When Muslims Commit Violence?

(AP)

Writing in The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg has an unremarkable post about the Fort Hood shootings with the quite remarkable headline "When Muslims Commit Violence." Goldberg takes issue with colleagues Megan McArdle, James Fallows and the Atlantic Wire, for ignoring the religion of the alleged shooter, Nidal Hasan, as relevant to any inquiry into motivation. He believes that it is.

"It seems, though, that when an American military officer who is a practicing Muslim allegedly shoots forty of his fellow soldiers who are about to deploy to the two wars the United States is currently fighting in Muslim countries, some broader meaning might, over time, be discerned, especially if the officer did, in fact, yell "Allahu Akbar" while murdering his fellow soldiers, as some soldiers say he did," he writes.

I have no idea what would motivate someone to carry out this heinous crime. Maybe religion was involved. But only days after the shootings how can anyone be sure? On NBC's Meet the Press, the U.S. Army's Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey urged the public not to rush to conclusions and referred to reports about so-called early warning signs about Hasan's behavior as "speculation" based on anecdotes. But what does he know?

Connecticut's Sen. Joe Lieberman went on Fox News Sunday to press for an investigation because, he said, Hasan reportedly "showed signs of being a "self-radicalized, homegrown terrorist." Lieberman may have missed delivery of his Sunday New York Times, which carried word that investigators have tentatively concluded that Hasan, an army Major, was not part of a terrorist plot.

Lieberman did allow that it was premature to get into the question of motivation. No such hesitation, though, from the usual crowd of gasbags and grandstanders who have already settled on a pot boiler narrative.

The predictable Michelle Malkin describes Hasan, who was born in the United States, as a "Muslim soldier." Of course, we're all being kept in the dark because of the "whitewashing of jihad by the (mainstream media.") She goes on: "I've said it many times over the years and it bears repeating again as cable TV talking heads ask in bewilderment how all the red flags Hasan raised could have been ignored: Political correctness is the handmaiden of terror."

Malkin also uses the occasion to remind her readers that as far back as 2003 she had been writing about "Muslim soldiers with attitude." (Muslim soliders with attitude?) That's quite a statement. But scroll through the archives to read how she reacted after James von Brunn, an 88-year-old white supremacist, was arrested in the shooting at the National Holocaust Museum. The shooter `wasn't "left" or "right," she wrote at the time - he was "just plain loony." Fair enough, but if Hasan is a "Muslim soldier," would that make the shooter arrested for murdering abortion doctor George Tiller a "Christian terrorist." After all, there were suspicions that he was involved with a radical Christian movement. No need to email, Michelle, I have a pretty good idea how you'd answer that one.

Meanwhile, Malkin's ideological fellow traveler at Allahpundit cites chapter and verse from a Guardian piece to conclude Hasan was a "typical fundamentalist Muslim. That's quite a statement considering there are more than 1.2 billion Muslims around the world. How many are "fundamentalist" and what does mean - especially in an American context?I don't expect an answer to that question either. Of course, this crowd isn't interested in nuance. They are lucky enough to be endowed with the rare capacity of performing long-range psychoanalyses to offer declarative conclusions long before investigators render their final verdicts.

We should all be so fortunate.

[noloyalisti]

by RIGHTSTUPIDDUDE November 9, 2009 7:32 PM EST
6 "And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars

Man listen to this slanted religious blather. You could pretty much say anything you want and what it means. No wonder religion is in such trouble in this country. You read it and then beat your head like an empty drum. Scary stuff, this religious blather. What does this have to do with America, the Constitution, out founding fathers of anything?

[RIGHTSTUPIDDUDE]

6 "And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
7 "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.
8 "All these are the beginning of sorrows.
9 "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake.
10 "And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.
11 "Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.
12 "And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.
13 "But he who endures to the end shall be saved.
14 "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
15 "Therefore when you see the 'abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place" (whoever reads, let him understand),
16 "then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
17 "Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house.
18 "And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes.
19 "But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!
20 "And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath.
21 "For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be.
22 "And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened.
23 "Then if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'There!' do not believe it.
24 "For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.
25 "See, I have told you beforehand.
26 "Therefore if they say to you, 'Look, He is in the desert!' do not go out; or 'Look, He is in the inner rooms!' do not believe it.
27 "For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
28 "For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together.
29 "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
30 "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 "And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

[RIGHTSTUPIDDUDE]

I say that every person who is against what our founding Forefathers stood for, leave the country. Go to a country you can support. We don?t need to change our Constitution. We need to change those who do not uphold the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONSTITUTION! Yes! In God we trust. The God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob. There is only one God. The true and living God. The creator of heaven and earth and everything above, below and in it.

