It’s impossible to know at this early juncture what snakes were writhing in the skull of Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychologist so clearly unhinged that he took the life of 12 of his fellow soldiers, while wounding 31 others. It’s tempting to believe that this has something to do with a faith that led him to believe that his own people were not those in digital cammies heading out in the name of liberty and freedom, but those who hew to a violent and suffocating version of received knowledge that is 1400 years old, unadaptive, unswerving.
It’s easy to wonder whether the major had felt himself pushed over the edge by the petty grudges and grievances he believed he had received by those who questioned his commitment to the oath he’d sworn to uphold. “So help me God.”
His God.
It’s easy to wonder whether he was simply a random nutter who lost his last, tenuous grip on sanity.
It is simple honesty to acknowledge that when we learned his identity, many – perhaps most of us – were unsurprised. What that says about us, and him, and them must be left to another time. Keeping in mind that none of us should be judged by the actions of others, or for things we ourselves have not, would not have done.
Because all of that is fruitless, at least for now. The time will come for judgments.
Having apparently survived the mayhem he wreaked, Major Hasan will live to tell his tale in the dock. From whence, his guilt being proven, one can hope he will swiftly be sped towards his eternal reward. Which, one furthermore hopes, will involve an eternity roasting on the coals reserved for murderers and traitors.
All we know now is that 12 young Americans who had taken on the responsibility of keeping the rest of us safe were brought cruelly down in a place that they had the right to expect was welcoming and protected. People willing to face danger abroad who thought that there were among friends at home. That thirty-one others lie in various stages of malicious wounding, not all of whom may survive. That hundreds of their family members who feared a distant dread will wake up to a present nightmare. That thousands more on a vast military base have been brutally terrorized. That millions of the rest of us now wonder who are our friends, and who our enemies. And how to tell the difference.
A bad day all the way around, for all of us.
Lex,
Before my current gig, I was a cop/detective in southern Florida. Interviewing a single eyeball witness or victim thoroughly takes HOURS…suspects, like those initially apprehended, take far longer. The fact that they were released in only a handful of hours is ASTOUNDING. Something stinks here…those guys did SOMETHING to be detained and considered suspects.
More importantly, however, is that the families of the fallen be comforted and taken care of appropriately.
I was struck by the emotions stirred by the previous post while thinking of those whose lives were so suddenly transformed by the tragedy at Fort Hood. If I needed reminding, and truth be told I did, life is so precious, and security so fleeting and all can be taken in a flash for reasons that no amount of explanation will ever satisfy the quest to know simply, “Why?”.
I’d hug my daughter and finance tonight if they were here. Since they are not I will vow to do so the next and every opportunity yet to be presented.
NEWS UPDATE – This story gets more troubling as the details emerge (SEE BELOW)…It saddens me and reminds me of being in Cairo, Egypt on 09/11/01. I was there on a training mission, and when the news of the attacks broke, a lady who ran the business center at our hotel begged me for forgiveness. I told her that she had no reason to be forgiven. Her reply was, ” Your people will blame us all..”
I am sorry that religon is being used this way as there are good Muslims and bad Muslims. I met many good Muslims while in the Middle East and to paint all with one brush is wrong.
That said, those who do use Islam for hate and as justification for violence should be hunted down as they are truly evil.
————————————————
Army: Suspect said `Allahu Akbar!’ before shooting
By APRIL CASTRO and DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writers April Castro And Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writers 39 mins ago
FORT HOOD, Texas – The base commander at Fort Hood says soldiers who witnessed a shooting rampage that left 13 people dead reported that the gunman shouted “Allahu Akbar!” before opening fire at the Texas post.
Lt. Gen. Robert Cone told NBC’s “Today” show on Friday that suspected shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, made the comment, which is Arabic for “God is great!” before the rampage Thursday that also left 30 people wounded.
Military officials say they are still piecing together what may have pushed Hasan, an Army psychiatrist trained to help soldiers in distress, to turn on his comrades.
Cone says Hasan was not known to be a threat or risk.
Hasan was shot four times during the rampage. Cone says he is hospitalized in stable condition and that military officials will interrogate him as soon as possible.
If only the “gun-free” areas had not been so–perhaps eleven of those 12 would still be alive.
“What that says about us, and him, and them must be left to another time . . . Because all of that is fruitless, at least for now.”
Lex, I’m not sure how much longer we can afford to push off talking honestly about what this indeed does say about us. I sympathize with the thought that we shouldn’t make judgments in haste or while still in an emotional state, but at some point we must break through our societal self inflicted PC blindness and come to terms with what seems to be a very uncomfortable set of facts: what I perceive (perhaps wrongly and I am open to being proved so) an overwhelming number of problems stemming from Islam. Why are the vast majority of terrorist Islamic? Why are practically all the Islamic countries backwards hell holes? Why is Islam in actual conflict everywhere it borders another civilization, a phenomenon that is not unheard of between civilizations but is unique to Islam in it’s complete lack of exception to the rule? Someone, unfortunately I don’t know who, once said that “History is Philosophy by example.” It appears, throughout all our time on this earth, no man has been smart enough to actually understand human nature and devise a political or social structure free of war or tragedy. Instead, systemic processes like cultural traditions have tended to work better as a guide of how we should live than the ideas of philosophers and radicals that looked good on paper. But there’s an evolution of and between cultural traditions as well. Europe’s post modern atheistic culture may produce nice living standards and a short work week, but it also produces artistic and societal feebleness and demographic decline, and may just disappear within a few generations. Buddhism sounds wonderful, I honestly can’t find anything wrong with it, but isn’t odd that the only majority Buddhist country in the world is ironically Myanmar, one of the most oppressive and backward in the world. Is it possible that there’s something wrong with Islam, that causes Islamic countries to be repressive backwaters that export terrorism and violence to the Dar al-Harb? Demographically speaking, and from an evolutionary perspective, is it also possible that Islam is literally out-surviving the rest of the world’s civilizations by out-populating them? Putting aside theology (if at all possible) does Christianity, despite it’s dogmatic faults, prove to create societies that tend towards both liberty and an ability to sustain itself in the world over the long run? What are the limits of America’s open society, built upon a Judeo-Christian ideology, when confronted with a generally very “nice” atheistic society corroding this base and a very theistic influx of people who emphatically do not, perhaps can not, share the tenets that define that civilization? This incident for me at least opens the door to a lot of disturbing questions and possibilities that I think we must face, and must fact ASAP. I know the above questions are leading, but I don’t think that makes them neccessarily illegitimate.
