Shooting at Fort Hood
First impressions (I was busy all day and just started to catch up on the news):
There’s a press conference going on right now, and they just said that the shooter actually is not dead. He is alive, although hospitalized.
It’s shocking to me that that shooter is a psychiatrist, although perhaps it shouldn’t be.
It is not shocking to me (sad to say) that he is apparently a Muslim.
Another very odd tie-in is that the shooter seems to be a graduate of Virginia Tech, a school with a history of an unusual number of violent acts.
They are reporting that the person who wounded the shooter was a female member of the military. Correction: a female civilian officer. She also was first reported to have died, but is hospitalized.
There are reports that the shooter was very vocal about not wanting to be deployed to a war zone, and that he spoke out against the Afghan and Iraq wars. It is also reported in a Fox News interview with someone who knew him in the military that he had hoped that, with the election of Obama, the wars would end, but was disappointed and upset that this had not yet occurred.
Another report: he had gotten previous poor job reviews at Walter Reed. And his entire medical education had been financed by the military; he did not enter the service as a physician.
The drumbeat begins: he was listening to sad stories of vets returning from the war arena. It goes without saying this is no excuse for anything, nor is it PTSD. Listening to war stories? Give me a break.
He received his medical degree from the military’s Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001. The Vinton, Va. native served eight years as an enlisted soldier. He also served in the ROTC as an undergraduate at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg. He received a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry there in 1995, according to the Roanoke Times…
Hasan is the son of Palestinian immigrants and Vinton residents Malik Awadallah Hassan and Hanan Ismail “Nora” Hasan, according to the Roanoke Times. Nora Hasan ran the now defunct Capitol Restaurant on the Roanoke Market. Hasan’s father owned the Mount Olive Grill and Bar and the Community Grocery Store on Elm Avenue. Both parents are deceased.
This is very sad, the military is a microcosm of society but has fewer percentages of nut balls due to the merit based system.
Islam appears to be involved here.
Tragically, Officers tend to get an extra measure of slack than an enlisted person exhibiting the same behavior, sad but true in my experience. Another example of educational bias?
Normally the military has a zero defect attitude, this guy got poor reviews at Walter Reed but slipped through.
A bad situation and as more comes out I am sure it is a failure of senior leadership that didn’t wash him out when it should have, doesn’t look good for the Army. Sad, really sad.
This has been sobering and stunningly horrible news!!
I suspect this is a tipping point for Americans regarding Muslims.
Muslims are not going to smooth the waters with any more Religion of Peace, “they misunderstand Islam” rationalizing.
Nor are the PC multi-culturalists who reflexively defend Muslims after these atrocities.
Nor is the media which reflexively avoids noticing the correlation between Islam and these acts of jihad.
Nor are those in authority who overlook whackos like Hasan so as not to rock the boat.
At this point American Muslims and our leaders need to be front and center telling us that this is going to change and we need to see that change is happening.
Otherwise relations between Americans and Muslims is going are just going to get worse and worse, and it will not be pretty.
Neo:
“The drumbeat begins: he was listening to sad stories of vets returning from the war arena.”
Strange. How is that one supposed to be played? I dont get it.
Huxley, wishful thinking I am afraid…..
“Normally the military has a zero defect attitude, this guy got poor reviews at Walter Reed but slipped through.”
As a retired line officer, I would like to point out that this individual did not go through the same selection and retention process that combat arms officers go through. Doctors are in such demand that they are often given a great deal of leeway. That’s the explanation, incidentally, for the way in which he got his medical training.
And, I’ve already started to hear the drumbeat that always begins any time there’s a shooting by a member of the military: ‘post-traumatic…trained to kill…robots…etc.” And that was on Fox! The point of that report was that there had been a half dozen shootings near and on Ft Hood in the last five years — OMG! Epidemic!
I only hope someone will do the math and point out how small that number is when you consider they took place in a “city” of more than 50,000. And, this shooting doesn’t compare with the VA Tech and similar shootings in the sense that first indications are that the soldiers immediately started to react (rather than freeze) and saved lives by doing so. Too bad their commanders disarmed them all when they came home.
Lag, thanks, wrote in a hurry, yes many medical personnel do not go through anywhere near what the rest of of us do and many times leadership is lacking in that community, the guy still should have washed out as the many statements he made become public.
That being said, I don’t want to disparage in any way the serious service of many medical personnel saving our guys in the war zones.
huxley Says:
“At this point American Muslims and our leaders need to be front and center telling us that this is going to change and we need to see that change is happening.”
The democrats will just capture them as another oppressed interest group…
It’s amazing that he made it to the rank of .. Major .. that is stunning.
LAG Says:
” ‘post-traumatic…trained to kill…robots…etc.” And that was on Fox!”
It doesnt fit the anti fox narrative, but most fox reporters are still democrats…
” ‘post-traumatic…trained to kill…robots…etc.”
You mean as soldiers?
Or as Muslims?
Uhh, Neo: vitals.com, where my colleagues and I are accurately listed, shows Hasan as a graduate of the Univ of Damascus Medical School (that’s Syria, for those of you in Rio Linda), with post-graduate training here in the US. American citizenship is not a prerequisite for enlistment.
Our armed forces have higher tolerance limits (see M*A*S*H) for attitudes of docs than for regular troops, regretfully.
Our political failure to recognize that women MDs are not 1.0 fulltime equivalent MDs, due to their dropout for motherhood, has contributed significantly to our national doc shortage. Consequently, there are now lots, lots of MiddleEast, Paki, and Indian medical school products ensconced in the good old USA, bringing their cultures and often huge extended families in after, thanks to the last, Kennedy-led, immigration reform of ~1986. 54% of medical students today are women, so this isn’t going to change anytime soon.
I await news on the 2 possible co-conspirators that were earlier said to be in custody..
Neomythus: Captain is the usual entry-level rank for the Army Medical Corps.
Tom—all the news reports I have heard (and read) state that the shooter was born here and raised in Virginia, as a Moslem. And this report says:
He received his medical degree from the military’s Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001. The Vinton, Va. native served eight years as an enlisted soldier. He also served in the ROTC as an undergraduate at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg. He received a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry there in 1995, according to the Roanoke Times…
Hasan is the son of Palestinian immigrants and Vinton residents Malik Awadallah Hassan and Hanan Ismail “Nora” Hasan, according to the Roanoke Times. Nora Hasan ran the now defunct Capitol Restaurant on the Roanoke Market. Hasan’s father owned the Mount Olive Grill and Bar and the Community Grocery Store on Elm Avenue. Both parents are deceased./i>
Huxley, wishful thinking I am afraid…..
Darrell: Possibly.
