American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture
Dana Loesch lists The Most Underreported Stories of 2009
Go to her post and read the rest. After you read Dana’s article, go read Gay Patriot‘s post on a related issue.
… asks Andrew McCarthy,
It’s been brought to my attention by several reliable sources that the Defense Department has brought Louay Safi to Fort Hood as an instructor, and that he has been lecturing on Islam to our troops in Fort Hood who are about to deploy to Afghanistan. Safi is a top official of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and served as research director at the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).
Worse, last evening, Safi was apparently permitted to present a check (evidently on behalf of ISNA) to the families of the victims of last month’s Fort Hood massacre. A military source told the blogger Barbarossa at the Jawa Report: “This is nothing short of blood money. This is criminal and the Ft. Hood base commander should be fired right now.”
Who is Louay Safi?
Safi is a Syrian-born author who advocates Muslim American rights through his directorship of ISNA’s Leadership Development Center. He advocates direct talks between Washington and Iran’s leaders. He has spoken out against various law enforcement raids on Islamic centers.
In a 2003 publication, “Peace and the Limits of War,” Safi wrote, “The war against the apostates [non-believers of Islam] is carried out not to force them to accept Islam, but to enforce the Islamic law and maintain order.
What is ISNA?
ISNA is the Muslim Brotherhood’s umbrella entity for Islamist organizations in the United States. It was established in 1981 to enable Muslims in North America “to adopt Islam as a complete way of life” — i.e., to further the Brotherhood’s strategy of establishing enclaves in the West that are governed by sharia. As I detailed in an essay for the April 20 edition of NR, the Brotherhood’s rally-cry remains, to this day, “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Koran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” The Brotherhood’s spiritual guide, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who issued a fatwa in 2004 calling for attacks on American forces in Afghanistan, openly declares that Islam will “conquer America” and “conquer Europe.”
Go read the rest of that post. It turns out the FBI is “partnering” with them.
Christopher Hitchens: Multicultural MasochismThe “war on terrorism” didn’t cause the Fort Hood shootings.
For a start, did Hasan or Muhammad ever say what “killing” of which “Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan” they had in mind? There isn’t a day goes by without the brutal slaughter of Muslims in both countries by al-Qaida or the Taliban. And that’s not just because most (though not all) civilians in both countries happen to be of the Islamic faith. The terrorists do not pause before deliberately blowing up the mosques and religious processions of those whose Muslim beliefs they deem insufficiently devout. Most of those now being tortured and raped and executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran are Muslim. All the women being scarred with acid and threatened with murder for the crime of going to school in Pakistan are Muslim. Many of those killed in London, Madrid, and New York were Muslim, and almost all the victims callously destroyed in similar atrocities in Istanbul, Cairo, Casablanca, and Algiers in the recent past were Muslim, too. It takes a true intellectual to survey this appalling picture and to say, as Wright does, that we invite attacks on our off-duty soldiers because “the hawkish war-on-terrorism strategy—a global anti-jihad that creates nonstop imagery of Americans killing Muslims—is so dubious.” Dubious? The only thing dubious here is his command of language. When did the U.S. Army ever do what the jihadists do every day: deliberately murder Muslim civilians and brag on video about the fact? For shame. The slippery slope—actually the slimy slope—is the one down which Wright is skidding.
It is he, who I am taking as representative of a larger mentality here, who uses equally inert lingo to suggest that Maj. Hasan was “pushed over the edge by his perception of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.” That’s a nice and shady use of the word “perception.” Might it not be equally true to say that Hasan was all-too-easily pulled over the edge, having already signaled his devout eagerness for the dive, by a cleric who makes a living by justifying murder of Muslims and non-Muslims alike?
In many recent reports of this controversy one has seen reporters from respectable papers referring not just to generic, uniform “Muslims” but even to the places where they live as “Muslim lands.” If you would object to seeing the absurd term “Christendom” in your newspaper as a description of Europe, let alone to reading about “Jewish land” on the West Bank, then please have the fortitude to complain next time violent theocracy is smuggled into the discourse under the increasingly feeble disguise of multicultural masochism.
