Two tours? Wow Chris. It’s impressive every time I hear about it. The guys who go through that and go back for more so someone else doesn’t have to is why I think we’ll win this. It’s also exactly what the people who say we can’t don’t understand.
Here in the US, we believe that the accused are ‘innocent until proven guilty’. Part of that principle would mean not jumping to conclusions. It’s not political correctness, it’s a foundation of our democracy.
This guy may well turn out to be a politically motivated terrorist. He may turn out to be someone who hates the army and decided to make a point. He may turn out to be a nut. WE DON’T KNOW WHY HE DID WHAT HE DID (*) and to speculate does a disservice to the US (and in this case military) justice system.
(*) Notice I’m not saying ‘alleged to do’ so I’m perfectly open to a bit of political incorrectness.
Both of you make good points. While I would most likely ten to side with Chris in a political debate, I will disagree on the disallowing Muslims to serve. There are thousands of Muslims fighting with us in Iraq and Afghan armies. We train and equip them and we need to keep them on our side.
That said, we need to keep a close eye on those in our own ranks, and due process does not apply to a man who has taken an oath to serve, so eavesdropping and intrusive surveillance is the answer there, screw PC.