It may not be public as I have suggested. A European friend tells me that after the London subway bombing, there was a large shift in the UK but mostly behind the scenes.
What happened was that UK Muslims realized that they would catch hell if there were any more Muslim bombings. Radical Muslims didn’t stop plotting, but the moderates started shopping the jihadis to the police, which is why there have been so many plots busted before violence.
Captain is the usual entry-level rank for the Army Medical Corps.
Didn’t know that
Is anyone in a position of authority ever going to wonder why imams continue to preach hatred? And how much this influences people like this guy and so many others in the past 5 years? How long can America play this PC game where we don’t call on American Muslims to cut out this vitriol? And Reverend Wright, while we’re at it?
F
The democrats will just capture them as another oppressed interest group…
Thomass: According to polls, Muslims are already an interest group within the big Dem tent.
McGovern Democrats didn’t welcome the Weather Underground into their ranks while Weather men and women were bombing.
Republicans as well as 99.9% of the anti-abortion movement close ranks against those who kill to stop abortion.
Terrorism is extremely toxic, however sympathetic some Americans might be to the ends of the terrorism.
Hasan is about the fifth or sixth case of a Muslim living in America going jihad on other Americans since 9-11. One can overlook the first two or three cases as anomalies, but it’s now a pattern that Americans can see. That’s what has changed.
We must cease treating Islam as a religion. It does not recognize the separation between church and state. It is a political and ideological movement that pledges allegiance to a higher power than the Constitutionally-established order. Such activity was once called “sedition,” and in the early days of this republic, was outlawed (though later overturned by the Supreme Court).
huxley Says:
“Thomass: According to polls, Muslims are already an interest group within the big Dem tent.”
Sure, but what does the 2000 poll data show?
“McGovern Democrats didn’t welcome the Weather Underground into their ranks while Weather men and women were bombing.”
99.9% of US Muslims don’t actually set any bombs. A better analogy is African Americans. A larger percentage say / believe hateful things (vs. setting bombs) and are made excuses for by leftwing democrats… They also get defended for riots… Very similar to the way ‘youths’ in old Europe are by the left there.
Obungler’s priorities….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW7PAhHKPyo&feature=player_embedded
http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2009/11/fort-hood-massacre.html
The FBI ruled out terrorism before the guy was even in custody.
It’s not terrorism: It’s just a lone member of Islam, um, a particular religion attempting to create terror, um, fear, hmmmm, consternation in infidels, no…. aggressors kuffar, uh, his fellow soldiers.
Nothing to see here, move along.
The Army, in it’s infinite wisdom, is already cracking down on privately owned weapons among soldiers and proposing more Muslim sensitivity training.
Apparently this Islamic Psychiatrist succombing to Sudden Jihad Syndrome is my, and my fellow troops, fault.
How many moslem doctors and medical students have developed Sudden Jihad Syndrome and killed a bunch of people?
A great many so far. Allahu Snackbar….
99.9% of US Muslims don’t actually set any bombs.
Virtue is 90% lack of opportunity. Guys who just happen to be Moslem have planted a lot of bombs in the US and Europe, shot jews at LAX, tried to blow up FT Dix, shot people in malls, sniped people around DC and crashed flaming vans into airports. Not even counting 9/11 and the other events the FBI actually considers terrorism.
If the f***ing Terror Alert Level doesn’t consider Jihadees pulling a gun and shooing people around them, what the f*** is the Terror Alert system for?
Tom, over on Instapundit there’s some discussion of two people with the same name. That might explain the discrepancy you found.
Just got done wretching after listening to Soldedad “Sister” O’Brien on CNN stumble through an interview, all the while offering her opinions on the shooting, which amounted to a stream of consciousness confabulation about military life causing such bad stress and how we should re-think everything blah blah blah. I realize the networks want to display eye candy to boost their viewership, but SO is such an airhead and so leftward in her bias even CNN out to realize the error of their ways.
As a more complete description came out on this guy, one of my first thoughts (among many) was somebody, somewhere – REALLY – needs to go back through his roster of past patients and check on them!
Not insinuating those former patients would go jihad as well, but rather suggesting that perhaps they did not receive the level of treatment they should have as their psychiatrist was f%#*^@g crazy….
On CNN the ratio between mentions of PTSD vs Islam are now about 110 to 0. That’s right, zero.
This is classic misdirection that fits the ready template of the operational narrative. For the few persons actually depending on CNN as a primary news source (and they did a really fine job in the earliest hours – far better than Fox until it was time to sell the narrative as a defensive measure) the religion of the shooter is an unknown. Don’t ask, don’t tell. The elephant is directly behind the teleprompter, but no one acknowledges its presence.
It is also reported in a Fox News interview with someone who knew him in the military that he had hoped that, with the election of Obama, the wars would end, but was disappointed and upset that this had not yet occurred. So, when are we going to start hearing the chant, “Obama Lied, People Died”?
Yeah, sure, right….
mezzrow,
Generally, I’m agreeing with your 8:41AM statement – but I do disagree on one major point.
That’s not an elephant behind the teleprompter – it’s an ass……
Plus Hasan was a major in the Army and a psychiatrist. He wasn’t some obvious loser or nut.
Hasan had status and authority in America. He was doubly vetted as someone we could trust with our lives. That such a person could become a mass murderer is unheard of here and on a military base of all places.
These are the things that are different and they highlight Hasan’s Muslim faith as his motivation.
Society can’t protect itself from everyone, but when the people who are supposed to protect us become literal mass murderers, then we need to find out why and do something about it.
scottie,
The law is a ass. The metaphor is a elephant.
We conservatives must have our standards.
When one speaks of the elephant in the room, I think of the metaphor. If one speaks of asses in a room, I’m thinking either strip club or shower. (blushes)
The Jawa Report said that the shooter was a member of an extremist Salafist mosque in the DC area.
Gray – it is always a pleasure to see your comments in a thread.
mezzrow,
Conservatives in strip clubs? Well, they DO have money as they tend to work for a living.
(Ahem….. both the conservatives as well as the strippers, that is – ah, working for a living, ya know…never mind…. 😀 )
My condolences and prayers go out to the families of those murdered at Fort Hood, and with the entire Fort Hood community. Its an awful tragedy.
As for Islam: Although I’m not ready to say all Muslims have the same murderous attitudes as the killer at Fort Hood, I DO think its about time that we deal with the rampant disfunction that is occurring within Islam. I’m not a Muslim, and I don’t want to disparage someone else’s spiritual beliefs. BUT, the evidence is now staggering that there is something disfunctional with the Muslim world. Its as if Muslim society, moreso than societies dominated by Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, or other religions, seems incapable of dealing with the 21st Century (note the levels of poverty and lack of freedom in most Muslim societies) or of living alongside those with other faiths (hence the notion that “Islam has bloddy borders”). I don’t think anyone is doing a favor to Muslims by ignoring this disfunction. It needs to be looked at and dealt with.