Prowler, “History is philosophy by example” has been attributed to Thucydides, the first historian to discard the role of gods in favor of human agency and thus integrated war and politics.
Grouch Marx had the best summary of your arguement (which I endorse wholeheartedly, by the way) when he said “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.” We need to quit calling them waterfowl.
twofive
Thanks for telling me about the quotes origin. It sounds like Thucydides now that you mention it, his dog just moved up a notch on my scale, but it was pretty much topped out already.
If there is any chance to coexist with Islam it won’t come from pretending it’s something it’s not. I have owned the Quran for about a year now, and have been “meaning” to read it since I bought it obviously. I think it’s coming to be time . . .
ProwlerAMDO/
I don’t know about the ME, but until Muslims living in America begin practicing their religion in the same way that American “Cafeteria Catholics” pick and chose among Catholicism’s basic tenants (yet still consider themselves “good Catholics”) we will never be free of the possibilities of home-grown terrorism. But as blackeagle 603 points out up thread@11:29pm (and as I have also alluded to in my yet unreleased “moderated” post made @1:06am up-thread) this will be difficult, as the very nature and wording of the Koran makes a peaceful Muslim “reformation” highly problematic.
This is a war, being fought by an enemy that wears our uniforms, shakes our hand, takes our oath, and then acts out of a fanaticism to kill, maim, and terrify as many people as possible.
There are families all over America that will be burying their children in the coming days. Young men who died without weapons in their hands, on a U.S. Army base, shot by one of their own officers because he was a traitor to the United States. It is time and past time to see this for what it really is. A clash of civilizations that we can yet lose.
Boss,
I’m not one to mince words. It is a pure and simple fact we are in a war against most of the Islamic people/nations. People who feel, based on the tenets of their religion, and strict adherence to the same, they are constantly justified in killing Americans because we are not, majority wise, Muslim, are our enemies, pure and simple. That is truly their only reason for waging war against us. Their imam said their religion demands it.
I want to know that if we could screen out those whose membership in the Communist party made them ineligible from serving in the military for over 40 years, why in the Hell can’t we simply screen out Islam as a denier of security clearance, and require extraordinary evidence of repudiation of the tenets of Islam before we accept anyone with that bent into military service. Thou shalt not discriminate on the basis of creed, except when that creed is trying to kill you. Those already in the military need to sign special oaths acknowledging their allegiance to country over Islam for the duration.
Stop obfuscating facts and the Truth. Our enemies don’t have a problem naming us. We shouldn’t have a problem naming them. We don’t have to kill them all. But we sure as Hell need to stop trusting them with positions of authority and allowing them into our most secure installations. They can have any job they want…… outside the US military.
(Yeah, I know we need them for translation, intelligence collection and understanding/analyzing our enemies. But those folks must provide extraordinary evidence of allegiance to us, not their religion. We did it during the Cold War. We damn well should be doing it now.)
Subsunk
Sudden jihad syndrome (SJS) seems to afflict only Muslims (not all, but too many).
Regardless of his religious beliefs, or any real, feigned or claimed mental health issues, the cold blooded murder of a dozen of his fellow soldiers and wounding dozens of others demands immediate action.
Not in some federal court, but in a Courts Martial, under the UCMJ. He has [allegedly, to satisfy any weasely lawyer types]committed multiple offenses.
Under Article 118, if proven to be “premeditated” then the death sentence is allowed.
There is an Army FM or TM prescribing the exact details for a military execution, and I hope that we will witness it being followed explicitly.
And, not after decades of appeals while he lives as a guest in Leavenworth.
It should be 90 days max- murder to execution.
As a good example to anyone else with an urge to succumb to SJS.
Speaking of which, that scumbag “DC sniper” John Mohammed is sked to be executed on the USMC Birthday. I’ll drink a toast to both events!
Whatever happened to the SJS scum who fragged his officers in Kuwait? Is he still forcing us to make lawyers rich.
Worst part of the Ft. Hood case seems to be that the guy was known to many to be antagonistic to our country. Surely we are not so desperate for docs that we keep clowns like this on our payroll. Or was everyone afraid to boot his sorry butt out for fear of being called up by the PC police for racial profiling of insufficient diversity enthusiasm?
my feelings, and the comments they woulde generate at this time are unfit for this forum.
i am grateful though, that my friends at Ft Hood are alive this evening, even though the unit hit, 20th Engineers, was his. the half joy, half sorrow i felt when she answered, and even before i could speak, said “I’m fine, John’s fine, but it was his unit that got hit.” will haunt me the rest of my days.
To absent comrades.
