The Senate opened hearings (minus co-operation from the administration) under the clear-eyed leadership of Sen. Joe Lieberman to look into the Fort Hood massacre. Lieberman described the slaughters as a “homegrown terrorist attack” that had been mishandled by law-enforcement and military agencies. This is a good start: at least some elected officials refuse to turn a blind eye to widely known facts.
In a similar vein, Cliff May asks how it was that everyone missed the obvious. (“Why did none of those who saw something say something? In a culture where the value of diversity trumps the requirements of security, to do so would have been career suicide. There was no way that was going to happen.”) May explains:
The lesson of Fort Hood is not that Muslims in the U.S. military are a fifth column. But neither can we continue to blithely assume that someone like Hasan — American-born, well-educated, apparently sophisticated — could never succumb to the temptations of what the politically correct call “violent extremism.”
And May decries the uninformed political correctness that refuses to acknowledge that those who are on a violent jihadist mission are not outside Islam: “Western commentators sometimes assert that Muslims who preach intolerance and belligerence are ‘heretics’ who have ‘hijacked’ a great and peaceful religion. But no Muslim authority would say that — not even those who denounce terrorism. How, after all, can a fundamentalist be a heretic? How can someone who insists on a literal reading of the Koran be accused of misrepresenting what it says?”
May also points to an uncomfortable reality:
No battles or even protests were ever staged outside the Dar al-Hijra mosque in Northern Virginia where Anwar al-Aulaqi preached a hateful and violent theology. Major Hasan was among those who worshipped with — and was inspired by — al-Aulaqi, an American-born cleric who five years ago decamped to Yemen. In recent days, al-Aulaqi has described Hasan as a “hero,” adding: The only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the U.S. army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.
Unfortunately our president is still on the political-correctness kick, and isn’t for now willing to acknowledge the nature of our enemy. Maybe the overwhelming weight of the evidence, the public’s commonsense understanding of what occurred at Fort Hood, and the persistence of Lieberman will force the administration to open its eyes — before yet another terrorist attack.
