How the enemy can hide in plain sight

U.S. Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, is blaming his own department for its attitudes and the military command structure for lapses that allowed Major Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, to progress through the system. As many as eight officers may be held to account.

The day after the shooting, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, the top military man in the U.S. military structure, went on a media blitz to assure serving Muslims that the military would keep a sharp eye out to make sure there no repercussions against them because of Major Hasan’s attack and that “diversity is our strength, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

Well, which is it Mr. Secretary?

Do you want your officers to implement Political Correctness -- which is the reason why no action had been taken against Hasan -- or do you want them to keep a better weather-eye on Muslim radicals and root them out?

If PC rules the day, these officers should be given medals for respecting diversity, not prosecuted.

In the 86 pages of the Pentagon review of the shooting, not once does it focus on Major Hasan’s motivation as an Islamist, although apparently there is a separate classified report that deals specifically with Hasan.

According to Gates, the problem with the Defense Department is that:

We have not done enough to adapt to the evolving security threat that has emerged over the past decade. The department is burdened by 20th Century attitudes rooted in the Cold War.

He says that as if it were a bad thing.

Let us consider those 20th century attitudes during the Cold War. They could be summarized as follows:

Communism is evil. It is our enemy and we must be diligent in defeating it. We must not allow our military establishment to be infiltrated and undermined by communists.

It seems to me if you simply substitute Islamism for Communism you pretty much have the attitude you need to get rid of the future Major Hasan’s before they become a problem. But you do have to identify the new “ism” first.

Somebody ought to remind Secretary Gates that we won the Cold War with those attitudes. Maybe if the DOD could bring itself to terms with the idea that it is Islamism that is the enemy it would get better handle on how to defeat it.

Dr. Phil, the Islamists' answer to Lenin's "useful idiot"

If you want to know why we are losing the struggle with radical Islam you don’t have to go very much further than this little piece of national television fare.

It is a segment from CNN’s Larry King Live Show featuring an interview a few days after the Fort Hood event with Dr.Phil, a woman in the Veteran’s Affairs Administration, and a JAG lawyer.

Philip McGraw gets the head start, which means he gets to frame the discussion that follows. For him, this is a mental/emotional issue, full stop.

You can’t blame him for that, it is his field, it is the prism through which he views the world, and it is the thing he is most comfortable talking about.

I would venture to say he knows diddly-squat about Islam, from at least one comment he made.

Next up are two other split screen guests, Shoshana Johnson, who served in Iraq and was, for a brief period, a POW, and Tom Kenif (not sure of the spelling) a JAG officer and criminal lawyer who also served in Iraq.

Kenif disputes the mental explanation, believing the truth may lie in Islamic extremism. However, both McGraw and Johnson jump down his throat, accusing him of saying dangerous things that are simply untrue and ridiculous. It is also pretty clear from King’s interjections that he finds Kenif’s explanation suspect.

At various times, Dr. Phil says things like, “You can’t make sense out of nonsense” and “Well (mentally healthy) people don’t pick up a gun and kill their friends.”

Unfortunately for Kenif, in the ensuing argument he falls into Dr. Phil’s trap, agreeing that a person who murders people for religious reasons is mentally ill. At that point he loses the argument.

Wrong, Dr. Phil. That is music to the Islamists’ ears.

Go on spouting about mental illness and believing that the military should focus on stress and not religion. This was a one-off, an isolated incident, completely explained away by westernized notions of mental illness. It has nothing to do with Islam. Move along now, nothing to see here.

The Islamic Project will give you a big medal for that one.

There is no reason to think whatsoever that an Islamic radical who kills the perceived enemies of Allah, with the full knowledge that if he dies in that battle he will be guaranteed eternal life in Paradise -- the only guaranteed path in the Koran -- is mentally ill. There is nothing nonsensical about this if the religion makes sense.

The only way that could be true is if you were to say that all people who believe religious doctrine must be mentally ill. No American is going to say that, certainly not Dr. Phil.