Regardless of whether this was a jihadist or a nutjob…
All ye who yearn for an Islamist Reformation, STOP!
You’ve got it! Yer witnessing it!
This is what happens when Muslims return to the (reform) teachings of their scripture and the conform to the character of their prophet.
In contrast, when Christians reformed and returned to the essential truths of the New Testament, Christianity produced more peaceful and Christlike societies.
Know this, when Muslims reform and return to the essential truths of the Quran, it produces what we see today — a war against Dar el Harb to expand Dar el Islam.
The peaceful Muslims in our midst we know and enjoy the company of? They’re apostates. They have fallen away from their faith and the core tenets of Islam.
Deal with it.
Pity that Muslims can’t engage with the better parts of their history: the various flowerings of knowledge, art, and trade associated with various sorts of Turk, Imperial Persia, and certain of the old Gulf city-states. While an Islamic Reformation is a problem, an Islamic Renaissance might be due.
Sadly, that seems not only unlikely, but, even if such a thing does happen, likely to be past our lifetimes: this jihad, much like the mania of the Crusades, will take some time to get out of Dar al Islam’s system: going by comparison with medieval Europe’s progress from Crusades to Renaissance, several centuries.
As to the treacherous Major, does the UCMJ dictate hanging or shooting for this sort of scum?
David, the problem is that none of those flowerings (and tiny patches they were) were Islamic, but were either vestiges of the pre-Islamic cultures that were subjugated to Islam, or were tolerated flowers imported from elsewhere. There is nothing Islam ever gave birth to that is worth it giving birth to a second time.
David,
You’re reflecting the misunderstandings of our current era perfectly.
1. Those “flowerings” were the fading bloom of the captured rose of civilizations Dar al Islam had conquered.
2. The Crusaders were a defensive action. Yes, there are exceptions to that within the long history of the Crusades. However, they started after hundreds of years of the spread of Islam by the sword. When given a choice even Muslims preferred to live in the Crusader’s territory.
Wasn’t suggesting a perfect parallel; additionally, I’d include the long-lasting and distinctly non-jihadi Ottoman Empire (though possessed of numerous other flaws) as one of the “better parts” of Dar al Islam’s history.
My point wasn’t primarily that there have been bits and pieces of Muslim history worth respect (and I agree entirely with both you and Zane on the size and source), but rather that, using the closest, though imperfect, parallel I could find, the current crop of the submissive will take a long damn time to get killin’ in God’s name out of their cultural system.
David, I missed this yesterday. However, “non-jihadi Ottoman Empire” is a truly bizarre formulation–it was the most organized jihad machine there ever was! It had no basis for power or wealth other than through jihad, and when it was finally driven out of Europe and the Mediterranean (which was when the USN tamed the Beys of Tripoli, Tunis and Casablanca), it lost the ability to sustain itself, collapsing only a century ago.
I understand your goal, but I just don’t think there’s any gold in that pile of sawdust left by the Islamic conquest.
Wow, Lex, you captured it perfectly:
The Hate we do not dare to name.
“Malik Nadal Hasan, the jihadi that led the attack on Fort Hood, was quoted as saying “Muslims have the right to rise up against the US military” “The Malik Nadal Hasan Muslims have a right to stand up against the aggressors” “maybe we should have more of these where people strap bombs on themselves and go into Times Square” – this according to Col Terry Lee who worked with Muslim convert.
Over at http://www.jihadwatch.org, piles of links to other stories/interviews that make it perfectly clear where he’s coming from.
And he won’t be executed, anymore than the jihadist who rolled a grenade under the tent back in Kuwait.
Zane,
Hopefully, the jihadist that rolled the grenade under the tent will die. He was sentenced to death, within the last two or three days.
Sadly, this enemy also resides in our prisons, ‘converting’ many who reside there for a time. I’ll not condemn any religion on the face of it, but will surely remember that ‘by their works ye shall know them’.
It seems to me that if Muslims in this country do not want to become known solely for the terror their religion seemingly exports, and would have those around them accept their professed belief in peace and ‘playing nicely with others’, then I opine that they MUST stand forward and deliver up those bent on terror and destruction.
It may seem a simplistic thing to ask of anyone, but be an American first and second.
That said, my prayers go out to the victims and, indeed, all affected by this horrific incident. As Lex infers, where else do uniformed Service members feel safer and more at home than on base? My heart is heavy with the thought of the grief and betrayal that must be rife among those at Ft. Hood.
that should have read American first and (fill in the blank) second.
I have said here time and time again that Islam is the functional equivalent of the Andromeda Strain, the seeds of which, the Koran, lies around only waiting to be picked up and read to activate the strain; like those seeds of desert flowers and plants which lay dormant buried in the dessicated earth for years, even centuries, which, with the first drop of rain, germinates and spring to life in full flower.
Previous to this present era, the Koran and the more virulent strains of Islam was not a problem
for Western civilization only because they were bottled up, as it were, like Genie in the desert, unable to escape because of the state of technology and geography along with a Western civilization not yet given in to the blandishments of multi-culti PC.
