What’s Wrong with the World

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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

What would J.S. do? [Updated]

I really do not think this most recent act of jihad can be allowed to pass without some comment here at W4. We should also not let pass the sheer cravenness of our Dear Leaders--at the highest level and in the media--in discussing it. I note that when I bring up Yahoo mail, the story doesn't even appear as a top story. Atlas says that Shepard Smith at first would not say the murderer's name--Malik Nadal Hasan--and more recently has been giving a platform to Hasan's cousin who informs us that...

you guessed it!

It's our fault. Yup. Hasan was "harassed." Oh. Well. That explains it.

According to The Messiah, this was an "outburst of violence." An outburst. You know, violence does that sometimes. It bursts out. Impersonally.

Words of wisdom from Lawrence Auster on the subject:

Would King Jan Sobieski have allowed Muslim doctors to enter his headquarters and move about at liberty among his men on the eve of deployment for battle against Muslims? Of course not.
Update:

See here:

Washington - A top US Army official confirmed Friday that the suspect in the killing of at least 13 people at a Texas army base likely shouted 'Allah Akbar' (God is great) before opening fire.

Army Lieutenant General Robert Cone, commander of the Fort Hood, Texas, base where the shootings took place on Thursday, made the comment in answer to a question from NBC news.

Cone said 'there are first hand accounts' to the effect that the suspect, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, had yelled the Muslim religious chant.

See also here. Six months. Officials had seen a blog post apparently by this guy defending suicide bombings and have been investigating him for at least six months.

See also here for a link and quote from said blog post.

See also here for an interview with one of his co-workers who says that he defended the shooter at the recruitment station at Little Rock and repeatedly spoke in favor of Muslims' rising up against the "aggressors"--meaning Americans.

This is a horror and an outrage: That officials had reason to know already that this man was dangerous and defended jihadi murderers and that he was still allowed to wander about an army base and even to bear arms there himself. And anyone who continues to pretend that this isn't about jihad and Islam is dangerously self-deceptive.

Will we ever get serious? I don't know, but if this doesn't wake us up, nothing will.

Comments (70)

Fox News anchor, Shepard Smith, did not give the name of the individual until it could be confirmed from other then anonymous sources. That strikes me as the kind of responsible journalism we should expect from a legitimate fair and balanced news source. CNN released the name; based solely on anonymous sources.

Yeah, but I'd rather hear you say it than Auster. ;-)

King Jan Sobieski, Don Juan of Austria and King Johon Hunyadi must be doing one-eighty's in their graves right now.

It's our fault. Yup. Hasan was "harassed." Oh. Well. That explains it.

It's uncanny how that sort of backhand justification is always unidirectional; the utmost in sympathy and understanding must be extended to The Other, but let someone so much as say what Auster has said, and certain factions will suspect that a holocaust is aborning.

The real trouble for those of us who repudiate all of the fashionable nonsense about a religion of peace is that the Bush administration has tainted the cause of Islamo-skepticism; despite all of the ridiculous religion of peace posturing, the general perception was always that the Bush policies had something to do with generic problems in the Muslim world, which easily shades over in the popular mind to 'problems with Islam and Muslims'. But if acknowledging those entails the sort of dreadful policies Bush pursued, with all of their ruinous consequences, then the average person, and many not-so-average people, will conclude that Islam cannot possibly be as bad as all that, so bad that risking Bush-like ignominy and failure becomes reasonable. One might protest that such a response is utterly irrational, being resolutely anti-empirical - though its failing is that it is only partially empirical: it proceeds from the knowledge that Bushism failed, which it did, and does not want to be troubled overmuch by talk of Islam, because Bushism failed - but irrational policy begets irrational reactions, refracted by circumstances, and this is political history.

If Islam is a religion of peace, then the Ku Klux Klan is a fraternity.

Either we all, as a total society, will continue to insist upon keeping our heads in the sand, or we will not.

If we, collectively, insist upon heads-in-the-sand, then the Moslems will eventually hack all our necks.

If we, collectively, decide to *see* the unpleasant (and unwelcome) reality as it really is, then the Moslems will fold (for Islam is very brittle).


As with most problems humans ever face, it's a spiritual problem; and specifically the insistence upon lying to ourselves, come what may.

I'm glad the rope is ready around here. Lord knows we won't have days to learn more information about this. Lord knows we won't likely have the man's own words at trial. The most likely cause of this was the man didn't want to deploy. Many members of the military join without wanting to deploy. Having talked with CSRs with TriCare, you would be shocked at the number of injuries incurred and various acts performed to get out of deployment. Obviously a suicidal shooting machine is on the extreme end. But it makes a lot more sense than claiming a guy immigrated to the US, joined the military, served its personnel for over a decade (my guess, given he is 39), and then decided to go off on jihad. That narrative (or a variation) may very well turn out to be the case, but it is hardly obvious at this point.

Yeah, Badger, I'm sure we all know what you mean. "Sudden Jihad Syndrome" is so, well, sudden.