You could possibly refine that last statement and say that only people who believe the religious dogma of Islam are mentally ill because of the violence it spawns. Again, no American in the mainstream media and establishment is going to say that.

If Major Hasan was acting out of purely religious motivation then the soldiers he killed or tried to kill were not his friends, Dr. Phil. They were his enemies. There is nothing irrational about that. Soldiers are supposed to kill their enemies.

And if you knew anything at all about Islam, Mr. McGraw, you would know that Muslims are not permitted to make friends with non-believers.

Mr. Kenif had the right idea even if he couldn’t follow it up properly on the King show.

The safest way to proceed after Fort Hood is to assume an Islamic influence and act accordingly, and revise your judgment only if subsequent evidence emerges that mental factors unrelated to religion are prevalent. This would be called an application of the precautionary principle, or, as we used to say, doing something simply out of an abundance of caution.

Unfortunately, the Dr. Phils in America control the high ground and more Fort Hood disasters can be expected in the future.

On a related note, here is a Washington Post story of the first post-Fort Hood interview with Hasan’s jihadist mentor.

In praise of bigots

Carrie Prejean, Famous California Bigot

What follows is one of the more interesting responses to my recent blog postings that I have received in a while. I have set it out in italics and my reaction to it is posted below in normal font.

Anonymous writes:

This blogger (a Canadian?) is a closet Islamic bigot, hiding behind a facade of social consciousness (women's rights/homosexual rights, and protecting apostates, etc.)...substituting 'Muslim' for 'Nazi' (in his whimsical retelling of the Ft. Hood new story) really betrays this fact.

Islam is not Nazism, not even close (the write has never met a Nazi, I believe, and very few real followers of Islam). If one is calculating body counts, Christianity (which has also historically encouraged a "holy war' mentality) is at least as murderous as Islam, taken as a whole. Christianity is also anti-female, anti-homosexual (though the church has been a haven for homosexuals for centuries), and, of course, intolerant of apostates and dissenters (remember the Holy Inquisition?)---until the present age, at least (but I note the current Pope's declaration that the "true enemy" of monotheism is "secularism"--perpetuating the martial mentality towards the perceived "other").

While I do agree with people like David Brooks (recent op-ed about choice and evil)...I temper my "conditioned prejudice reflex" with (what I hope is) a deeper sense of cultural understanding. The non-judgmental "reaction" by leaders following the shooting is a sign of how far we have come as a nation from the days of instantaneous scapegoating (of the "other)...the blog writer would seem to prefer (under the guise of a word substitution exercise) that we mentally replace the foreigner term (Muslim or mole) with the modern era's most evil label (Nazi).

Here's my "whimsical" response to the "dead reckoning" blogger's post:

Yes, that's right, let's stop giving people with foreign names and beliefs the benefit of the doubt anymore...Let's encourage out political leaders to "shoot first, ask questions later"...let's foster public cries for retaliation (a slippery slope once you use the term "Nazi")...let's return to the 19th Century!...and then go through the bloody socio- evolutionary process once again...until maybe we wake up and learn and truly progress...

The blog writer routinely generalizes Islam and makes statements like "Islam is the only religion that preaches destruction of Western civilization" etc....Not distinguishing between Islamic teaching and Koranic teaching, and, in the context of discussing what the Koran preaches, he conflates the two...leaving the reader with the impression that the Koran says these things.

Here is a quote from the Koran (Sura 5, verse 13, I believe): "Be ye steadfast witnesses for Allah in equity, and let not hatred of other people blind you, that ye deal not justly."

As Dick Cheney has shown us, it is simple (minded) to "cherry pick" this or that passage to justify this or that prejudice (the bible was used to justify slavery; "All are welcome at my father's table...master and slave...." etc.)

Like most monotheistic, religious holy books, there is much content that is a reflection of the historical epoch in which the writing came about...often containing prejudices and misunderstandings...but also, admonitions like the foregoing Koranic quote (it's rough equivalent in the West: "do unto others as you would have them do unto you")...