Neo–From your comments, I sense that you are trying to give Muslim Maj. Hassan something of a pass, because you don’t want to discriminate on the basis of religion, out of the belief–I’m guessing–that all religions are basically good.
Here is what I have discovered–on the basis of many hundreds of hours of research since 9/11 (I have by now added perhaps 40 new books dealing with Islam to my library)–about Muhammad, Islam–it’s fundamental texts and philosophy, its history, world view, objectives and tactics, particularly with respect to how it views and deals with non-Muslims, the hated and reviled “unbelievers,” the topic that is the focus of the majority of the Qu’ran.
First of all, almost everything that appears in the popular press, in most contemporary academic works (up until the destruction of our old traditional school of “Orientalists” in the 1970s by Leftist academics lead by Edward Said, our experts, based on many hundreds of years of history, personal experience and deep research, took a very dim view of Islam and Muslims, indeed, and viewed them as I am viewing them here) and in the MSM about Islam is flat out wrong–and almost all deliberately so–politically correct bullshit, propaganda, soothing pap, twisted road signs, a layer of amnesia intended to make us forget, and believe that Islam and Muslims are not a problem for us, that there is no danger, when, in fact, there is a massive problem and acute, deadly and growing danger; always has been, always will be.
To be brief, Islam is totally unlike Christianity or Judaism in objectives, in outlook, in philosophy, in methods; it is totalitarian, predatory, xenophobic, deliberately deceptive, and extraordinarily violent, much more a military-politico philosophy in which Islam and the State are one, with an extraordinarily rigid set of all encompassing laws and rules i.e. Shari’a law and driven by an imperative, Allah given mission to conquer the World, than a true religion (what we would call religion i.e. the “Five Pillars,” obligatory fasting, prayer, alms to the poor, a confession of faith and the Hajj–occupies only 10% or less of the Qur’an). It is the only one of what have been called by the very popular Muslim propagandist and apologist Karen Armstrong, the “Three Abrahamic Religions”–and even this claim about Islam is false–it is not an Abrahamic religion unless you count its hijacking and twisting of major portions of the Torah and New Testament, of the appropriation and subjugation of Abraham and Jesus as making it Abrahamic–that calls for the enslavement, conversion, or extermination of all non-Muslims, all “unbelievers”–even makes this a holy act, calls for the killing of any Muslim who wants to deviate from of leave the faith, and gives religious sanction–indeed makes it mandatory–for Muslims to lie (Takiyya) or withold part of the truth (Kitman) when dealing with unbelievers and/or living in unbeliever societies, if by doing so they safeguard or advance the cause of an individual Muslim or Islam.
In the 1,400 years since armies of Muslim Jihadis erupted from the Arabian Peninsula, Islam has conquered and occupied (and occupies to this day) all of what in ancient times had been the Christian Middle East–Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Turkey and North Africa–then went on to destroy the Byzantine Empire i.e. the last remnant of Rome, the Eastern Roman Empire, capture its capitol Constantinople with great bloodshed and rename it Istanbul, attack and occupy parts of India with horrific bloodshed, destruction and loss of life, attack Central Asia, conquer and occupy Spain for 800 years, attack, conquer and occupy many lands in and around the parts of the Mediterranean basin and subject it to constant raids, piracy and slave taking, push into Europe, conquering and occupying many parts of Eastern Europe, push into Western Europe, and for many hundreds of years aunching raids (razzias) from garrisons there to pillage, rape, loot, capture slaves and spread the terror of Islam and the Jihad, and launched four major military thrusts in attempts to conquer all of Europe, defeated by Christian armies or armadas –in 732 A. D. at Tours outside Paris, in 1529 at the Central European Siege of Vienna, at the sea battle of Lepanto off the coast of Greece in 1571, and again at the Battle of Vienna in 1683; estimated death toll 270 million unbelievers.
The Qur’an justifies slavery and, indeed, it and Shari’a law lay out rules and methods in great detail, and for 1,400 years (and still today in some places like the Sudan, Mauritania, Nigeria and elsewhere) Muslims operated a globe spanning slavery operation (slaves and stolen physical loot being the chief sources of revenue keeping slam’s various conquered territories and regional empires afloat); an estimated 17 million slaves (and estimated 1.5 million of them Europeans) were trafficked though this system–far more than through the widely known Atlantic slave trade.
Muslim ideologues have crafted an alternative philosophical universe and system of language and definitions to justify Muslim’s predatory actions, and used Takiyya and Kitman to craft an apologetics useful in duping unbelievers into believing Islam and Muslims harmless, but the Jihad–violent or apparently “peaceful,” overt and covert– continues until every nation and all the peoples of the Earth are conquered by Islam and “all is for Allah.”
I suggest a good starting point for learning the truth about Islam is to read–not take as “gospel” what some expert or other says is in these documents or what they mean–but personally reading the three fundamental texts of Islam–the Qur’an, the Hadiths (the words and deeds of the Prophet and his Companions) and the Sira (Ibn Ishq’s biography of Muhammad), all of which can be found in well organized, indexed, newspaper level English translations in inexpensive paperback editions (here at http://www.cspipublishing.com/Primary_Doctrine_Books.htm) and you can sometimes find them even cheaper on Amazon.
I think it’s relevant, and a major part of the story, that Hasan is Muslim.
However, it’s certainly also possible that he was mentally ill, as has been a factor with the vast majority of perpetrators of similar massacres in recent history.
There seem to be a lot of odd tie-ins, as Neo points out. In my local paper an aunt of the shooter was quoted as saying that members of the family had been subjected to name-calling and harrassment because of their religion in the wake of 9-11. She suggested that he “couldn’t take it” and had tried to leave the military and offered to repay his expenses for medical training “but they wouldn’t let him.” Odd statements, and not exactly contribuuting to a very sympathetic portrait.
Ultimately, there’s still a lot that we don’t know about this guy–and his mental state–at this point in time. Would people be less likely to notice symptoms of mental illness in a psychatrist? Maybe. It’s a very sad but interesting story.
