Of the many op-eds, columns and blogposts about the Ft. Hood massacre, I think these two by Jerry Pournelle and Mark Steyn capture the two most salient points of the tragedy:
Jerry Pournelle's blogpost discusses the treasonous nature of Major Nidal Malik Hasan's actions and the criminal oversight of the U.S. military of Hasan's anti-Americanism and pro-jihadism. Pournelle gets it exactly correct. This was treason. It was overlooked due to political correctness in the military. We can only hope that Hasan survives so he can be charged with treason in a military court. Mark Steyn's column that essentially says "It's the ideology, Stupid!", excerpts:"...we're scrupulously nonjudgmental about the ideology that drives a man to fly into a building or self-detonate on the subway, and thus we have a hole at the heart of our strategy. We use rhetorical conveniences like 'radical Islam' or, if that seems a wee bit Islamophobic, just plain old 'radical extremism.' But we never make any effort to delineate the line which separates 'radical Islam' from nonradical Islam. Indeed, we go to great lengths to make it even fuzzier. And somewhere in that woozy blur the pathologies of a Nidal Malik Hasan incubate."
"....Maj. Hasan is not a card-carrying member of the Texas branch of al-Qaida reporting to a control officer in Yemen or Waziristan. If he were, things would be a lot easier. But the same pathologies that drive al-Qaida beat within Maj. Hasan, too, and in the end his Islamic impulses trumped his expensive Western education, his psychiatric training, his military discipline – his entire American identity."
"What happened to those men and women at Fort Hood had a horrible symbolism: Members of the best-trained, best-equipped fighting force on the planet gunned down by a guy who said a few goofy things no one took seriously. And that's the problem: America has the best troops and fiercest firepower, but no strategy for throttling the ideology that drives the enemy – in Afghanistan and in Texas."
Meanwhile, back in Texas the day after the massacre, a BBC reporter interviews Duane, a young man at the Islamic Community of Killeen, the mosque outside Ft. Hood attended by Major Hasan. Duane had this to say:
Duane: "They were, in the end, they were troops who were going to Afghanistan and Iraq to kill Muslims. I honestly have no pity for them. It's just like the majority of the people that will hear this, after five or six minutes they'll be shocked, after that they'll forget about them and go on their day."
The Jawa Report has more on Duane Reasoner, a Muslim convert who was mentored by Hasan. Oh great, talk about a cancer. Now we have to monitor Duane?
It's the ideology, Stupid.
And every day, radical imams and "religious leaders" in our country and in Boston are teaching this ideology to children, teens, college students and immigrants. What are we as a society going to do about it?
Comments