Again, the blog writer, in my opinion is a bigot. His efforts seem little different from when Laura Bush noted the oppression of women in Afghanistan (as an additional moral justification for occupying the land)...as if she were a defender of women's rights (!)

...By the way, the FBI investigation into Hasan’s communication with al-Awlaki (American born, Yemeni cleric) was deemed to be related to Hasan's PTSD research (professional duties), and did not exhibit any "warning signs" or pose any threat...thus the investigation did not lead to any termination or suspension of Hasan's duties.

The recent admonition by Obama (and others) not to rush to judgment...was the ethically and socially correct thing to do.

I agree that there is such a thing as evil in the world (though I disagree with its commonly judged causes) ...but also, that we should not rush to judgment of someone based upon his/her cultural practices and beliefs. WE ALL KNOW THIS ALREADY. It is possible to believe both, despite what the pundits amongst us try to argue in favor of (this way or that, never both).

The war 'over there" has hit home once again...did you think that we were immune? Apart from the geo-political strategic reasons for occupying two Islamic nations (and a third being Saudi Arabia, with 20 K US troops stationed there)...we are fighting against extremism in all its forms (religious, social, political, economic)...our side has equally as many religious fanatics willing to kill or cry "holy war" (or "culture war")....this is the only enemy (same as it ever was)...let's find some concrete ways to combat it.....hmmm, maybe starting with
"love thy neighbor as thyself"....?

Navigator (aka bigot) replies:

Normally I am not one to dwell on the ideological language employed by the left wing and the right wing. I am more interested in the actual arguments advanced by the parties, but this piece is chock-a-block full of such leftist politico-babble that I simply could not resist commenting on that aspect of it. Is there a school somewhere that teaches the correct form for the articulation of leftist conceits 101, because they all seem to follow a common format?

We have the obligatory accusation of racism or Islamophobia; take your pick, which must always appear at the beginning of such a piece so that there is no shadow of a doubt that the subject of the accusation has no legitimacy. In this case the accusation is that I am an Islamic bigot, but not an ordinary Islamic bigot, I am a closet Islamic bigot (almost like a secret society bigot).

But the writer (who I shall hereafter designate in the masculine gender) has unmasked me, ripping away my guise of being concerned about such leftist-owned causes as women’s rights, homosexual rights and concern for apostates, to show that none of these really matter to me because I am just an Islamophobe and therefore have nothing useful or reliable to offer on any of those subjects.

We have the usual accusations of false argument, which the writer immediately employs on his own behalf with no shame of hypocrisy. For example, Anonymous wags a finger at me for the evil of “cherry picking” to bolster my argument (without identifying the example, mind you) and then proceeds to do exactly that by quoting some single sura from the Koran that fits his theme.

Likewise, it seems to Anonymous that I ought to know a Nazi or a Muslim before I write about them. He does not offer us his credentials in that respect, but is quite comfortable launching into a discussion of these matters anyway. Why do leftists feel that they command the public stage and they can play on it without abiding by the rules they seek to impose on others. The arrogance of that posture is breathtaking.

Anonymous fallaciously sets up a straw man that he attributes to me and then proceeds to knock him down (the body count thing).

The babble part is the business about the “other”. If only we didn’t think in terms of the “other” then there would be no “other” and we would have no problems, it all comes down to us to stop thinking there is an “other”. I have always thought this line is claptrap. Just because I don’t want to think there is a wolf at my door is not going to determine whether or not there is one.

But enough on the structure of Anonymous’ attack. Let me deal with the substance.

Anonymous seems to have missed the point of my satire. It was not driven by a desire to compare Islamism with Nazism. It was to compare the current climate of political correctness in speech and thought with that which prevailed amongst the military and government authorities in my father’s generation. The key to the piece was that the statements were taken as if they had occurred in the early 1940s, during a war with Germany, and, fairly looked at in that historical sense, they seem ludicrous.