Obama has been in office now for about 10 months, about enough time to get a sense of his strengths and weaknesses. Of his strengths one must concede that he reads a good speech, he is not afraid to spend millions to go on fancy dates, and he probably has great White House parties. Otherwise, he is proving to be a Chauncey Gardener (although one could never accuse him of being guileless or truthful). He is clueless!! He is an international laughingstock and now becoming an embarrassment. His “shout out” to a member of the audience (a medal of honor winner) before mentioning the tragedy at Fort Hood was just the latest example of his being tone deaf. I couldn’t tell if this was on or off the TelePrompTer. I can’t think of one policy he is following that demonstrates wisdom, insight, deductive abilities, sensitivity, foresight, or statesmanship. No matter how much I disagreed with Bill Clinton’s policies, one had to concede that he grew “presidential” and filled the office. Clinton was never hated by conservatives, just derided for being a liberal but one that at least had some good sense, such as to favor free trade. Plus, Clinton has a great sense of humor. Obama, on the other hand, seems no more capable than on the day he took office. He is cold. The only growth one can perceive is in his arrogance and inability to compromise, which is at the very heart of a republic. Every day I think that we have reached bottom and almost every day he lowers the bar. Where are his advisors? Can anyone in his coterie step forward and demonstrate maturity? With fear and trepidation, one has to ask, “What’s next?”
We have wonderful and brave men and women who volunteer to serve in the military; who put themselves in harm’s way. The callousness demonstrated by Obama in dealing with the deaths and woundings of many such brave persons must give everyone pause. We have been given a glimpse of what Obama thinks of our military and it is not good. While he plays at being president, the world watches and unfriendly and even evil nations plan their worst without fear of reprisal. I am amazed that he still maintains a personal popularity of about 50%.
Per one of the articles I was just reading:
“Survivors of the rampage that killed 13 and wounded 30 said the suspect, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, shouted “Allahu Akbar!” – “God is great!” in Arabic – before opening fire, base commander Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said.”
Nah, no jihad going on here at all….
My impression of this coward is that he took Uncle Sam’s money for years, got a first rate education, had guaranteed employment, pulled down a six-figure salary – and then decided he didn’t want to go to war when his employer (the US Army) decided to send him to do yet another part of the job he was hired for.
What an ass. At least this one survived to face the executioner!
Regarding prior musings in other comments that he was mentally unbalanced – I’m starting to think about how you never hear about suicide bombers or murderers in Iraq or Afghanistan being labeled as “crazy”.
They are always indicated as “fanatics” if their mental state is described at all.
Why should this coward be described differently?
Steve,
I thought Obama’s statements were very strange also. It’s possible that in the course of dealing with a breaking news crisis involving the military and keeping Obama on schedule that his communications team neglected to ditch the fluffy opening remarks and “shout-out” to the medal of honor winner. However, clearly Obama himself knew he would be making sober remarks about the shooting just moments into his speech (that’s what he did). How quick on your feet do you have to be to know that the ONLY appropriate thing to do under those circumstances is start off your remarks with a sober, dignified acknowledgement of the breaking crisis? He’s either a cold fish (which I think accurately describes him in most situations)or incapable of deviating from his script when the situation calls for it (also an accurate description). This wasn’t a very difficult call, as I see it.
Question for our lovely hostess neo:
What exactly do you call it, technically speaking, when a person is completely incapable of empathy for the tragedies of others, and can only see others in light of what they can do for his own advancement?
I’m sure there’s a defined disorder that would describe this condition.
Obama’s response to Ft Hood has gone over like a lead balloon….
Cross posted from your earlier thread on “the Left and post election spin” because still very relevant:
I can already see the by now familiar two part “narrative” playing out, as domestic law enforcement and the federal government try to obscure and contain this “incident,” as they have so many of the other and growing number of Muslim attacks against “unbelievers” in the U.S. in the past few years (see a list here http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/AmericanAttacks.htm); no Jihad here folks!
First, the FBI and/or the local police–often in the very earliest stages of the “incident,” when all is chaos and hardly anything can be known for certain–not even the number of the gunmen or their victims, or shortly thereafter–tells reporters that “there is no Terrorism nexus involved.”
Second, in the coming hours and days the stifling, muffling blanket of PC will descend, and all the obvious questions about the perp’s links to Islam, and Muslim ideology, Terrorism, hatred of unbelievers, and Islam and the Qur’an’s constant and repeated calls for violence against all “unbelievers,” and the fact that the perp is a Muslim will immediately be dismissed or studiously ignored–“not Cricket to inquire about this, old boy,” and treated as of no major significance, really just incidental, unimportant actually, and the perp will be characterized everywhere as being just a crazy “loner.”
No curiosity about why a Muslim steeped in hatred for “unbelievers” and given sanction by Islam to kill them as a primary, praiseworthy, sacred duty, might just see them–when he is set off by who knows what—as his prime targets, no connections with the Jihad, no, its just once again, “nothing to see here folks, move along.”
P.S. In case your first reaction on hearing that Major Malik Nidal Hassan was a Psychiatrist or Psychologist is that “Doctors are supposed to heal the sick and save life, they don’t do things like this,” I remind you that the fanatical Muslim terrorists who tried to incinerate a Scottish airport waiting room full of families with many children, by repeatedly driving a flaming jeep, filled with cans of gasoline and oxygen tanks, up the steps of the terminal and into the waiting room, were all Doctors working at the UK’s National Health Service.
Islam is designed to be and most often is a Muslim’s first and only allegiance, which is superior to and superceedes all other allegiances.
Already today on TV I see the “lone nut” explanation taking hold in most places, reinforcing and fitting in very well with the general public’s wish not to have to worry about Muslims and Islam, because it makes them nervous and uncomfortable, and it is “discriminatory” and “not fair.”
Again, I point out that even if Maj. Hasan was a “nut,” he was a Muslim nut, and that the Qur’an and Islam told him over and over again that the subhuman deniers and defiers of the only true God, Allah, his eternal enemies, were the accursed “spawn of dogs and pigs,” the “unbelievers,” and told him that it was praiseworthy, even his religious obligation, to kill these unbelievers, so that when he “snapped” if he did, indeed “snap,” he had his targets already pointed out for him and, in the eyes of Islam, was blameless when he killed them.
That his actions were motivated by Islam is obvious from the fact that he shouted the age old Jihadist cry of “Allahu Akbar” as he slaughtered all the unbeliever soldiers.
Wolla Dalbo: well said. Read a pithy remark recently, forget where: Liberalism is a religion pretending to be political, and Islam is a political pretending to be a religion.
CV: it is wrong to invoke mental illness when one should use “evil”. You would treat mental illness, would you not?
I think we would do well to see radical Islam the way we saw communism during the cold war. It is a political ideology which seeks to take over the world. Soon we will be like Israel where buses and pizza parlors are blown up or shot up by Muslim fanatics.
Reports today say that the so-called Medal of Honor winner was not one. He won some other medal that Obama presented. It sounds like a case of teleprompter error.