[RIGHTSTUPIDDUDE]

GOOD POINT

[RIGHTSTUPIDDUDE]

There?s one way to solve this Muslim stuff. Get them out of the service and our country. Because of them, we take our shoes off at the airport even if you have nothing but rubber. Just like the Muslims. Right they are all not violent. But their religion allows it. All of them out of the service I say. Bring our troops home and let them continue to kill their own. Those here. Take their business, properties and send them home. . . Every Muslim I see in my opinion they are a potential terrorist. It?s my right dude to say what I want. I am a US born American, Tax payer with a president that needs to be changed. That?s the change we need.

[Superstarzchef]

That sounds a little like Hitlers plans in WWII. Granted that may sound good on paper and all, but it is seriously not possible and its overall quite a flawed mentality. I've seen this same rhetoric applied here in the USA to the debate about the illegal immigrants. Are you really serious? Do you even hear yourself when you type? The funny thing is, at first, we all may tend to agree with you-at least a large part of me does. I would want to do the same thing with those Muslims, and Mexicans, and Jews, and Poles, and Russians, and N. Koreans, and Chinese, and you get the idea? Soon there wouldn't be anybody left in the USA for you to throw outta here. What we need is those in the Muslim community to STEP UP, and place the ideals of radical jihad on the table, and discard the notion that the "jihadists" are going to "heaven". They themselves, must out those radical indidviduals whom are capable of these atrocities against us, and the USA. The Muslim community as a whole must decry the idea of jihad, and what that ideal represents. I find the Muslim community to be severly lacking in this effort, and their silence is damning. Forget the notion that the presence of American troops in foreign countries for now...The reasonable person here in American needs to understand that with or without the troops overseas, that the fundemental jihadists would/will eventually strike the USA is for what we belive in. Our way of life is under attack. The USA just represents the best "image" od what that way of life is. Until those Muslims can understand that principle, jihadists will continue to attack "us" no matter what. Its sad that the idea that this is not a "War on Muslims" because it really isn't. Yet the sad part is that that is what it must become, otherwise we will not be able to live inpeace and security. Both with al of those "groups" we hate, and the "Americans" who were born here.

[noloyalisti]

This is the US terror campaign coming home to roost. What do we expect when we terrorize four countries to control oil for the big corporations? What do these Christian Fascists in America expect to happen?

[thebob-bob]

"the usual crowd of gasbags and grandstanders who have already settled on a pot boiler narrative". And it will be a coordinated, right wing press mantra.

They also make a big deal about his "proselytizing and ignore the Evangelical whackos at the Air Force Academy in Colorado insisting that their fighting, not for America but for Christ!

[smitvict]

I'm waiting for Obama to hit the apology circuit on this one. A muslim who frequented the mosque of 9/11 hijackers (but then again Obama never listened to Jeremiah Wright either), posted to radical islamic websites and shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the attack.

We should be wary of a rush to judgement.

[kevingallagher]

Hasan should have been shot in his hospital bed upon waking up from his coma. Until an example is made of one of these radical muslims, the domestic terrorism will continue. No price being paid for crime is the chief reason for the continual rise in crime in America. Killing fellow soldiers is the lowest form of treason and treason should be punished with death like it used to be.

[RIGHTSTUPIDDUDE]

I agree 100%

[Superstarzchef]

No he shouldn't have been. He should be tried and convicted of his TREASON first. In a court of LAW. Then he should be put up against the wall and shot. I wouldn't and don't want to pay to keep this treasonist ******* in prison, with better Medical care then I recieve I might add-for the rest of his natural life. My .55 cent .45 ACP round can quickly end years of expensive imprisonment, free postage, better food, better Doctors then I have to work 80 hours a week to achieve.

[lepbodie]

He was both...don't you get it. A Muslim jihadist and a nutcase. In fact aren't they the same? But then lets not prejudge. Obama might speak out soon and straighten it out...like the Cambridge cop situation where he did jump to conclusions. Could it be that Obama has some sympathies for this "mistreated" army major and thus his silence?