I am not, by any measure, a “closet Islamic bigot”. I make no bones about the fact that I do not like Islam. Read my blog, I have almost nothing positive to say about it. If I am in a closet on that subject, it is one with three walls and a door all made of glass. Nor does the appellation of bigot stick, since by definition a bigot is an unreasonably intolerant person. I a reasonably intolerant person, or, put another way, a person who is intolerant for good reasons.

I am an atheist. I have acknowledged that fact repeatedly on my blog. I do not hide my bias. I don’t like any religion: a pox on all your holy books, as it were. But I have deep concerns about Islam above the others and for good reasons, which I will elaborate hereafter.

I don’t think it is sufficient for Anonymous to simply assert, as if it were an obvious fact, that Islamism and Nazism are “not even close”. He should at least be intellectually honest and make the case for that proposition. Otherwise it is merely a conclusion in search of a premise.

Anonymous should explain why he thinks that Islam and German National Socialism differ on the key issues – just the ones that would concern us in a pluralistic, liberal democracy. I am referring to matters such as triumphalism, the will to power, racism, treatment of Jews, treatment of non-Nazis and non-Muslims and so on. I would be curious to see how Anonymous parses the differences, if he can actually identify them.

Anonymous failed to mention that I credited Geert Wilders with the proposition that there are similarities between Nazism and Islamism, but I won’t hide behind that because I do believe there are some disturbing similarities: the hatred of Jews being one, the claim to super status in the world being another, and the idea that women are primarily breeders for the perpetuation of the race, being just another example. The list goes on.

Ah, then we have the old “Christianity is just as bad or worse” moral relativism argument. I have heard better arguments: Stalin and Mao were atheists and they killed a lot more people than all the mainline Abrahamic religious people ever did.

So what? How does that excuse Islam’s atrocities? Just because Al Capone killed more people than John Dillinger doesn’t exonerate Dillinger from his crimes or cause us to think more highly of him.

I am no apologizer for Christianity, as I have made clear in the foregoing, but it is not Christians who are blowing up and shooting non-Christians in the name of their religion. That might have been the case long ago, or perhaps not so long ago, if one considers Northern Ireland, but in the 21st century that activity is now a near monopoly of the Muslims, and it is the here and now that concerns me, not the long history of this activity.

And it also concerns me that it is not confined to only Muslim lands; would that it were, because that would be an easy out, but it is worldwide. Neither the IRA nor the Tamil Tigers ever threatened my safety and security in Canada. The same cannot be said for some of the followers of Islam.

When I must run a gauntlet of oppressive security measures at airports, have my passport checked 5 times between the checked-luggage kiosk and stepping aboard the airplane, having my ass and balls grabbed by some bored security agent, and have to partially disrobe in public, it is not because Christians have been previously caught with weapons or bombs hidden in their Bibles or shoes.

Rest assured, Anonymous, that if Christians start down this same road, I will be as equally concerned and as equally harsh about them. At my core, you will be able to say with confidence and pride that you know me to be an equal opportunity bigot.

I don’t think Anonymous’s case is helped much by laying the distinction at my door that I failed to make; i.e., what the Koran says versus Islamic teaching. This accusation would make sense if the Koran contained nothing but verses of love and kisses for all, and Islamic teaching was something quite different.

In fact, the Koran contains many suras that talk about fighting and killing non-Muslims. Additionally, the Hadith (the best example of the Muslim life as referenced by the way Mohammed lived his and what he had to say about it) is another source of Islamic religious duty, law and precedence. The world is not a better place as a result of the massacre Mohammed visited upon the Jews who rejected him as a prophet of God.

These are the sources Islamic leaders cite when they pronounce death sentences against novelists, cartoonists, publishers, movie makers, screen writers, translators, and even duly elected members of legislatures, none of whom live in Muslim lands, authorizing any Muslim in the world to kill these people. It is the source material for the justifications cited by al Qaeda leaders and their acolytes for their murderous activities and the source of justification offered by ordinary Muslims who take it upon themselves to visit death and destruction on non-Muslims.

