WASHINGTON - Senior military and Barack Obama administration officials have
been on a full-court press to pre-empt an anti-Muslim backlash since the
shooting spree by a Muslim soldier at Fort Hood, Texas, but right-wing pundits
have wasted no time in characterizing Major Nidal Malik Hasan's actions as an
act of terrorism by a radical Islamic extremist.
When news of the Fort Hood massacre, which took the lives of 13 soldiers and
wounded 30, first emerged on November 5, White House and military leadership
issued statements of condolence
for the soldiers and families affected but also emphasized that terrorism
seemed an unlikely explanation for Hasan's violent rampage.
General George Casey, the US Army's top officer, spoke repeatedly in the days
immediately following the shooting in attempts to avert an anti-Muslim
backlash. "I'm concerned that this increased speculation could cause a backlash
against some of our Muslim soldiers. And I've asked our army leaders to be on
the lookout for that," Casey told CNN's State of the Union.
"The speculation could potentially heighten the backlash against some of our
Muslim soldiers," he told ABC's This Week.
Casey emphasized that although the shooting was horrific, "It would be an even
greater tragedy if our diversity became a casualty here."
While visiting the United Arab Emirates last week, Homeland Security Secretary
Janet Napolitano echoed the sentiments expressed by Casey. "This was a terrible
tragedy for all involved," Napolitano told reporters in Abu Dhabi. "Obviously,
we object to - and do not believe - that anti-Muslim sentiment should emanate
from this."
"There does seem to be a rush to judgment about possible religious motivations
for the tragedy," Thomas Cincotta, civil liberties project director at
Political Research Associates, a Somerville Massachusetts-based progressive
think-tank, told Inter Press Service (IPS).
"People are using this as an opportunity to spread Islamophobia, this has to be
contained. The White House and this administration have tried to contain this,"
he said.
Senator Joseph Lieberman broke ranks early on with the White House, declaring
Hasan a "self-radicalized, home-grown terrorist" on Fox News Sunday. Lieberman,
an Independent, will be holding senate hearings on the massacre next week.
While the army and White House have remained consistent in their message that
conclusions shouldn't be drawn until all the facts have been examined,
right-wing pundits and politicians have been quick to label Hasan's shooting
spree an act of Islamic terrorism.
They charge that the response from the White House and military leadership
reflects a dangerous trend of political correctness which forbids "common
sense" conclusions about what Hasan's motivation may have been.
"Such [politically correct] statements are an affront to most Americans'
intelligence, which common-sensically applies a prosaic form of the scientific
method: They look for the explanation that best fits the facts," wrote Center
for Security Policy president, Frank Gaffney.
"The facts - which are becoming ever more numerous by the day - are that the
purported perpetrator of these crimes, Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, is 'a
devout Muslim' who, as such, has had to follow at least since 2001 the dictates
of the theo-political-legal and seditious program that authoritative Islam
calls shariah," Gaffney wrote.
"One of those dictates is that the faithful must engage in jihad, or holy war,
to achieve the submission of unbelievers to Islam," he continued in his weekly
column in the Washington Times.
"Every few months, either an Islamic-inspired terrorist plot will be foiled, or
a young Muslim male will shoot, run down, or stab someone while invoking anger
at non-Muslims," opined historian Victor Davis Hanson in the National Review.
"In other words, the attack on Fort Hood happened on schedule. It was the rule,
not the exception. And something like it will occur again - soon," he
concluded.
Details have emerged suggesting Hasan followed the profile of many other mass
shooters in US history - quiet, a loner, exhibiting symptoms of emotional and
psychological problems and frustrated with a perceived set of grievances
against him - and felt isolated and under attack as a Muslim within the army.
Other mass shooters in the past year have included: in April, Jiverly Wong, a
Vietnamese immigrant whose failure to learn English and paranoia left him
increasingly isolated and angry, leading to his killing of 13 people at an
English class in Binghamton, New York; and in March, Michael McLendon, who
failed at attempts to join both the US Marines and the police and kept lists of
companies and people which he perceived as having slighted him, killed 11
people in Alabama.
The similarities to other recent US mass shootings are noticeable, but Hasan's
connections to radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki have received the most attention
from right-wing pundits.
"Some have detected in the Fort Hood coverage a return to a pre-9/11 mindset,
and there is some truth to this. In particular, the left-liberal tendency to
stereotype servicemen and veterans as psychopaths, suckers and victims is a
return to form," wrote The Wall Street Journal's editorial board member, James
Taranto.
"But the bending over backward to explain away the role of religious fanaticism
in the Fort Hood massacre is, it seems to us, something new - something
distinctly post-9/11, or post-post-9/11," he continued.
"The prescriptions coming from the right wing, trying to turn the Fort Hood
massacre into an act of religious inspired terrorism, has potential to throw
fuel on the fire," said Cincotta. "Any crackdown or overzealous response
against communities of color or Arab and Middle Eastern communities could do
real harm in the future to our political freedoms."
Bryan Fischer, director of issues analysis at the conservative American Family
Association, took the extreme position of suggesting that Muslims should no
longer be allowed to serve in the military, earning him a mention in The
Washington Post, the LA Times, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Palm
Beach Post.
"Of course, most US Muslims don't shoot up their fellow soldiers. Fine. As soon
as Muslims give us a foolproof way to identify their jihadis from their
moderates, we'll go back to allowing them to serve," wrote Fischer.
"You tell us who the ones are that we have to worry about, prove you're right,
and Muslims can once again serve. Until that day comes, we simply cannot afford
the risk. You invent a jihadi-detector that works every time it's used, and
we'll welcome you back with open arms," he wrote.
"And don't give us reassurances about the oaths that Muslim soldiers take to
protect and defend the constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Hasan took that oath, and it proved meaningless. In fact, the more devout a
Muslim is, the more likely he is to lie to you through his teeth, since lying
to the infidel to advance the cause of Islam is commended, not just permitted,
in the Koran," Fischer went on to say.
Cincotta strongly disagreed with Fischer's suggestion that Muslims should be
purged from the military. "Suggestions like that are absolutely preposterous.
Already the military is facing a chronic shortage of Arabic and Farsi
speakers," said Cincotta. "These solutions wouldn't make us any safer."
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