Wolla Dalbo at 10:27 am . . .
Thank you so much for this great summary!
After 9/11 I too read many books about Islam and also read the Koran. Despite the many academic and MSM ways to obfuscate the truth about Islam, the fact remains that this bandit cult is evil. Your summary covers so much of what needs to be said and understood.
Another very odd tie-in is that the shooter seems to be a graduate of Virginia Tech, a school with a history of an unusual number of violent acts.
I have to come to the defense of the Hokies, since the linked article mentions that this is the first homicide to occur on campus since the April 2007 mass murder incident. That doesn’t seem to qualify as “an unusual number of violent acts”. Is there additional information that I am unaware of?
Anyone want to bet that this guy was someone’s diversity quota success for the day?
Wolla Dalbo says:
I think this is one of the legitimate concerns about Islam. It seems to take the insecurities, paranoias, prejudices and hatreds that people sometimes have, and magnifies them. In particular, it seems to give a “moral” justification to the person with these proclivities to act on them, rather than to question them. Rather than channeling these malevolent tendencies in a way that lessens their ill effects, it encourages those who have such tendencies to act on them in aggressive and violent ways.
I am aware that all religions have been used to negative ends. As a Christian (raised Catholic and familiar with many other branches of the faith), I am aware that certain statements in the Bible have been used to encourage ills such as anti-Semitism. But it appears that religions other than Islam have been more amenable to ridding themselves of these malevolent, intolerant traits. It would be very unusual for a Christian clergyperson to utter an anti-Semitic diatribe today. Yet, such traits (anti-Semitism, xenophobia, misogyny, intolerance, hatred of learning, hatred of freedom of thought) appear rampant within huge swaths of the Islamic world.
I’m not trying to lump all Muslims into one category. I am grateful to those Muslims who go against this tide. But the question still remains: what is to be done with regard to these regressive, disfunctional tendencies within Islam? Can Islam be reformed and made to progress, as have other faiths? Can Islam be made to live in peace with other faiths without killing their adherents or forcing them into second-class status?
Interesting too, that this shooting comes on the heels of Khameni publicly insulting Obama two days ago over the nuclear negotiations plus the clear failure of the Obama administration’s Israel-Palestine negotiations.
Obama has been making the nicey-nice, smart diplomacy, happy talk with Muslims since he became president, and little has come of it. So this shooting comes at a bad time for Obama.
Obama just can’t catch a break!
Wolla Dalbo: You are incorrect in your assumptions about my point of view. No way do I give Hasan or Islam a pass.
I’ve written about Islam many times, for example here, and here. The point I was making to nyomythus in the previous discussion about the shooting was about religion as a whole (he’s got a bee in his bonnet about all religion, and has written here many times on the subject). Here is a post in which I explicitly tackle the question that nyomythus raised, and I talk about how Islam is different from other religions. Here’s a quote:
…religions which teach that (1) they are not just the answer, but the only answer, and (2) this answer is the only one for everyone on earth, and (3) this answer must be spread not just by proselytizing but also by violence, if necessary, and (4) great rewards in the afterlife will be bestowed on those who spread that religion through violence—such religions are indeed responsible for a great deal of suffering on earth, past and present.
Right now, however, the list of religions that fit that description is rather short. In fact, the only one I know of happens to be Islam—in fact, only certain subgroups of Islam. But ’tis enough, ’twill serve.
Plus Hasan was a major in the Army and a psychiatrist. He wasn’t some obvious loser or nut.
guess what?
most terrorists are not losers or nuts…
if malvo, and others are nuts, they dont go to jail, they go to the hospital. so they are not nuts.
and this is why the calculation on things is off. they are not what the left and the media and everyones FALSE opinion of them are!!!
again… it seems that when someone of the crowd of the reasonable cant understand people, dont want to understand people, dotn want to lose their point, and so on, they refuse the real empirical information.
Nasra Hassan (and a bunch of others too if you dont like his name) did studies.
Hassan concluded that: “NONE of them were unedcuated, desperately poor, simple minded, or depressed. many were middle clas and, unless they were fugitives held paying jobs. two of them were millionaires
so yeah… if you want to paint them in a false image that makes it easier for you to not like htem and makes it easier for you to make a false conclusion that you want over validity, thats your problem…
but remember
GIGO… garbage in garbage out
wait… i know, you want me to balance on a razor blade, but i dont write for you, i write for those that might listen to a conclusion based on a false premise.
Claude Berrebi of RAND “Iinstitute fro civil justice”, wrote his desertation on this subject.
he compared suicide bombers (same thing as a shooter like this as he did not intend to live), with the whole male population aged 16 to 50 an found the suicide bombers were less than half as likely to come from families that were below the poverty line. almost 60 percent had more than a high school education… compared to less than 15 percent of the population
if you knew the real facts, then you wouldnt be looking for losers and idiots. you would be looking for educated middle class people with good jobs, or their children.
by the way, it takes a HUGE amount of ignorance not to notice the trend yourself as to the wealthy who are related into the whole left movement at all levels.
the people that are educated are smart enough to be convinced something that stupid people are not too smart to be convinced!!!
Osama Bin Laden – worth nearly 100 million
Ayers: Thomas Ayers, was CEO of Commonwealth Edison as well as a trustee of Tribune Co. and chairman of the board of Northwestern University.
[they are all in energy and real estate, so thats a common thread too… including obama… his mom and oil stuff… as well as grandma… but we are on terrorism]
he got connected at columbia…
read the work of Jitka Maleckova…
they obtained the biographies of 129 shahids
[shahids are martyrs in case your not a polyglot]
who were honored in Al-Ahd… they combined this on data on lebanese populations.
these members had a lower poverty rate than the general population (so terrorism is good for them economically than not), 28% ve 33%.
the shahids are better educated (indoctrinated into class conciousness), 47 percent had secondary or higher… while only 38% of the populatino did.
Marc Sagerman adds to this (he is from the CIA… so you wouldnt know since reasonable people dont think they do much).
from the book “understanding terrror networks”
[neo… sorry but havent mastered amazon. but if i get you lots of kickbacks by my pointing out lots of interesting books…..]