Now, with advent of cheap international air fares and the internet which fosters the movement of populations to foreign climes without severing ties to the mother country and it’s culture, out migration from the ME infects thge whole world. (previous generations, by contrast, had, like Cortez, to mentally burn their ships as the cost of frequent travel to the home country to maintain ties was prohibitive and time-consuming, and the state of communications was such in terms of cost, ease of use and immediacy also made maintaining psychic links to the mother culture difficult. Thus most immigrants assimilated out of necessity if nothing else, as maintaining the original culture in their new home was next to impossible.) Also, weak to non-existent border controls in Europe and the US have also fostered movements into western nations of vast numbers of individuals–by means both legal & illegal– difficult to track and account for. Add to this populations blinded by almost a half century (and counting) of the indoctrination of societies’ youth into cultural self-hatred by leftists who have gained control of our educational systems, and one has the conditions for the germination and world-wide expansion of militant Islam. Stuffing this Genie back into the bottle–like tooth-paste back into the tube–may be well neigh impossible, as technology can’t be repealed, and most methods needed, like those used for the total eradication of certain bodily diseases, may prove equally destructive, even fatal, to the host. I have come to the sad conclusion that, like HIV, we may never be able to successfully eradicate this threat of Islam within western societies, but only
control it with various unpleasant measures in the way a mix of exotic drugs are used to combat HIV; and thus keep the body politic alive and functioning more or less normally–albeit at great effort and expense (think Magic Johnson.)
(In this particular case the case of this ungrateful bastard is particularly galling. He was put through medical school and his internship and residency for free at total tax-payer expense with no debt through the armed-services medical school in Maryland–one helluva an advantage to come out with no overhanging debt–unlike the hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt the normal civilian med-school graduate has who then later decides to join the service.
And THIS is how he shows his gratitude to the nation that nurtured and educated him? I have no pity, none, for this treasonous bastard. Stuff him into the barrel of a 155 long-tom alive and blow the bastard into the next life to contemplate his fate for eternity)
Lex/
Unchain that moderator you keep locked in the basement, kick his sleepy ass into action, and un-moderate me!
Wait for it, wait for it. There you hear that? Nope, and you won’t. No open condemnation of the religion that spawned this hatred. But replace this muslim scumbag with a “John Smith, fervent evangelical Christian, shouting “kill for Christ”" and what a torrent of hate would flow. I would have to agree with blackeagle, the muslims I know are not fervent believers. Business owners that are trying to make a buck and better their families futures. The mosque down K street, on the other hand, is a breeding ground of crime and corruption. When admissions like “stealing from the white man is not against MY law” then you know you’ve got a brood vipers in your midst. Time to clean house.
Prayers to the Lord to receive their souls and comfort the ones feeling the loss.
Hard to win a war when we’re not allowed to name the enemy.
I’m With G-man. Time to clean house.
When I first heard the news yesterday, my first thought was “oh crap, some poor soldier who didn’t get the mental health treatment he needed snapped.” When I learned it was a psychiatrist, I was even more horrified, if possible. A person who was supposed to help his fellow soldiers was instead hurting and killing and inflicting trauma on so many. A person who was supposed to live by the creed, First do no harm, doing horrific, unimaginable harm. An officer who should never have turned a weapon on his fellow soldiers.
As a trauma therapist, my thoughts go to the possible secondary trauma felt by this traitor that caused him to snap and commit such an act of treason. This incident has made me painfully aware that not only do we fail our armed forces when it comes to their mental health, we’re failing the few people who help them.
I’m not giving this f**ktard a pass. I hope the UCMJ takes care of him. There are no excuses for what he did.
I just want us to take better care of our armed forces and the people who take care of them. This has only strengthened my resolve to get on with the VA.
I stopped feeling safe in my own country on 9/11. But I didn’t realize until yesterday that I still had the expectation that military bases were safe havens. Dammit, my nephew in the Army and my son in the Air Force should at least be safe on a base on US soil. They deserve that much for all they give for us and this country.
I need to be with my family this weekend and thank goodness I will be.
Secondary trauma caused him to do this?!?!?
Felicia, ISLAM caused him to do this. This does not mean all Muslims are ticking time bombs, like others on this post the ones I know personally are all people I like, respect and trust.
But let’s pull our heads out of the sand. Really.
Felicia,
If you’re suggesting that giving oneself over fully to the teachings and calling of Quran can lead to a form of mental illness then I will defer to the more learned person.
I don’t know what caused him to do this. Was it Islam, was it secondary trauma? I have no idea. The fact that the alleged (alleged my ass) f**ktard is a psychiatrist, a doctor, and a major bothers me way more. But that’s just me. And the thought that a religion can trump all of that scares the shit out of me. Which may be why my first thoughts went to secondary trauma.
I just hope he pays and pays big time. Can we execute him 13 times?
Our hearts, minds and souls should be with the bravest among us as they continue their fight – for their own lives. And with the families of those who were taken from them in such a heinous act of hatred and violence.
And may this man burn, fester and rot for 10 eternities.
Amen.
I’ve been so upset I haven’t slept all night (being retired gives me that luxury) so have monitored most of the cable news shows. As one might have expected, “Morning Joe” has been the worst offender in exhibiting a classic case of multi-culti PC (as per usual) falling all over themselves to avoid speculating about the religious basis for the attack (in fact neither the word “religion” nor “Muslim” nor “Islam” passed anyone’s lips in three hours–regulars or guests–the closest they came was allowing that “perhaps” evidence “might” suggest that his motivation was “political”–even as they reluctantly, hesitatingly, and with mucho mewling qualifications, reported his previous internet postings and the “Allah Ackbar” quote provided early this am by Fort Hood’s Base Commander.) casting about for every possible motive EXCEPT the religious one. This tact begun at Morning Joe is being followed *religiously* by Dylan Ratigan on MSNBCs “Morning Meeting,” concentrating on the psychic strains of counseling to returning vets that might have caused him to “snap.” Utterly disgusting.
Mental healt is not respected in the United States military.
It would be easy to feed soliders subtances during conflict that would enable them to forget faster and make them even more efficient fighters.