These violent suras are no less authentic and authoritative than the sweetness and light one that Anonymous cherry-picked.

Anonymous betrays his own faulty reading skills. At no time did I make the claim, direct or implied, that the Koran teaches the destruction of western civilization.

In fact, the idea that Islam is the only religion at war with western civilization was not my proposition at all. It came from a Pakistani-born, Canadian Muslim, Tarek Fatah, who has written a book about Islam, which was the subject of another one of my blog postings.

Now I am beginning to get a sense of what Mark Steyn must have felt when he faced human rights complaints about what he had written and the Muslims were, in reality, not complaining about his viewpoint, but the fact that he merely reported what other Muslims had said.

Anonymous seems to assume I am a war-monger with respect to Islam. In fact, quite the opposite is true.

I have stated previously on my blog that I think the Afghanistan effort is wasted, that we should bring our army home when our commitment expires in 2011, and we should avoid mucking around militarily in Muslim lands in the future. I was opposed from the outset to the American invasion of Iraq. So I don’t really know how I got “conflated”, to borrow his word, with the likes of Dick Cheney and Laura Bush.

I don’t want to fight Islam; I just wish to protect my liberal-democracy society from that ideology. I am looking for an effective shield, not a sword. Is there a problem with that?

Well, there is when the top soldier in the United States professes to be more concerned about backlashes against Muslims than the future safety and security of non-Muslims. If the military cannot protect its own, perhaps it should take a leaf out of the playbook of one of the Scandinavian police forces that hired a private security firm to protect the police. And if the military cannot even safe-keep its own, then what hope is there for the rest of us on civvy street?

I am aware of the public details of the investigation by the FBI of Major Hasan’s communications with the radical Islamist in Yemen and that the investigation was suspended because the investigator concluded it was not terrorist related. It is interesting to note the response of that al Qaeda recruiter to Major Hasan’s 10 minutes of mayhem:
Anwar al-Awlakid posted a blog entry titled 'Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing' on his web site. In the post, Awlaki calls Hasan a 'hero’, and writes:

"[Hasan] is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush aside and just pretend that it doesn’t exist. Any decent Muslim cannot live, understanding properly his duties towards his Creator and his fellow Muslims, and yet serve as a US soldier. The US is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam. Its army is directly invading two Muslim countries and indirectly occupying the rest through its stooges. Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal."

President Obama referred to Hasan’s “twisted logic”. So much for the non-judgmental leaders Anonymous so admires.

There is nothing twisted about Hasan’s understanding of his religious duty. In fact, Major Hasan had suggested early on that all Muslim soldiers in the U.S. military should be granted conscientious objector status as long as U.S. soldiers were being deployed for combat in Muslim countries. That was a most sensible and logical solution to this problem. It is unfortunate that nobody took him seriously enough to follow through with it.

I make no claims about the existence of good and evil as some sort of cosmic force, I will leave the proof of that one for Anonymous. I can only distinguish actions that I would be inclined to call good from those that I would likely brand as evil. What Major Hasan did was evil, and praising what he did is evil.

Finally, a word about love thy neighbour.

In Christianity this is supposed to apply to everybody. In Islam it is restricted to only Muslims. This is a distinction Mr. Obama failed to note in his Cairo speech.

At the end of the day

Let’s have a little fun with the U.S. military and government and its most important talking points about the Fort Hood massacre.

The New York Times published this story.

I am going to take a page from Geert Wilders and assume that the Koran and Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, are equally odious in that they tell people to go out and kill other people who don’t agree with them and who belong to some identifiable class; in the case of the Koran it is Infidels, Jews and Christians, and in the case of Hitler’s bible, it is Jews, and that both books are political ideologies.

So in the Times story instead of Muslims, we will substitute Nazis, and pretend that we are back in the 1940s combating Nazism in Europe. We’ll cut out some superfluous reporting, and pretend that the shooter was a German American, and see what this looks like.