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Terror-Networks-Marc-Sageman/dp/0812238087
35% of al qaeda members were college educated
45% were from skilled professions
do note that our best soldiers in the US military who do some of the most heroic work, are high IQ people who can be more motivated than others.
dumb people dont make good soldiers and its hard to convince them that their lives are not worth much so they can bring value and honor, and immortality by hurting other dumb poor people like them!!!
you see… its easier to convince an elitist of almost anything… bu calling idiots elite and empowring them. the REAL smart people are not so visable.
as Adorno said… bang on drums and chant and i can get Phds to dance around in a circle in their underwear (paraphrasing).
you can also read:
“The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?” which also reached this conclusion–two years before 9/11.
what most dont get is that the class dialogue, race dialogue, and other such games on the left serve a puirpose different than what they say.
the purpose is to change perceptive world views. and once you can do that. you can get people to do what they did to me and my wife last night.
my wife and i were attacked by a spanish man, who came to fight because i was a white racist nigger… and all kinds of things… we went head to head and nearly went at it since he was threatening my wife over and over.
the dialogue that all white people are oppressors at birth, creates the same hatred that hitler used to get the population angry at jewish business owners.
the lazy never think they are lazy, they think they are working hard… which is why they dont do mucn and are lazy… their little bit is big hard, while to the productive, their big hard is too little.
and rather than accept that they aren ot as driven, not as hard working, not as smart, not as together teaming up with other friends, they attack those that are designated.
so the man last night becomes the terrorist arm of the movement and the movements cant be held accountable
kind of like collecting dandelion seeds… and going up wind and letting them carry into the population.
how can they all blame you for the dandelions?
they grow where they grwo.
and so when teh people lose their unity..
these politicos can set them at each other.
its seen in movies… which then serve to make us think real is fake, and fake is real.
the principal has been shown to you a thousand times. AND even in the direct context of soviet and socialist stuff!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index.jsp?cid=240517
he explains it… 🙂
but its too simple… which is why it works on the smart…
Smersh actually existed (exists?)
so once the historical false history is established in enough of the population, it supports itself.
it creates a pool wherby the third can sick the second on the first.
same thing in socialism… party A decide with party B what they are going to take from party C, for party B who will kick back a bit to party A.
sigh.
but as long as we are going to participate in the false histories and such… we are going to be a part of one pool or another.
after all, huxely cant team up with me, because he cant align himself… and i cant team up with him, because he will never take any real action…
the state relies on he and i arguing it out, so that his inaction, uses up the people who would write, or make signs, and such.
one should learn the game before one comments on it and everything.
and it is a game, and there are books… alinsky was just one in a pile of many.
Islam is being used…
communists are setting one fish (islam) to attack the other fish (western culture), and through hegal and cheating, they will create a new direted synthesis.
[in other words they cant even get by without perverting hegel… they have to fix that game too]
the guys who are running the terrorists, happen to be educated… a lot of them at the frankfurt school ground zero… columbia. [if you know history this is like a primary source of metastasised cancer cells)
ah well…
Hasan had status and authority in America. He was doubly vetted as someone we could trust with our lives. That such a person could become a mass murderer is unheard of here and on a military base of all places.
are you for real?
shows you how much you ignore.
ever hear of Charles Whitman?
how about lee harvy oswald?
both were trained as marines. oswald had that same trust till he ended up out, tried to defect, married a soviet, came back, etc. (they just determined yesterday that the image of him with the rifle was NOT false).
On August 1, 1966, Charles Joseph Whitman ascended the University of Texas Tower and committed what was then the largest simultaneous mass murder in American history. He gunned down forty-five people inside and around the Tower before he was killed by two Austin police officers. During the previous evening he had killed his wife and mother, bringing the total to sixteen people dead and at least thirty-one wounded.
he was no longer a marine, but he worked at the campus.
He told Jack Rodman, the guard at the checkpoint, that he would be unloading equipment at the Experimental Science Building and that he needed a loading zone permit. Rodman issued him a forty-minute permit. By 11:35 Charlie had parked, unloaded his gear and entered the Tower. With his coveralls and dolly he attracted no undue attention–he looked like a janitor or maintenance man. He took an elevator up to the 27th floor, and then dragged the dolly and footlocker up three short flights of steps.
its no wonder you can conclude what you do.
if i had the same wrong assertions and facts, i might conclude the same.
“The Pentagon has now disclosed that fraggings in 1970 (209 killings)have more than doubled those of the previous year (96 killings). Word of the deaths of officers will bring cheers at troop movies or in bivouacs of certain units.”
hey, thats soldiers putting bounties on other soldiers on their own side…
He was doubly vetted as someone we could trust with our lives.
so where the rosenbergs…
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were American Communists who were executed for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. They met in the Young Communist League in 1936, where he was a leader. They had two sons. Julius was recruited by the KGB in 1942 and was regarded as one of their top spies. He passed classified reports from Emerson Radio, including a fuze design which was later used to shoot down a U-2 in 1960.
A former machinist at Los Alamos (the US Nuclear Development Area), Sergeant David Greenglass confessed to having passed secret information on to the USSR, and in doing so, implicated his brother-in-law: Julius Rosenberg. He initially denied any involvement by his sister Ethel. The Rosenbergs were arrested.
a psychiatrist, a machinist…
Aldrich Ames caused the deaths of how many US operatives? he was INSIDE the pentagon, and CIA..
In early 1985, the CIA began to notice that they were losing their “assets” at a very rapid rate. For unknown reasons they were not willing, in the early stages, to believe that they had been infiltrated by the KGB, instead presuming the leak to be via bugging devices. When the FBI were finally brought in to investigate, Ames became the primary suspect. Fearing he would defect on a CIA trip to Russia, The FBI arrested him at the airport with his wife. He was given a life sentence and is incarcerated in the US Penitentiary in Allenwood, Pennsylvania.
by losing… they mean they were being killed and disappearing.
Klaus fuchs… he worked at los alamos
For two years he gave his KGB contacts theoretical plans for building a hydrogen bomb. He also provided key data on the production of uranium 235, allowing the Soviets to determine the number of bombs possessed by the United States.
want to go back in time?
how about another major?
Major John Andre AND Benidict Arnold.
In 1779, he became adjutant-general of the British Army with the rank of Major. In April, he was placed in charge of the British Secret Intelligence. By the next year (1780) he had begun to plot with American General Benedict Arnold, who commanded West Point, and had agreed to surrender it to the British for £20,000 – a move that would enable the British to cut New England off from the rest of the rebellious colonies.
you DO know how benidict arnold was, dont you?
how about the cambridge five?
(number 5 is unknown)
kim philby, donald duart maclean, guy burgess, anthony blunt…
Kim Philby: Of the five, Philby is believed to have done the most damage to British and American intelligence, providing classified information to the Soviet Union that caused the deaths of scores of agents. He was born in India to St. John Philby, a British officer and eventual advisor to the King of Saudia Arabia.
a score is 20… scores is 40 or more…
and was involved in the middle east..
one of the most interesting is Richard Sorge…
turns out his great uncle is Karl Marx.