How do we expect the few pshychiatrists to bare with all the direct raw nondigested data they get from the guys that return from the field anyways??
Sick.
No. Evil.
Expect the insanity plea and we’ll be paying room and board for this scum the rest of his days while he preaches his hate in prison. What they ought to do is turn him loose (unarmed) in the middle of Ft Hood at noon. If he makes it out the gate then he’s free.
At this point in the game, it is as likely that he was motivated by fanactical Islam as he was mentally disturbed.
Definitely treason, as defined in the constitution.
Definitely.
Definitely.
Traitor.
Murderer.
Wartime.
Please, please Justice System, help keep us all safe by doing your duty and uphold the UCMJ.
Like VX, I have been lying awake most of the night grieving for those dead soldiers, injured soldiers and their families. Lex has allowed several discussions on past essays on Islam, so I am going to take advantage once more of his tolerance and express myself. Zane mentions above “the hate we dare not name.” But who are we if we don’t live up to our Judeo-Christian principles and hate what is hateful, death-loving and morally destructive?
Lex has a quote from Edmund Burke on the right-hand sidebar of this blog, which concludes, “They never will love as they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.” So … I hate this man, his interpretation of his religion and the unspeakable acts his supposed adherence to Islam has led him to. If I had been there, I would have shot him myself, without a qualm. He was murdering my brothers, my children. He who attacks and murders my children, and I feel you all are my children, must die, no matter how much pain it causes me to do it. There are some things worth dying for, as you all well know.
I despair of being able to live in concert with the members of Islamic society. They are too different from us, in ways of thought and behavior. This man displayed so many clues to his mental disorder, which those in charge of him chose to ignore or minimize. And this is the result.
We ought at least to prohibit practicing Muslims, however superficially charming and friendly they may appear to be, from serving in our Armed Forces in any capacity. As we learned yesterday, they are a fatal danger to our loved ones and to us.
Marianne
Actually, Marianne, by “the hate we dare not name” I was poking Lex with a stick for his tip-toe dance around “what snakes were writhing” in Hasan’s head, when we all know, and Lex knew full well when he sat down at the keyboard, that the snake is Islam, and what Hasan committed was an act of jihad. I should not be so short of temper with our good host, but I thought the post was, well, beneath Lex.
May I ask a favor of the readership? By my estimate, since 2001 we’ve lost over a hundred soldiers, and likely many hundreds more, to Islamic traitors. Help me name them all (I stink at names).
Start with Ali Mohamed, the Egyptian trained at Fort Bragg.
The Marine from Lebanon who invented his own kidnapping to escape his HET team in the field, was recaptured, and who fled the country when allowed out of brig in Christmas charity.
Perfidious interpreters such as some I knew of can be added to the list, if they were American citizens.
The soldier who rolled the grenade in Kuwait.
The soldier recently convicted of years of rapes.
The Beltway Sniper, trained in the Army.
Jihad Johnny, who knew the attack was coming, had multiple opportunities to tell his American captors, and chose Islam instead.
How about that OS who changed his name to Jihad (hey DivO, think that’s a clue to something?) and tried to pass location data on Lex’s battle group to the muj?
I would like to open the field to our many, many “partners,” be they Iraqi, Afghani or Paki, who have sold Americans, Canadians, Brits, Aussies–our real partners–to their deaths. What was that, five British soldiers killed by Afghani police this week?
I think the field’s wide open for a comprehensive compilation of the enemy within, aka the writhing snakes.
As the the warden in “Cool Hand Luke” says, what we’ve got here is failure to communicate. One of our elders put it well:
Marcus Tullius Cicero
(born January 3, 106 BC and murdered December 7, 43 BC)
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”
So help me, 25Z, for a moment there I thought you had gone OT and were speaking of a certain cabal in government leadership. However, the statement applies equally well in this case.
As to the current cabal, I’ll go with C.S. Lewis:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
— C. S. Lewis: God in the Dock (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans,2002), p. 292.
That one made me shudder…’with the approval of their own conscience’.
Good Lord in Heaven.
Lex:
This one has hit pretty darn close to home, as it were. The Doctor is Army through-and-through. She got her MD elsewhere, unlike the Major, who was put through the Armed Forces’ own medical school on our collective dime(s). She trained in the Army Medical Corps system all the way through Fellowship in her specialty and later was an attending physician and too became Field Grade (O-4). She loved her time in the Army and Army Medicine and still misses it to this day. That a fellow Army physician would do this is horrifying to her.
For those who have wondered (not here so much but elsewhere): New medical students at USUHS are commissioned as O-1′s in their respective service at the start. After four years, they’ve gone from O-1 to O-2 and upon granting of either the MD or DO degree are promoted to O-3. Then depending upon their gaining service, they are almost automatically promoted to LCDR/MAJ about the time they finish their training in specialty or sub-specialty. (other direct gains, immediately post-MD, are given four years constructive credit and are commissioned O-3) That this guy reportedly “did not play well with others” did not prevent a system desperate for physicians of all specialties from promoting him does not surprise me. Nor does the fact that he was accused of actively proselytizing for his faith to unwilling patients likewise surprise me, having been on the receiving end of such treatment myself by others in my service or from sister services of more common faiths here in this country. That his frequent vocal criticism of the current wars went unremarked also do not surprise me, given that he was at Walter Reed AMC (a.k.a. “Wally World”) and thus was no doubt seen as merely spouting the then highly-fashionable mime of blaming the Previous Occupant for all things evil, bad and neo-conservative; a totally acceptable behavior by one and all when within the Beltway during the time 2001-2009.