Multicultural masochism, which leads to suicide through political correctness.
Barry Rubin examines examines Nidal Hasan’s lecture on The Koranic World View as it Relates to Muslims in the US Military and finds,
All you have to do is look at the 50 Power Point slides and they tell you everything you need to know.
It is quite a good talk. He’s logical and presents his evidence. This is clearly not the work of a mad man or a fool, though there’s still a note of ambiguity in it. He’s still working out what to do in his own mind and is trying to figure out if he has a way out other than in effect deserting the U.S. army and becoming a Jihad warrior. Ultimately, he concluded that he could not be a proper Muslim without killing American soldiers. Obviously, other Muslims could reach different conclusions but Hassan strongly grounds himself in Islamic texts.
In a sense, Hassan’s lecture was a cry for help: Can anyone show me another way out? Can anyone refute my interpretation of Islam? One Muslim in the audience reportedly tried to do so. But unless these issues are openly discussed and debated–rather than swept under the rug–more people will die.
In fact, I’d recommend that teachers use this lecture in teaching classes on both Islam and Islamist politics. .
Follow along with me and you’ll understand everything.
Hassan deals with three topics: What Islam teaches Muslims, how Muslims view the wars in Afghanistan and Iran, how this might affect Muslims in the U.S. military. [Slide 2] Hassan defines Jihad, showing how silly are the claims that it only means a personal struggle to behave better. It also signifies holy war, of course. [Slide 5].
Read Rubin’s article, and every slide of the presentation. Both are an antidote to the upcoming mass murder madness.
Are all terrorists crazy?
Classmates: Hasan defended suicide bombings, held Islamist views. Money quote:
Despite the controversy that his schoolwork created, classmates did not view Hasan as mentally unstable or psychotic, the source said.
But the question being asked is if the perpetrator of the guerilla attack is insane or not. The meme is that he went beserk from listening to the horrible war stories he listened to from his patients, soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
You would think there would be a veritable epidemic of cases such as Hasan.
Charles Krauthammer writes on Medicalizing mass murder
It’s been decades since I practiced psychiatry. Perhaps I missed the epidemic.
But, of course, if the shooter is named Nidal Hasan, who National Public Radio reported had been trying to proselytize doctors and patients, then something must be found. Presto! Secondary post-traumatic stress disorder, a handy invention to allow one to ignore the obvious.
And the perfect moral finesse. Medicalizing mass murder not only exonerates. It turns the murderer into a victim, indeed a sympathetic one. After all, secondary PTSD, for those who believe in it (you won’t find it in DSM-IV-TR, psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual), is known as “compassion fatigue.” The poor man — pushed over the edge by an excess of sensitivity.
Have we totally lost our moral bearings? Nidal Hasan (allegedly) cold-bloodedly killed 13 innocent people. His business card had his name, his profession, his medical degrees and his occupational identity. U.S. Army? No. “SoA” — Soldier of Allah. In such cases, political correctness is not just an abomination. It’s a danger, clear and present.
ShrinkWrapped posts on Islamist Terror and Psychosis
The problem for all of those wondering about Major Hasan is that they are restricted by their own frame. In a vacuum, an American who believes that the United States is waging war on Islam, that the West, especially the Jews and Americans, conspire to keep the Muslim world in despair, and that murdering unarmed American soldiers is an assured way to gain entrance to Paradise as a Jihad martyr, would be considered to have lost contact with reality. Unfortunately for a Muslim int he Ummah these “delusional” ideas are shared by a significant portion of their coreligionists. If major Hasan is delusional and psychotic then so are members and supporters of al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Wahhabi and Deobandi Islam, and a host of other sects and groups. The only way Major Hasan could be considered mentally disordered based on his belief structure would be were there to be an idiosyncratic component. For example, if he were to believe that he is the embodiment of Mohammed, we would be correct to think of him as psychotically deluded, just as we characterize the multitude of psychotic patients through the ages who were convinced they were Jesus Christ.