[just as obama, cheny and bush are related… dynasties are funny things to the common]
and how about John Walker Jr, and the walker family? John Walker and his family members betrayed their country to the Russians for 18 years
I can show you lists of people who had trusted positions in government and who betrayed their people and got them killed or endangered many american lives.
and thats only looking at american history. i can show you the same treachery all over the globe.
funny to think like a left liberal and just not remember all that is real…
how did gavrilo princip do for his fellow man in his country (and other countries) by his violent act? (do you even know him).
heck all you have to do is look at the number of military/gangs that are now sending their people to the military since leftists wont serve..
people fram FARC, AUC, Sendero Luminoso, Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, Mara Sevruga, MS13, ELN, ETA, Tamile tigers (opening up new offices in canada this week), PLO, Hammas, IRA, Aum Shinrikyo,
how about this one for an odd turnaround?
Solomon Bandaranaike (sri lanka) was assasinated by a Buddist Monk!
talk about trust and breakign it.
this is not so unusual in history…
unless you dont know history, or didnt learn all the facts, or consider certain areas beyond study…
great stuff wallo…
takes a lot of time and digging to find out the real nuanced truth.
Islam is not really the problem.
in its absence, they would have taken over some other conducive old thing.
why?
because its easier to subvert than create
when you create, you have to sell people, they are awake and thinking… (more so at least)
but when you take over something, you get a huge number of followers who dont quite know what to do. most dont notice most of the changes… before long, they are not catholic, but liberation theologists wearing catholic clothes and whose actiongs get blamed on the changed organization..
eventuyally though… like they did with progressive… they run out of the good moniker, and reputation kicks in… so socialists became communists… then became progressives…then became neo liberals… etc.
each move is to a new ship after they ran the old ship into the ground with holes in it.
it has the added effect of dismanteling alternative lines of power and moving everyone towards what they want…
just as teh span skit is not about spam, but about such movements (sociaism, communism, progreesivism, pramatism, feminism, etc).
you can have anything you want, but you have to have the state in it somewhere.
so you can ahve eggs spam spam spam and bacon. or spam eggs bacon spam. which only has a little bit of the state in it.
of course, unlike you, people wont pick up the books and find out that for 200 years and more people have been writing treatises white papers and other things on various facets of the project of how to acquire power, keep it, and so forth.
good people find it hard to fathom bad people
‘
and it all hinges on one thing…
to good people certain acts are unthinkable
to bad people, certain acts are thinkable
because good people think them unthinkable
the bad are winning the war against the good, becasue that sentence above, covers how.
What exactly do you call it, technically speaking, when a person is completely incapable of empathy for the tragedies of others, and can only see others in light of what they can do for his own advancement?
i know i am not neo, so forgive…
Sociopathy, Psychopathy…
a serial killer is completely incapable of empathy for the trajedies, and actually enjoys the power they feel by inflicting pain on someone who is helpless to respond.
kind of like that family of fatties that they just took the kids away from!! they went for help, the state took all their kids… they are suffering, and those in state feel powerful because they cant respond. like the victim of the more extreme serial killer.
but what if your subclinical, were your actions are tempered with control? then perhaps your like the psychologist in the movie, something about mary… who injects doubts and miseries, and stuff into their clients lives while eating lunch pretending to listen, and enjoying not only the tortue you cause, the reports you get from the victim, but the wonderfuil pleasure of duping delight.
Communsm seeks to make utopia.
but for whome?
for the good people who are free, or for the bad people in which the rules of the good opress them from pederasty, torture, slavery, etc.
“We can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans…” — Bill Clinton
right… he is not ordinary.. the others like roman polanski.
want to know why the left REALLy feels the way they do and makes the choices they do?
i already said it.
when your in power, i ask for my rights because that is your way, when i am in power, i take away all your rights, because that is my way.
they feel its ok for polanski to do this beacause as an elite he has rights. the victim was a commoner, she has no rights but what polanski gives her.
this is the logic of stalin, mao, hitler, etc.
what is for me is not for thee.
what is for thee, belongs to me.
they just understand reality in a way that we no longer do.
the easiest way to win a race is to shoot your oponents before it starts.
how do they get where they are?
good people hire people willing to do bad in the name of good… and then they forgot what kind of people they hired.
here is a blog http://www.sociopathworld.com
its a very interesting site. and there are others.
the soviet union was created in sociopathy when lenin ordered derzhinsky to seek his KGB workers from the criminoally insane… for they would do things to seek control that the good people cant oppose and still be good.
So there you have it. Because I know who and what I am, I now know what I want: power, which equals freedom. Pursuing power/freedom would also provide the opportunity to play the game and a challenge. And it starts within. I see how important it is to focus on self development, to take command of myself. And to command myself, I must inevitably command my circumstances. None of this necessarily involves getting to the top of any ladder unless I decide that’s the game I wish to play. None of this need involve anything huge or historical unless I want it to. And it certainly doesn’t need to involve society’s definition of success unless it helps me achieve my objective. I want to experience the inner essence of these goals in the present and I am free to do just that. There’s also a whole world of tastes and locales and literature that I have yet to sample. I don’t have to do the so called ‘big things’. Self development, meeting and exceeding self chosen challenges and enjoying what life has to offer on its own terms really can be enough for now. I’m excited about my future, for the first time in a long time. That’s thanks, in part, to your insightful blog and the email exchanges. Even now, I don’t know if every professional would agree that I am a sociopath. What I do know is that it doesn’t matter. The label isn’t relevant; the underlying characteristics are. My detachment from emotion, including and especially moral ones, my lack of conscience, my flexible personality, my ability to manipulate at will and the profound impact these traits have on how I experience life, all of this I now understand in a way that is both illuminating and coherent, and I have your blog to thank for that.
I’m going to go play now, so to speak. Don’t worry. I won’t hurt anyone unless I’m crossed or unless I have to, so you haven’t unleashed a monster. You’ve liberated a wolf.
and who and what is the organization of wolves in sheeps clothing? [he uses a lot of their symbols on his site. i said symbols are very important for these to meet and know each other]
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” – Matthew 7:15
i would say that most of our leftists follow now the ideals of the FABIAN society..
the sociopathic groups who are wolves in sheeps clothing. who beleive because they are mean, they are mans future, when they are actually mans past.
they require pain, abuse, suffering, for their utopia and a us and them so that them can be an endless streem of victims, and the us can be those who like the same.
they are throwbacks… in an odd way the industrial revolution was the common good man overthrowing the sociopathic feudal rule.
took them how long to get it all back?
and my prediction of yesterday came through
under all this..