Army Chief Concerned for Nazi Troops

General George Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, said on Sunday that he was concerned that speculation about the political beliefs of the officer accused of killing 12 fellow soldiers and one civilian and wounding dozens of others in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, could “cause a backlash against some of our Nazi soldiers.”

“I’ve asked our Army leaders to be on the lookout for that,” General Casey said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union. “It would be a shame — as great a tragedy as this was — it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well.”

General Casey, who was appeared on three Sunday news programs, used almost the same language during an interview on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” an indication of the Army’s effort to ward off bias against the more than 3,000 Nazis in its ranks.

“A diverse Army gives us strength,” General Casey, who visited Fort Hood Friday, said on “This Week.”

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” said that as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee he intended to investigate the officer’s suspected motives and whether the Army “missed warning signs that should have led them to essentially discharge him.”

“If he was showing signs, saying to people that he had become a complete and committed Nazi, and not just a half-assed, laissez-faire Nazi, the U.S. Army has to have zero tolerance,” Senator Lieberman said. “He should have been gone.”

Asked whether he thought the Army “dropped the ball” in not responding to warning signs that the officer was increasingly radical, General Casey replied that he was encouraging soldiers to provide information to criminal investigators. But he added that the Army needs to be careful not to jump to conclusions based on early tidbits of information.

“The speculation could heighten the backlash,” he said on “This Week.” “What happened at Fort Hood is a tragedy and I believe it would be a greater tragedy if diversity became a casualty here.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican of South Carolina, and Sen. Jack Reed, a Democrat of Rhode Island, took also pains on Sunday to say that Nazis have served honorably in the military and at risk to their lives.

“At the end of the day this is not about his politics — the fact that this man was a Nazi,” Senator Graham said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“At the end of the day, maybe this is just about him. It’s certainly not about his politics, German National Socialism.”

He added: “To those members of the United States military who are Nazis, thank you for protecting our nation, thank you for standing up against Hitler who is trying to hijack your political beliefs.”

Obama has a near "Brownie moment"

We all remember former President George W. Bush, patting his hapless Director of FEMA on the shoulder and saying, “You are doing a heck of job, Brownie.”

In that moment, more than anything else that had transpired, he doomed his Presidency. People were prepared to give him a lot of slack on his war in Iraq because they were not sure that he was wrong about keeping America safe. But when they saw the plight of Americans in New Orleans and saw how disconnected his administration seemed to be from what was so obvious in all the media coverage, the electorate started to disengage.

It was like the late President Nixon’s famous declaration, “I am not a crook.”

These kinds of comments have a self-serving ambience about them that simply exacerbates a problem of dissonant public perception, rather than smoothing it over.

That brings me to President Barack Obama’s rather extraordinary media reaction to the events in Fort Hood. I tuned in to him when it was advertised that he would speak about it. At first, I thought I must have been misinformed. He was rambling on congratulating some Indian conference organizers and getting the audience to recognize some local hero. I was just about to move on when he brought up Fort Hood.

It was creepy and reminded me of the minutes after 9/11 when George Bush received the news in a children’s classroom and seemed not the slightest moved by it. That Obama wouldn’t start off the top of the microphone opportunity with the Fort Hood commentary was very strange.

After doing the ritual of "how our prayers and thoughts are with the wounded and the families of the deceased", he then started in about himself and his job and his responsibility. Don’t want to dwell to long on those sad Texas folks and take your eyes off the most important thing in the United States -- me.

This guy is supposed to be one of the best public speakers in America, but he is surely no Ronald Reagan when it comes to conveying the appropriate emotion.

He is busy telling us not to jump to conclusions until all the facts are in. This is code for, "Don’t start blaming Islam because I have been kissing Islamic ass for nearly a year and you will upset all the benefits to be derived from my groveling and abasement, and wreck my Presidency, and that would be a disaster for America."

OK. I won’t jump to conclusions.

Let’s add up the facts so far:

Islam preaches Jihad against non-Muslims.