The conundrum for all the sages in the media and our government remains how to determine that Major Hasan was a lone psycho rather than a Jihadi. We may well be treated to an interesting juxtaposition as Khaled Sheik Mohamed, during his trial, espouses the same motivating “delusions” as major Hasan at his trial. The reporting in the MSM should be fascinating.
No doubt about it, the lawyers are getting the workings of an insanity defense on both the Hasan and Mohamed cases.
The only insanity lies in us believing they are insane.
The Pentagon said it was never notified by U.S. intelligence agencies that they had intercepted emails between the alleged Fort Hood shooter and an extremist imam until after last week’s bloody assaults, raising new questions about whether the government could have helped prevent the attack.
A top defense official said federal investigators didn’t tell the Pentagon they were looking into months of contacts between Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki. The imam knew three of the Sept. 11 hijackers and hailed Maj. Hasan as a “hero” after the shooting last week at Fort Hood that left 13 people dead.
“Based on what we know now, neither the United States Army nor any other organization within the Department of Defense knew of Maj. Hasan’s contacts with any Muslim extremists,” the official said.
Hasan’s family is lying: Hasan did not formally seek discharge, Army official says
The Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people last week at Fort Hood, Tex., did not formally seek to be discharged as a conscientious objector or for any other reason, an Army official said, despite claims by one of his relatives that he had sought to leave the service.
There is also the issue of mainstreamism. Andy McCarthy explains,
Our inclination is to dismiss this as fringe “extremism.” In fact, it is mainstreamism. As I pointed out in yesterday’s column and last evening’s post, the positions that Muslims must not take up arms against other Muslims as part of an infidel military force, that infidel armies occupying Islamic countries must be expelled by force, and that Muslims should not serve in the U.S. military or perform civilian services that support the U.S. military’s missions in Islamic countries, are widely accepted by Muslims in the United States and overseas.
The rote government response is to point out, mulishly, that there are many Muslims honorably serving in the U.S. armed forces. This is absolutely true but utterly beside the point. And no institution should know that better than the U.S. armed forces, which — on the rationale of force effectiveness, cohesion, and protection — exclude homosexuals from serving despite the fact that the vast majorty of homosexuals would serve honorably, as do those who serve now.
The honorable service of many Muslims does not alter the reality that there is enormous pressure on Muslim soldiers, from their religious authorities, to sabotage American military operations. Hasan’s massacre of his fellow soldiers is the worst incident we’ve seen, but it’s hardly an isolated incident. Given the slavish political correctness about Islam to which government officials from President Obama to the FBI to Generals Casey and McChrystal are beholden, there is grave reason to fear that the obvious peril to our troops has not been addressed any better than the obvious peril to our nation.
In short, the military was kept in deadly ignorace by US intelligence.
The parallels with the Fort Hood case – jihad-inspired killers, media whitewash – are striking. They’re the parallels you can’t talk about without being labeled a bigot, racist, or “extremist.”
Expect more similar whitewash on the Hasan case. Meanwhile, the UK newspapers are keeping track of the story:
Taliban promises repeat of Fort Hood massacre: report
The Taliban claimed there would be more attacks like the Fort Hood shootings unless Washington ends it policies in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a report.
UPDATE
James Taranto:
In fact, this was not a terrorist attack. By definition, terrorism targets noncombatants. When an irregular force like al Qaeda attacks a military target, such as the bombing of the USS Cole, that is more accurately termed guerrilla warfare.
Fort Hood shooting: Texas army killer linked to September 11 terrorists
Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a “spiritual adviser” to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001.
Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother’s funeral was held there in May that year.
My first question is, why is the UK’s Telegraph doing this investigation, instead of journalists from American newspapers?
But never mind that. The article continues,
Osman Danquah, the co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen, said Hasan never expressed anger toward the army or indicated any plans for violence.
But he said that, at their second meeting, Hasan seemed almost incoherent.
“I told him, ‘There’s something wrong with you’. I didn’t get the feeling he was talking for himself, but something just didn’t seem right.”
He was sufficiently troubled that he recommended the centre reject Hasan’s request to become a lay Muslim leader at Fort Hood.
