Fort Hood Thoughts

I had not intended to blog about the events that took place at Fort Hood on November 5, 2009. This is mainly because I do not believe that I can add anything to the discussion. However, an article on the Forbes online edition today has changed my mind. But first, allow me to offer my sympathy and outrage to the families of those killed and wounded in this despicable attack. And let me suggest to our elected leaders that a more sincere expression of outrage and tangible actions to deter any future episodes of this nature are absolutely required. The current lukewarm reaction simply won't cut it.

The facts of the case are not in doubt. Major Nidal Malik Hassan opened fire at a processing center on the base, killing thirteen and wounding twenty-nine people befire he was taken into custody. Based on reports that have been coming in regularly, ther seems to be little doubt that Hassan's motives were due to his identification with fundamental Islamic terrorists and thier attempts at global jihad - attempts that include the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Since the attacks, the Obama administration has bent over backwards to obscure any possible linkage of the shooter with the Islamic religion. And they have also shown a startling lack of compassion or sympathy with the victims, choosing to focus on Indian tribal matters as opposed to the US Armed Forces.

Today, Forbes editor Tunku Varadarajan writes a column about the lessons and possibilities opened by Hassan's actions. Regarding the shooter's motives, he writes chillingly,

"Going postal" is a piquant American phrase that describes the phenomenon of violent rage in which a worker--archetypically a postal worker--"snaps" and guns down his colleagues.

As the enormity of the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan sinks in, we must ask whether we are confronting a new phenomenon of violent rage, one we might dub--disconcertingly--"Going Muslim." This phrase would describe the turn of events where a seemingly integrated Muslim-American--a friendly donut vendor in New York, say, or an officer in the U.S. Army at Fort Hood--discards his apparent integration into American society and elects to vindicate his religion in an act of messianic violence against his fellow Americans. This would appear to be what happened in the case of Maj. Hasan.

This is a truly frightening thought. The United States, as Varadarajan points out, has a long history of assimilating new arrivals and in most cases, has successfully managed to integrate them quite well. This appears to be less successful in the case both of the illegal aliens from the south and the Muslim immigrants, regardless of their country of origin. As Varadarajan says,

America differentiates itself on integration from Western European countries, which are far more cringing and guilt-driven in their approach. But can the American swagger persist if many Americans come genuinely to view Muslims as Fifth Columnists? The integration compact depends on a broad trust that the immigrant's desire to be American can happily co-exist with his other forms of racial/cultural/religious identity. Once that trust doesn't exist, America faces a problem in need of urgent resolution.

This is undoubtedly true. If a majority of Americans come to see Muslims as incapable of assimilating, they could eventually lead to a violent confrontation. And that is something that no one in their right minds wishes to see. But if this phenomenon is not dealt with, that possibility could come to pass.

Finally, it is clear that the Army itself and the federal government ignored signs that Hassan was no friend of the United States. The question has been raised as to why he was still an officer in the United States Army. That question is salient. Why indeed? The Obama Administration has reportedly instructed the FBI to rule out any idea that this is related to Islam or Islamic terror. if this report is tru, then the Obama Administration is even more pathetic and less friendly to the country they are sworn to represent that was previously thought. The first and foremost duty of the President is to protect the United States. Hassan killed thirteen members of the US Armed Forces while they wer unarmed. This is murder, plain and simple. Why is the FBI not allowed to pursue all possible leads?

Finally, Varadarajan points out the the Army itself failed to take action on the many warning signs Hassan exhibited before he opened fire. Among these were the following:

• Dressed in traditional Islamic garb


• attended a mosque closely linked to the 9/11 terrorists


• wrote comments highly critical of the UNited States and supportive of the Islamic terrorists

Why was Hassan never investigated for these actions? Taken together, they present a fairly consistent pattern of anti-American, pro-Islamic terror actions. But apparently no action was ever taken. Was this because Hassan was Muslim and no one dared to complain, fearing the lawsuits of the grievance-mongers like CAIR? Was there some policy that stated Muslims were to be given extra leeway in their actions? Answers need to be provided. As Varadarajan concludes,

Let the first lesson of the Hasan atrocity be this: The U.S. Army has to be a PC-free zone. Our democracy and our way of life depend on it.