the healthcare bill will pass as we are not looking for a moment
JL–From what I have read, at the tens of thousands of Madrassas in Pakistan and elsewhere in the Islamic world, many Imams have set up an instructional regime designed to intensify the deliberately frustrated sexual tension among the mostly illiterate pubescent boys there, and channel it into the dark, sexually charged, sadistic, ecstatic and violent spirit of Jihad; endless rote indoctrination in the Qur’an and Islam and nothing else, like actual teaching of basic literacy, History or Science, Geography, Literature, Philosophy or Art, that might interfere with Islam’s fundamentalist teaching, broaden student’s horizons or be “confusing.” We are not talking happenstance here, we are talking about deliberate policy and Evil at work, and nothing like what happens in Christianity or Judaism. Such ideology and hatred, according to such a liberal publication as the Washington Post, is taught using the Saudi supplied textbooks at the Saudi Funded Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax Virginia–hardline Qur’ans and textbooks also supplied at no cost to most of the Mosques in the U.S. and around the world–and after an extensive round of personal visits a few years ago, a visiting Muslim Imam estimated that at least 80% of the 2,000 or so Saudi funded and Wahabi run Mosques in the U.S. were fundamentalist in nature and teachings. It is also this Islamic Saudi Academy and other similar Muslim institutions which have “certified” all of the Muslim chaplains in our armed forces, and all the Muslim Imams in our prison system–what a comforting thought.
You talk about all of the Muslims who are law abiding here in the U.S. and elsewhere but, the problem as I see it, is that the Muslim ideology of expansion, xenophobia, conquest, cruelty, misogyny, hatred of unbelievers, and Jihad as the ultimate holy act is there in the Qur’an, Hadiths and Sira and in the life, actions and sayings of Muhammad–who Muslims are told and believe was the “Perfect Man,” to be emulated in all things–for any Muslim to discover or rediscover, and act on at any time. Thus, any apparently sane and law abiding Muslim, whether steeped in or just discovering or rediscovering this mindset and these doctrines can–at any time and for any reason, or none at all–turn into a Jihadi, and start to mow down unbelievers to claim his reward in the Muslim Paradise.
You ask if Islam can be reformed, but Islam has been around for almost 1,400 years, has been physically and intellectually attacked from all sides by unbelievers–Hindus and Christians, Pagans, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Animists and Jews, who in Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance times were far more learned, steadfast and powerful in their faith and their bloodthirstiness than we are today–has been wracked by infighting, yet it has never “reformed” or “liberalized,” and back in the 10th century the body of Muslim religious/legal scholars–the Ulema–declared that all major questions within Islam were settled, that the Qur’an was set in stone, and that there was to be and could not be any more questioning and debate i.e. “the Gates of Ijtihad were closed,” and so it has remained to this day.
Islam is a very carefully constructed, self-reinforcing, armored and inward looking system of belief, social structure and religious/cultural norms, that has as its ultimate protector of its purity and integrity the shunning, rejection and killing of anyone who questions too much or who champions change or liberalization. Thus, there are no major individuals, movements, mosques, universities, think tanks, study centers or any other organizations in the Muslim world devoted to revising or liberalizing the Qur’an, to Qur’anic research similar to Christian biblical research and criticism, to criticism of any kind of Muhammad, and there are not likely to ever be such. Moreover, if you took hatred of unbelievers and the ideology of Jihad and World conquest out of the Qur’an and Islam there is little besides the Five Pillars left, and it loses it motivating raison d’etre and collapses as a Religion.
We are in a very tight, extraordinarily dangerous bind here, thus the aversion of eyes, and the muttering of “there is nothing to see here folks, move along,” in the hope that if we ignore this problem and pretend it doesn’t exist–if, like a child we hide our heads under the covers–we cannot be seen, we disappear,and the problem no longer exists.
Our real hope against the further spread of Islam into this nation and elsewhere is the spread of Christianity. I wish I would see more people on blogs talking about the value of Christian missionary activity. There are probably millions of Muslims who would turn to Christianity if they could do so without taking their lives in their hands.
Although Christian missionaries have been ridiculed by the so-called elites who have been promoting a multicultural world, it turns out that American missionaries and others have done enormous work in the world to spread education and women’s rights. “Special Providence,” a history by Walter Russell Meade on diplomatic history, discusses this in some detail.
Wolla Dalbo:
An excellent summary of the problem with Islam, which I hope everyone reads.
I think you are correct in your assessment that:
I won’t say that I am completely without hope that Islam is reformable, but your well written analysis shows why the situation is truly a grave one. Let me add the following:
Another aspect which makes Islam so toxic and so enduring is that it enshrines as “holy writ” the paranoias and prejudices of a particular people. I would recommend in this regard “The Arab Mind” by Raphael Patai. In retrospect, there is much within Islam which resembles fascism, in that it mystifies the tribal nationalistic prejudices of Arab vulture, and casts as a “sacrament” (my word) the carrying forth of violence and agression on behalf of those prejudices.
I realize it could be argued that all religions have some aspect of prejudice for the culture from which it arose, but I think the rigidity of Islam makes it particularly problemmatic.
Also, there had been, in the history of Islam, a debate between factions that held the Qur’an to be uncreated and one with God, and factions that held the Qur’an to be created. The former won, thus affixing as fundamental that the words of the Qur’an, as written in Arabic, are the direct comandment of God. Thus, when the Qur’an prescribes as punishment the infliction of lashes, or makes it permissible for a man to beat his wife, or mandates that the infidel be slayed where he is found… it would be infidelity to the word of God for a Muslim to disbelieve it and fail to adhere to it.
Again, I am not going to say that the cause of reform for Islam is totally hopeless. But you are correct, Wolla Dalbo, that it is grave. Perhaps there is something we are not seeing… for example, the exposure of many young Muslims to western society. Indeed, maybe, in the long run, the immersion of so many Muslims in the culture of the West (here in the West, not in the islamic societies) will actually be a blessing in disquise. Maybe freedom and capitalism, if not the Judeo-Christian ethic, will win them over, and they (the children of the Muslims themselves) will serve as Western society’s missionaries to the Muslim world. But don’t think I am naive about this… the situation is grave, and I am not beyond thinking the absolute worst about it.
Correction:
“Arab vulture”= “Arab culture”
(OMG, I hope that wasn’t a freudian slip in type format!! My apologies !!)
American Islamists are Gramscian. I realize it will be a very cold day in hell before this becomes common and actionable knowledge. But we must individually do what we can, and that includes being unmannerly and even offensive.
They are all around us. Son of a local rug merchant spewed the worst type of anti-Jew language while in the 8th grade, and was “severely” verbally chastised by the PC headmaster of his Episcopalian (yes!) school. Where’d he get his rant? From his smarmy, ingratiating father who’s selling the Rubes crappy orientals and loving it.