Hasan had, in fact, already come to the attention of the authorities before Thursday’s massacre. He was suspected of being the author of internet postings that compared suicide bombers with soldiers who throw themselves on grenades to save others and had also reportedly been warned about proselytising to patients.
Hasan proselitizes to patients while posting on suicide bombers and the Army finds nothing wrong with that?
It’s worth noting that there’s Nothing ‘Sudden’ About ‘Sudden Jihad Syndrome’
At CNN, American Muslim radicals cheer Fort Hood shootings:
Don’t miss the guy who says “I love [Osama Bin Laden] more than I love myself”, who wants Israel wiped off the map and calls Obama a murderer.
UPDATE
Richard Fernandez asks, What happened at Walter Reed?
What happened at Walter Reed? Did Hasan have an influential patron? If Hasan had exhibited certain disturbing tendencies, and if he was in fact being scrutinized by law enforcement, then what was achieved by moving him to Fort Hood, except putting distance between Hasan and whatever was in Washington DC? What hypothesis could cover so many disparate facts? Many questions remain unanswered. There’s not enough data yet to conclude anything.
Heroism:
During the terrorist slaughter at Fort Hood, police officer Sgt. Kimberly Denise Munley acted heroically and saved the lives of many:
She Ran to Gunfire, and Ended It
The police officer who brought down a gunman after he went on a shooting rampage at the Fort Hood Army base here was on the way to have her car repaired when she responded to a police radio report of gunfire at a center where soldiers are processed before being sent overseas, the authorities said Friday.
As she pulled up to the center, the officer, Sgt. Kimberly Denise Munley, spotted the gunman, later identified as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, brandishing a pistol and chasing a wounded soldier outside the building, said Chuck Medley, the director of emergency services at the base.
Sergeant Munley — a woman with a fierce love of hunting, surfing and other outdoor sports — bolted from her car, yanked her pistol out and shot at Major Hasan. He turned on her and began to fire. She ran toward him, continuing to fire, and both she and Major Hasan went down with several bullet wounds, Mr. Medley said.
It’s ironic that the man who refused to have his photo taken with women co-workers would be taken down by a highly-trained woman:
Sergeant Munley, 34, is an expert in firearms and a member of the SWAT team for the civilian police department on the base, officials said.
Mr. Medley said she had received specific training in a tactic called active shooter protocol, which was intended for this kind of situation.
The Headline of the Day, from the BBC:
Shooting Raises Fears For Muslims In US Army
Really? Right now the body count stands at:
Non-Muslims 13
Muslims 0I was reading from some of this kind of coverage on the Rush Limbaugh show today. Even if you are concernedthat it would be terribly unfair if all Muslims were to be tarred by Major Hasan’s brush, it is, to put it at its mildest, the grossest bad taste to default every single time within minutes to the position that what’s of most interest about an actual atrocity with real victims is that it may provoke an entirely hypothetical atrocity with entirely hypothetical victims. I refer you yet again to this note-perfect parody:
British Muslims Fear Repercussions Over Tomorrow’s Train Bombing
This kind of media coverage is really a form of mental illness far more advanced than whatever Major Hasan’s lawyers eventually enter in mitigation, and apparently pandemic, at least among the western media.
Twelve soldiers were murdered in cold blood at Fort Hood. Thirty others were wounded. Our Commander in Chief calls a press conference and begins it with a long thanks to the Interior Department and Indians who just concluded a conference and then gives a good natured “shout out” to an attendee , all with a studied nonchalance, before he even mentions the outrage on our military base.
Doug Ross has the transcript, but here’s the video:
And by the way, the recipient of the “shout out” didn’t receive the Congressional Medal of Honor; he’s a recipient of the Medal of Freedom:
Obama, often described as “cerebral” by the mainstream media, should know the difference between the Medal of Honor and the Medal of Freedom, especially since he personally awarded the latter to Crow.
Where’s TOTUS where you need it?
UPDATE
Bush Visits Fort Hood! – Obama To Camp David, Not Fort Hood???
(Thanks to Maria for the hat tip.)