The shooter’s parents are Palestinians and he is a life-long Muslim – a regular at the mosque.

The shooter has been making anti-American comments for some time, expressing his opposition to the wars in the Middle East by non-Muslims and suggesting that Muslims should fight back.

He folded up his tent in anticipation of going somewhere, saying goodbye to all his friends.

He used private weapons which he acquired just prior to the shootings and he employed a type of gun that is rapid fire, accurate, Kevlar-piercing, and can be loaded with a 30- round clip. I am not saying he used a 30-round clip, but many people found it difficult to believe he could have hit so many people with a single pistol.

He shouted "Allah Akbar" while he fired his gun; it is a common expression for those who are about to destroy non-Muslims to preface their action with cries of "Allah Akbar".

I’ll wait for more facts before coming to a conclusion, as Dear Leader asks, but, in the meantime, I am reminded of that old saw: if it walks like a duck, and it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, then it most probably is a duck.

Time for religious profiling in military service

Did a lack of religious profiling lead to the Fort Hood disaster?

In World War Two, the United States and Canada transported citizens of Japanese ancestry inland and kept them in camps until the war was over. This was done for several reasons.

The first was that the North American Japanese were a small, visible minority, so it was easy to do, without serious political consequences. The second was that the vast majority lived on the west coast where our forces were facing the Imperial might of Japan. The third reason was that it was impossible for the authorities to be able to determine whether these people would identify with their North American homeland or with their racial ancestry and, if the latter, would they actively attempt to sabotage our war efforts.

We will never know the answer to that conundrum because we never gave them an opportunity to show us.

After the war, when multi-culturalist politics became de rigueur and political correctness infected our English usage rules, we apologized to these people for the horrible racist manner in which we treated them. Ever since then we have gone out of our way to make sure we do not repeat our racist policies, even if those policies may have protected us.

In the usual clarity of the view through the rear-view mirror we now see the signs that Major Hasan, life-long Muslim, had openly expressed deep misgivings about the U.S. military invading the homelands of Muslims and killing them.

Had the authorities had been rigorous about religious profiling of possible military risks this man might have merited a different assignment or a mustering out.

In the Cold War, it would have been unthinkable to put an avowed communist on the front lines of the military. Why would the army propose to send a Muslim to a theatre of war in which Muslims are being killed by non-Muslims and expect him to do his duty?

I will bet, starting today, the U.S. military will begin investigating every serving member who follows the teachings of Mohammed, PC and MC be damned, and that recruitment officers will be given a new set of instructions to weed out potential religious problems.

The following are the current posted grounds for ineligibility for U.S. military service. Religious affiliation is not referenced even though the United States has been fighting in Muslim countries for 8 years, but sexual perversion (whatever that means) will definitely show you to the door.

US Military Enlistment Standards

In general, the following additional conditions will render one ineligible for enlistment, and waivers will not normally be granted:

1. Intoxicated or under influence of alcohol or drugs at time of application, or at any stage of processing for enlistment.
2. Having history of psychotic disorders or state of insanity.
3. Questionable moral character.
4. Alcoholism.
5. Drug dependence.
6. Sexual perversion.
7. History of antisocial behavior.
8. History of frequent or chronic venereal disease.
9. Previously separated for unfitness, unsuitability, unsatisfactory performance, misconduct or bar to reenlistment, with 18 or more years of active Federal service completed.
10. Military retirees (can be waived in some cases).
11. Persons unable to present written evidence (official documents) of prior service claimed, until such service has been verified.
12. Persons whose enlistment are not clearly consistent with interests of national security.
13. Last discharged or separated from a component of a U.S. Armed Force, with an other than honorable or general administrative discharge.
14. Criminal or juvenile court charges filed or pending against them by civil authorities.
15. Persons under civil restraint, such as confinement, parole, or probation.
16. Subject of initial civil court conviction or adverse disposition for more than one felony offense.
17. Civil conviction of a felony with any one of the following:
a. Three or more offenses (convictions or other adverse dispositions) other than traffic.
b. Applicants with juvenile felony offenses who have had no offenses within 5 years of application for enlistment may be considered for a waiver in meritorious cases.
18. Subject of initial civil court conviction or other adverse dispositions for sale, distribution, or trafficking (including "Intent To:) of cannabis (marijuana), or any other controlled substance.
19. Prior Service with an RE-Code of "4." (Note: The Army will sometimes waive a re-enlistment eligibility code of "4," when that code was issued by another service, and the individual's discharge characterization is "uncharacterized," or "honorable."
20. Persons with a Bad Conduct or Dishonorable punitive (court-martial) discharge.
21. Persons with prior service last discharged from any component of the Armed Forces for drug or alcohol abuse, or as rehab failure during their last period of service.
22. Three or more convictions or other adverse dispositions for driving while intoxicated, drugged, or impaired in the 5 years preceding application for enlistment.
23. Confirmed positive drug test at MEPS. (Note: The Navy, Marine Corps, and Army may waive this, after a waiting period. The Coast Guard and Air Force never waive this).
24. Persons with convictions or other adverse dispositions for 5 or more misdemeanors preceding application for enlistment.
25. Alien without lawful admittance or legal residence in the United States.
26. Permanently retired by reason of physical disability.
27. Individuals receiving disability compensation from the VA (may be waived in some cases, as long as the member agrees to give up the disability compensation).
28. Officers removed from active or inactive service by reason of having attained maximum age or service.
29. Discharged by reason of conscientious objection.

For comparison, here is a discussion of the Indian army recruitment practices on the Super Hindu website.

About the Muslim under-representation in the Indian army, the reasons are three. One was Partition. Before Independence, Muslims were around 25 per cent of the Indian army and 25 per cent of undivided India. But when India broke up and Muslim soldiers were asked to choose between India and Pakistan, they joined Pakistan en masse. So Muslim numbers in the Indian army dropped so drastically that they were only 2 per cent in 1953, according to India’s then minister of state for defence. Jawaharlal Nehru himself expressed concern that “hardly any Muslims” were left in the army. And Muslim numbers never really picked up in the last 60 years for a well-known reason.

India’s military establishment hesitates to hire Muslims as soldiers because it suspects Muslim loyalty to India. This discrimination is a natural outcome of India and Pakistan’s bitter hostility over 60 years. In similar situations, the same thing happens all over the world. The Israeli army doesn’t trust its Arab soldiers in jobs related to defence security. The Buddhist Sinhalese army under-recruits its Hindu Tamils lest their sympathies lie with the Tamil Tigers. After 9/11, US army recruiters would probably screen a Muslim American volunteer more thoroughly than a Christian American. Thanks to our four wars with Pakistan, the same anti-Muslim animus works here in army recruitment.

Proof of it lies in an enormous mass of documentary and other evidence which expresses distrust of Muslims. Otherwise, why does India have separate regiments for the Sikhs, Jats, Dogras, Garhwalis, Kumaonis, Mahars, the Nagas, even the Gurkhas, but not a single Muslim regiment? This is tragic but it’s a truth which shouldn’t be suppressed. It should be acknowledged and dealt with.

Events have consequences. Muslim under-recruitment in the Indian army is a consequence of Partition. India and Pakistan’s hostility is seen in both countries in Hindu versus Muslim terms. So it’s natural for India’s Hindu army establishment to distrust a Muslim who wants to join as a soldier.

This prejudice itself discourages qualified Muslim youths from applying, which drives down Muslim numbers even more. Another reason for Muslim under-recruitment is the relatively poor education of Muslims. When they try to enlist as soldiers, they are simply out-competed by better-educated Sikh, Hindu, and Christian youths. So Muslim leaders are quite right that Muslim under-recruitment in the army deprives the community of a good, life-long source of employment. It’s a sad situation not so easy to correct.

The author of this piece clearly has a better opinion of the sagacity of American military recruiters than the available evidence would support.