As for the media-diagnosis of Secondary PTSD I give in evidence The Doctor’s own father who was an Army Psychiatrist in WWII and is literally one of the pioneers of psychiatric treatment of this disorder, then called Combat Fatigue. Guess what? He’s 93 and still hasn’t suffered a single day of this alleged syndrome. BWTFDHK, he just listened to and treated soldiers from both fronts in the war. OTOH, he is living proof, arguably, that most Psychiatrists are indeed crazy themselves, but that’s a whole ‘nuther story.
I am awaiting hearing from the MSM the many stories about the mainstream Christian or Jewish military personnel who have attempted or perpetrated similar crimes and high treason…I’m still waiting.
VR,
Comjam
Somewhat like yours, CJ, Cousin OBJenn did it on her dime. Residency at Ft. Lewis, cuppla tours here and there, and wrapped it up a few years ago after a pass through the Green Zone with the 28th CSH. Since then, Dear Cousin has spent some of her time on medical missions overseas practicing her field of choice and running triathlons whose winnings/donations are contributed for similar causes. Her faith was/is that of love life, promote life, give life…not destroy it.
I wouldn’t presume to speak for OBJenn, and she’s been uncharacteristically silent the last 24, but I have to believe that she’s devastated by this.
Comjam/
I realize that medical personnel are more directly involved in combat than is the case in the Air Force, so what I say may not hold water in terms of how they are regarded by Army line combat officers, etc., but we in the AF almost to a man during my day considered them not to be “real” officers in the traditional sense–and neither did they for the most part. And perhaps that is why so many (besides the PC bit already mentioned by so many) passed off the Majors prior acts of “weirdness” as mere “eccentricities.” I well remember the day when our flight surgeon attached to my squadron in the UK made Major and appeared at the sq, command post/duty desk in his “suntans” beaming with his oak leaves pinned on his shirt collar upside down oblivious to it all. “Uh, Harv, hate to nit-pick, congrats and all that, MAJOR, but……” Laughs all around of course, including Harv, who was a good egg, but illustrates the separateness with which we in the AF, (at least back then) regarded the medical corps insofar as being un-serious officers and not true “club members.”
Yes, because every Muslim in America (most reliable estimate c. 2-3 million) is a closet terrorist. That’s why so many American Muslims have been convicted of terrorist acts… No, I tell a lie; that number is in the low two-figures. Out 2-3 million.
It might make it easier if we just count Muslims in the armed forces; about 3,700. Out of that number, two have committed acts of terrorism. Even that is two too many, but that’s also only one-twentieth of one percent of those serving. If you want a clearer picture, try this NY Sun article, or would you throw 23-year veteran Marine aviator Colonel Burpee out of the Corps because of his religion?
Prowler AMDO asks why “Why are practically all the Islamic countries backwards hell holes?” My first response is: are they? Are Kuwait, Algeria, or Egypt such? What about Turkey or Indonesia? True, many Muslim countries are dictatorships, but is that due to religion or history? Certainly the non-Muslim states in Africa and southwest Asia are just as bad off, not to mention Roman Catholic countries in South America, or atheist North Korea.
Roughly 20% of the world is Muslim, by head count. 1.3-1.5 billion people. If we use the same proportion (.000541) experimentally demonstrated in the DoD, we would get c. 648,000 crazy people, and that sound about right, actually.
Sounds like a lot, too, until you spread them all over the globe. Still, that means 99.946% of the worlds’ Muslims aren’t bloodthirsty murderers.
If you judge a faith by the behavior of its’ adherents, let us recall that Catholic England threw all all their Jews to avoid paying off royal debts (Edward, IIRC), while Catholic Spain gave us the Inquisition, and Catholic France gave us the Albigensian Crusade against her own people. That’s not to mention the Protestant Cromwell slaughtering the Irish because, well, they were Catholic, the Germans slaughtering each other during the Thirty Years War.
We in the United States can point proudly to our white, Christian brethren for lynching so many black Americans during the last 140 years. Lest someone object that such acts were based mostly on resistance to Northern occupation, many of the most infamous lynchings took place after the turn of the century, including Emmett Till in 1955.
Major Hasan no more represents modern Islam than Fred Phelps represents modern Christianity.
I’ll close with link to David Frum (yes, the egregious Frum) here. Look at those photos, then look me in the eye and tell me we can’t trust Muslims in our armed forces…
Casey, I’m too tired this late at night to point all the fallacies in your comment. For the fun of it, though, don’t you find these lines a bit odd:
‘ “We believe in god and family and prayer – the same things as everyone who believes in religion,” he says. But his reaction to September 11th fit a less typical script. “I watched the attacks on TV, like everybody else. The first thing we did afterwards was go to the mosque because people were concerned about a backlash.’
Never mind that what Muslims call “god and family and prayer” have entirely different meanings than we give them–go get yourself a Tafsir, or better yet, the canonical “The Reliance of the Traveler,” and start studying–note that the good colonel’s first reaction was concern for his fellow Muslims, not for his fellow Americans. Now, he may have felt there was no distinction between the two, but it’s noteworthy how he phrased it. It was a distinction I noted when the local Muslim community came to pray at my house following my return from deployment in late 2001. Yes, praying at my house. I know a thing or two about Islam, much of it firsthand. And not a single one of those Muslims apologized to me, the American. Not a single one said he was ashamed for his fellow Muslims. Not a single one said UBL wasn’t a good Muslim, or was teaching falsely. For the simple reason that, to them, I wasn’t an American. I was a Muslim. And when we prayed, we prayed for the peace, salvation and acceptance into paradise of the dead… Muslims. The other 2850 or so, they were kuffar, and Muslims aren’t allowed to pray for them (look it up if you don’t believe me).