I could not agree more.

Media Bias On Display In San Francisco

In San Francisco's liberal Ninth Circuit Court today, a three- judge panel heard arguments in the strange case of Al-Haramain v. Bush. And the members of the media gathered in San Francisco showed their ideological colors afterwards. 

To those who may not be familiar with the case, this is essentially a test case as to whether the United States government has the legal authority to perform secret surveillance on anyone. The plaintiff is a Muslim organization called Al-Haramain that has been linked to a variety of Muslim terrorist organizations and has been shuttered in many countires for its unabashed laundering of money to said terrorists. Even the United Nations has placed Al-Haramain on its list of banned organizations. The organization was also concluded to be a terrorist organization here in the U.S. but somehow managed to gain posession of a document showing that they were the subject of surveillance, and thus sued the US government, claiming that the U.S. government does not have the authority to do such surveillance. The superb photo-journalist Zombie covered the day's action in exquisite detail, so I shall not recap here. Suffice to say that after the testimony was finished, many of the media gathered outside the courtroom in San Francisco gave one of the most damning demonstrations of bias that I have ever had the displeasure to see. 

The Muslim organization is being defended by an attorney whose name one might recognize- Jon Eisenberg, who represented Michael Schiavo in Schiavo's quest to have his wife Teri killed. As one might guess, he is an outspoken opponent of conservatism in general and the Republican Party and the Bush Administration in particular. His opponent representing the United States government was an attorney named Thomas Bondy. They received very different treatment from the gathered media once they had emerged from the courtroom. To quote Zombie,

Then Jon Eisenberg, the main attorney for Al-Haramain who had just argued the case, emerged from the building and let out a greeting of camaraderie and relief when he spotted his buddies in the media. Needless to say, they surrounded him and eagerly let him tell his side of the story. Jon Eisenberg pontificated for quite a long time.

...

Finally, Thomas Bondy -- the attorney for President Bush who was arguing the government's case against Eisenberg -- came out the courtroom door. He and his team of lawyers walked right past the reporters who had just interviewed John Eisenberg (including one who was still interviewing him, on the left of this picture). But not a single reporter showed the slightest interest in questioning him or interviewing him. When Bondy got to the bottom of the stairs, he heard something behind him and turned around, perhaps thinking it was a reporter asking him a question -- but no, it was just one of his colleagues. They stood there all by themselves, with at least 15 media members nearby, and no one approached them. So, they decided they might as well just leave. I don't know if they even wanted to give interviews -- perhaps they were glad they didn't have to repeat "no comment" over and over. But either way, no one in the media even tried. Why was Eisenberg treated like a superstar, while Bondy was totally ignored by the media?

Interspersed with Zombie's commentary were several pictures of the entire affair. I regret that Zombie was unable to identify any of the media organizations present, but all of them ought to be ashamed of their unprofessional behavior. I don't know what qualities are required of a 'professional reporter', but I would guess that objectivity, honesty and a passsion for accuracy and fairness should be featured prominently amongst them. Based on Zombie's pictures and commentary, there was no one who matched that description at this hearing today. Thus, I can offer some advice- if the media truly wants to shake its richly-deserved reputation for biased and unreliable reporting, they might want to minimize such scenes as this where they gather around their preferred side like groupies, while entirely ignoring the other side. Hat tip to Michelle Malkin. Cross-posted at NewsBusters.

Hope for Oil?

This article, contains an interesting possibility as regards our unfortunate dependency on Islamoterrorist oil. Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel after all. Read the article in its entirety and see what you think.

I agree with Glenn Reynolds when he says:

Long term strategic plan for the United States: Get the price of oil up high enough that oil shale competes with Middle East oil. Then put Middle East oil producers out of business, or just let them run out of oil. Oil-funded islamoterror then goes out of business, too, and the Middle East goes back to being an unimportant backwater.

Now if only the enviro-terrorists can be persuaded to hold their inevitable lawsuits in abeyance until we know whether this is a viable option or not. Wait, who am I kidding? Environmentalists work for the good of the country as opposed to their own little agenda? We all know they would rather see us all die as opposed to find any alternatives to oil other than their favored (unfeasible and impratcial, but oh-so-touchy/feely)ideas.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.