Islamophobia—or When Will They Ever Learn? by Thomas Fleming • November 6, 2009 • Printer-friendly
There is little to say about the shootings at Ft. Hood that has not already been said a thousand times in half-sentence bursts—expletives undeleted—on every newspaper site in the United States, but there are one or two questions to ask or ask again.
Here in Ft. Worth, when I read the news yesterday afternoon, I assumed immediately it was a Muslim, and, no, I did not feel ashamed of my snap judgment. Ethnic stereotypes, as Steve Goldberg pointed out years ago in Chronicles, represent statistical reality. Disregard them at your peril. Not all stereotypes are negative. The quality in Jews that Christians criticize as “pushy,” Goldberg argued, is valued by Jews as “enterprising.” In the case of pious Muslims like Dr. Hasan, killing one’s self and others for the faith, is not terrorism but an act of religious courage. Mass murder, for many Muslims including Mohammed, is what martyrdom is for Christians. I was roundly attacked for saying this after 911, but it is true. Online, Hasan made the same argument, according to the story on the AP. Comparing suicide bombers with kamikaze pilots, he argued: “To say that this soldier [a suicide bomber] committed suicide is inappropriate . . . He is a brave hero that sacrificed his life for a noble cause.”
By his own lights and according to his own religious traditions—admittedly, traditions that are not universal in Islam anymore than the celibacy of priests is universal in the Catholic Church—Hasan is not mentally disturbed, only a man who has done his religious duty.
The real criminals in this case are not this pathetic creature who thinks killing his colleagues is an act of faith, but the US military officials who continue to admit Muslims into the armed forces, and if we really wish to point the figure at guilty parties, we can point to Don Rumsfeld, George Bush, Dick Cheney, and the Republican Party apparatchiks who keep on telling us that Islam is a religion of peace. These people, it is absolutely clear, have no more interest in protecting the security of the American people than Barack Hussein Obama and Rahm Emanuel.
A second, admittedly minor, point of interest crops up in a story in The Washington Post. Describing the killer’s parents as Palestinian immigrants, the story goes on to say that “The Hasan family was large and had deep roots in Roanoke Valley, said Amer Azibidi, minister and imam of the KUFA Center of Islamic Knowledge.” So in the world of The Washington Post, immigrants to the US have “deep roots” wherever they choose to settle. Hassan’s family had deep roots in Palestine, probably going back thousands of years, until they were driven out by Israeli terrorist violence. Admittedly, knowing what we know now about Muslims—but should have known all along—we would not want them living next door to us either, no matter how we acquired our land, by purchase or violent occupation. Still, it is not unreasonable to ask the state of Israel to begin paying reparations to the United States for all the mischief it has caused. Obviously, that is not going to happen, and even an Islamophile president cannot stand up to the Israel lobby. He made that plain enough in appointing one of that lobby’s agents as his chief of staff.
The spin on the story began with the first announcement that the killer is a Muslim. CAIR came out with an entirely predictable statement disclaiming any connection between Islam and terrorism. But this is the same CAIR that has repeatedly defended Muslims accused of terrorist activities in the US and attempted to silence anyone who opposes the Jihadists.
My colleague Captain Christopher Check has made an astute observation that is worth quoting here:
“There is another elephant in the room, although, I hope in time, the facts will be made clear and the elephant will disappear. Let’s imagine that Hasan was carrying two semiautomatic pistols, though General Cone confirmed that only one was semiautomatic; presumably he meant that the other could have been a revolver (If true, then my elephant is even bigger.) Still, let’s say he had two pistols carrying 15 rounds each (eg.,magazine of an M9 holds 15). This means he had to change magazines, at a minimum, one time to fire off 45 rounds to cause 43 casualties. I fired expert every year that I was in the Marine Corps with the M9 (it is a very forgiving pistol!), but that was standing still at a range holding the weapon with both hands. Not the same environment in which Hasan was shooting. (By the way, I am guessing a 9mm round because some victims were hit multiple times and are still alive; a 45 round that hits you in the big toe takes off your leg) Even at the very close range from which he must have been firing (some must have been point blank), that is a very high percentage of hits. I’m guessing he changed magazines at least one time in each pistol–very likely more times.
During the interludes of magazine changing and pulling back the slide assembly to chamber a new round (a quick enough action, but one requiring two hands), not one of these soldiers, men about to deploy to a combat theater made a move for Hasa to overpower him, much less a group of them? One question, had I been present at Cone’s initial press conference, would have been “what was the sex of the victims?” Of the few names that have been released, three are females. Was the group of soldiers attacked disproportionately female? Was at last subdued when he had nearly exhausted his ammunition? It is one thing to hope that victims of a campus shooting might rally to subdue a shooter, but am I being unfair to wonder what these soldiers about to deploy for combat were doing? I hope that some data will come to light to show that my speculations about the soldiers on the scene are unfair.”
Nothing productive will come out of this incident, because the people who run the United States are committed to three suicidal policies, any one of which we might survive, but not all free. First, we have given a blank check to Israel, which has helped focus the hatred of the Muslim world on the United States. There has always been Islamic terrorism—how else did they eliminate so many Jews and Christians from the Middle East, rational persuasion? Second, we refuse to do anything about the Muslims who are in the United States and continue to support Muslim terrorists in Kosovo and Bosnia. This is the same policy that brought the Mujahidin and eventually the Taliban to power in Afghanistan. Third, and worst of all, we can simultaneously support the Jewish state and its Muslim enemies because we reject our own history, religion, and identity.
Christian Zionists are no better in this regard than leftist Muslim-loving multi-culturalists. The corruption of the American mind begins the day a child enters kindergarten and it goes on until he graduates and continues every day he picks up the newspaper or turns on the television. We don’t have a country. If we did, neither CAIR nor AIPAC would be allowed to operate.
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