As for Frum’s gravestones, some have served honorably and have paid the ultimate price in their service to this country. Whatever their motives and deepest inclinations, none can take that away from them, and on Memorial Day I’ll salute and thank each one and God for their service and sacrifice. But they prove nothing, except that each one of those individuals died in this country’s service. Murderers and rapists have died in this country’s service, too. Doesn’t prove anything about the desirability of murderers and rapists, either, or that the US military needs them. As I noted above, the number of Muslim traitors has far exceeded two, and the number of American soldiers they have killed is greater than 13, or 15, or 19. Probably over 100 at first count, and much, much greater if you count our “partners”.
If Hasan had been complaining about the inequal distribution of capital while toting copies of Lenin’s What Is To Be Done around for years, attending anti-nuclear rallies and declaring that he wanted to do nothing to harm the coming socialist worker’s paradise (and so tried to get out of his service, allegedly, to avoid serving in Europe), he would have been canned and shipped away in a heartbeat back in the 1980s. He did the exact same thing in the name of Islam, and for whatever reason, was retained in the Army, until the day Sudden Jihad Syndrome caught up with him, and one single mujahidin killed 13 and wounded 30 of the 20th Engineers.
I really want to say some more about how foolish equivocations such as those in the post above allowed Hasan to continue to that point, but since this is Lex’s board, I will bit my tongue and walk away now. And walking away, I’m looking you in the eye and telling you that we can’t trust Muslims in the armed forces.
Zane,
If he did all those anti capitalist things today he’d definitely not be kicked out of the military, and when he separated he would be hired by a “moderate” left think tank immediately as a “warrior-scholar.”
Casey
Are those countries backwards hell holes?
Yes. (It’s considered a “redneck” response but seriously, go live there yourself if you think they’re so great. Oh wait, you don’t live there permanently? Huh . . . right.)
Being Navy I have more experience with Dubai than any other muslim country (Ok, UAE technically), but most people point towards it before your list as the crown jewel of a modern, westernized, progressive muslim country. It’s about 80% migrant workers who tend to leave within 5 years (from Pakistan, Philippines, Indonesia, etc.) and when you’re getting a cab ride around or being served by them as your waiter/waitress and ask them if they like it to almost a man they more or less say no. They are paid very little and treated like second class citizens by the 20% rich Arabs, even though most of them are muslim themselves. The 20% of Arabs do very little but receive payment for oil usually tapped by western companies, and from wells manned by exploited immigrant labor which decides to leave.
While last my carrier was in port there a British family in one of the malls lost track of their around 15 year old son. The son was abducted by some of the local arabs, taken to the desert, and sodomized by each. Somehow he managed to make it back to the city and into police “care” and was reunited with his family. When they came forward with the story, the 15 year old boy was charged with sodomy and put in jail to await trial (I don’t know what happened next though since the carrier pulled out shortly afterward). The place is a medieval, backwards hell-hole. It is little more than lucky that the foreigners who pump the oil they were born on top of bend over backwards in a ridiculous measure or fairness and morality to pay them handsomely for it. It has used that money to buy a pure and simple facade of modernity to draw in European tourism to fall back on once the oil runs out. (And a huge PR effort to boot, even though it’s one of the main funding sources for Islamic terrorism, a fact their government doesn’t necessarily condones but which it spends far more money suppressing than combating.)
Overall your post lists another interesting group of countries which makes my point exactly. As a cafeteria Catholic myself looking at the world I have to tip my hat to the Protestant/Calvinist Ethic. That alone seems to produce the best societies man has yet made. Not Buddhism. Not Islam. Not Confucianism. Not, even, Roman Catholicism.
ProwlerAMDO/
RE: Protestant/Calvinist ethic
Some un-PC historians and anthropologists believe that, aside from the fact of geography (SA is narrow in the temperate zones where America is widest) both the Spanish language (a highly–if not the most–patriarchical language)
and the Catholic religion are the two largest contributors to the societal dysfunctions plaguing South & Central American societies beginning with the conquest bt the Spanish and continuing unto this very day. (And I say this even as my wife and son are devout Catholics)
Oh my yes.
What Spain did to the New World was and remains a crime right up there with what Belgium did to the Congo.
Fresh from killing muslims, Spain went on to kill everything in the new world and anybody who interfered with their killing prerogative in the new world. One might almost associate a close association with muslims with an urgent desire to kill all foreigners and non-believers. Islam does tend to bring out the worst in people.
Virgil, Curtis
Yeah. We’re dang lucky Britain won the seven year’s war against France and that Spain never really made too hard a push in the North American continent.
Again, I myself am a cafeteria Catholic. Baptized as such but not terribly practicing, yet too loyal to consider myself anything other than. Sometimes I literally do wonder if it would be best to convert, but since I’m not too practicing I never really do. Other times I wonder if there’s been a positive tension of Catholicism and Protestantism in North America which has prevented a tyranny of one or the other becoming too dominant . . . but that’s pure pet theory and not much else.
I’m a protester. Went to Catholic school with actual nuns for teachers. Parent retired from umteen years with the Army and went to work for a retired 4 star who said unto him, I will tithe 20% of what I pay you to the church of your choice and what church would that be….? I’m happy that these things are still a part of the world I live in.
Spain was a blot and everywhere that its writ ran was ruined by association. It was really surreal to wander just outside the metropolitan areas of Spain and find oneself back in the 16th century….barefoot girls herding pigs with a stick in their shifts. Cervantes would feel quite at home in 20th century Spain.
If you judge a faith by the behavior of its’ adherents, let us recall that Catholic England threw all all their Jews to avoid paying off royal debts (Edward, IIRC), while Catholic Spain gave us the Inquisition, and Catholic France gave us the Albigensian Crusade against her own people. That’s not to mention the Protestant Cromwell slaughtering the Irish because, well, they were Catholic, the Germans slaughtering each other during the Thirty Years War.
And all of these things happened how many centuries ago? Each of these religions left behind this kind of barbarism.
Whereas Muslims still believe in subjugating their women, treating them as cattle. Where they believe stoning is appropriate, where honor killings are the norm. A religion that endorsed the actions of 9/11 and the world’s Muslim population did what exactly? Nothing at all.
As for the egregious past of our own country – you are right of course. Actions for which we have atoned many times over.
And none of this takes away the fact that Hasan is a Muslim who just slaughtered Americans, on American soil, chanting “Allahu Akbar” as he unleashed his rampage.
Religious question… what’s the Islamic take on oath-breaking?
David, not sure what you are asking about. If you are asking what the Islamic take is on Hasan’s breaking his sacred oath to defend the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, the central answer (there are many, many hairs to split, which I will leave untouched) is that no Muslim can make an oath to do anything which is contrary to the Law of Allah, or Shari’a. From there the hair-splitting includes: when he took the oath, did he take it “without any mental reservation,” or did he say those words as taqiyya, the necessary deceptions that Muslims may make in order to survive in an infidel land? Is he a “guest” in our infidel land, and hence subject to certain limitations on his actions imposed by his status (kind of hard to make that argument since he was reportedly born here)?
Yes, in many ways this stuff is like “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin,” utterly arcane and uninteresting to a modern American. Yet if we don’t take the time to learn it (learn it, not listen to the dissemblings of the local imam/CAIR and their willing idiots in the press, or the fools in our government), we will continue to pursue our fool’s folly.
ProwlerAMDO,
Sorry for I have to be off the rail here, but Myanmar isn’t the only Buddhist majority country in the world.
Also, talking about number, Myanmar isn’t in the first top three either because there are
also Japanese, Chinese, Thais, Viets, and other Buddhist asians.
And, if you can recall, just two years ago, there was a monk-led protest in Myanmar which I would say that
the incident was religion-inspired and it should provide some proof here against the perception about
Buddhists being too passive.
I’m not saying that Buddhism is better than any religion here, and you have the right to be suspicious about
tragic conditions in Buddhists country just like in Islamic, Christian or Communist country .
After all, humans are subject to changes good or bad all the time. we shouldn’t blame god for that.
Hmmm . . .
To be honest I’m taking Myanmar as the “only” majority Buddhist country from the following quote on page 23 of the paperback edition of “History of Knowledge” by Charles Van Doren.
“This is true even though Buddhists are hardly anywhere a majority (except in Burma).”
But a quick google search seems to back you up, i.e. this chart
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Buddhist_distribution.png
So I think you are probably right and I stand corrected on that point. I’m also a little disappointed that the book I’m reading seems to err so bluntly and by such a large margin . . .
I know I paint with a broad brush, and that this necessarily does injustice in the details. However, I think my larger overall point that the Protestant/Calvinist Ethic seems to correlate best with the highest degree of political freedom is still valid. Thank you however for pointing out this mistake.
Keep in mind I say this as a Catholic myself, when, as Casey pointed out, the predominantly Catholic countries are on the whole places I’d rather not live.
PAMDO, I just noticed you used van Doren as a source? van Doren? I’ve got that one on my shelf somewhere, but I’d never cite it, especially since he never cites any of his sources. A fun read, but not a source of authority IMHO. For population figures, use the CIA Country Books, you paid for them after all.
Well yeah. It’s a non-fiction history book that I assume has been professionally edited (by Ballantine Books, which I’ve never heard as a fly by night op) and has a four star average rating over 76 people at Amazon.com . . . But since it was clearly wrong in this case I guess this proves the old adage of what happens when you assume.
No one said Buddhists are pacifists. But they’re not busy in my country trying to coerce the non-Buddhists into adopting their belief system and political order, either.
In case Casey’s still reading:
“* Navy Signalman Hassan Abujihaad last year was convicted of tipping off al-Qaida to battle group movements in the Persian Gulf, including disclosing classified documents detailing the group’s vulnerability to terror attack.
• Army reservist Jeffrey Battle in 2003 pleaded guilty to conspiring to wage war against the U.S., confessing he enlisted “to receive military training to use against America.”
• Army reservist Semi Osman in 2002 was arrested for providing material support to al-Qaida and pleaded guilty to weapons charges after agreeing to testify against other terror suspects.
* Marine Abdul Raheem al-Arshad Ali trained at a suspected al-Qaida camp and was charged with selling a semi-automatic handgun to Osman.
• Army Sgt. Ali Mohamed trained Green Berets at Fort Bragg’s elite special warfare school before stealing military secrets for al-Qaida and helping plan bombings at three U.S. embassies in 1998.
• Army Spec. Ryan Anderson in 2004 was convicted of leaking military intelligence to al-Qaida terrorists, including sensitive information about the vulnerabilities of armored Humvees.
• Army sniper John Muhammad was put on death row after fatally shooting 10 in the nation’s capital a year after 9/11.”
Here’s the link-
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=511702
It’s missing a few, but it’s a good starting list.