It appears he had been trying to get out of the military for 2 years. Again, evidence that the guy joined the military to execute jihad.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/us/06suspect.html?_r=1&hp

My wife is an army psychiatrist. She went to the same medical school as Hasan, works at Walter Reed in the same residency program he went through, and worked pretty closely with him for several months. She knows a number of people who knew him much better than this. What she's telling me is that yes, he didn't want to deploy. He joined the army before 9/11. He'd made strenuous attempts to make Muslim converts among all his acquaintances for years. He'd objected very strongly, frequently, and publicly to U.S. intervention in Muslim countries for years. He had never been deployed and his ticket was up. He tried to get out of it and couldn't.

Apparently he decided not to go and at the same time to prevent as many other people from going as he could.

A sad and vile crime that was not "senseless and random," as Sen. Hutchinson prematurely said.

Word is Hasan was disciplined for proselytizing for Islam years back.

I'd guess that there are pressures to recruit and retain Muslims because the armed forces need

1. soliders who know the cultures or languages of occupied countries in order to appeal to their civilians or to analyze their enemy combatants

2. "Diversity" credentials among the liberals who often control the civilian government's bureaucracy and the purse-strings.

It is also possible that pressures from obnoxious Christian fundamentalists have made the military more lax about challenging dysfunctional religious behavior. Though it is also possible that such Christians would face stricter scrutiny while the Muslims would be treated with kid gloves.

Yeppers, it's always them ignernt Christian fundamentalists, ain't it?

Badger, he had posted about jihad and how it was right for Muslims to fight the oppressor (ie the US). But go ahead and keep your head in the sand.

It appears he had been trying to get out of the military for 2 years. Again, evidence that the guy joined the military to execute jihad.

No one said he joined to commit jihad. The problem is that Muslims have this uncanny knack of deciding to turn jihadist.

The problem is that Muslims have this uncanny knack of deciding to turn jihadist.

What unadulterated [redacted --Ed.]. Two incidents in two years in an army of over eight million with a Muslim population big enough to be one of the larger cities in the US.

It is also possible that pressures from obnoxious Christian fundamentalists have made the military more lax about challenging dysfunctional religious behavior.

That's a joke, I hope. All those snake-handlings on army bases have "made the military more lax about challenging dysfunctional religious behavior."

It is also possible that pressures from obnoxious Christian fundamentalists have made the military more lax about challenging dysfunctional religious behavior.

There is a problem with aggressive and inappropriate evangelical proselytization in the military, exacerbated by the disproportionate support of evangelicals for the Bush foreign policy, notwithstanding the sources of the reporting, which most conservatives will reflexively dismiss.

That said, the problem of aggressive, nationalist fundamentalism has nothing to do with this case; Islam conditions its adherents to perceive intolerance and threats, not only where they do not exist, but where conditions of embrace and accommodation obtain.

Badger, please refrain from profanity. That is your first and last warning.

Libeling a billion people doesn't seem to offend your sensibilities. Go figure.

Speaking solely for myself, I would state that the problematic here is that a small subset of the Islamic population is liable to act out for either vaguely Islam-related reasons, or on the basis of the more bellicose Koranic texts, and that we cannot reliably identify those that will do so. This is not to argue that a majority of the world's Muslims, let alone all of them, are committed to violent jihad. It is an expression of skepticism about the religion, which, in most of its orthodox expressions, does not reckon with its violent texts after the fashion of Christianity, and Judaism, with violent OT texts.

I can understand the small subset argument. He just wasn't a part of that subset. He grew up in the states. His siblings are all professionals in this country. My guess is that they are lax Muslims which is typical. He embraced Islam after his parents death. Again, understandable. Yes, he disagreed with the war in Iraq, but that isn't unusual either. What would have saved us from this tragedy would have been to not to attempt to send guys into theatre that have vociferously expressed their opposition to engagement and have tried in every way possible not to go. As I said last night, violet actions are not unusual for people attempting to get out of war duty.

He just wasn't a part of that subset.

I'm going with the 'vague Islam-related reasons' of the subset, inasmuch as it seems implausible that his faith, and his concern for his coreligionists abroad, had nothing to do with his opposition to the war. In other words, I doubt that his reasons for opposing the war were identical to, say, my anti-imperial reasons for opposing the war.

Certainly affinity for his co-religionists likely played a factor in his opposition to the war. He didn't scheme to kill Americans though until the government was ready to force him to go fight in that war though. He has counseled members returning from that these wars.

What unadulterated [redacted --Ed.]. Two incidents in two years in an army of over eight million with a Muslim population big enough to be one of the larger cities in the US.

I'm surprised that no one challenged Badger on this rubbish. "An army of over eight million?" The DoD, with the entire national guard federalized, and all of its civilian employees and contractors, is not that big. A muslim population big enough to be one of the larger cities? Have we gone back to 1800 when 10k-30k is a metropolis in North America?...

What would have saved us from this tragedy would have been to not to attempt to send guys into theatre that have vociferously expressed their opposition to engagement and have tried in every way possible not to go.

True, but if they are given a dishonorable discharge for refusing to go they'd cry about how "their rights were violated." The "right to disobey deployment orders" is right next to the right to an abortion in the penumbra of extremely specific rights to be found in the 9th amendment if you use the founding fathers' secret decoder ring.

Your rules just killed 12 and injured 30. That's what rigidity will do. Rather than use common sense, you propose we do something stupid like boot 10K-30K Muslims out of the military.

The rules didn't kill anybody. This gunslinging madman killed them.

"He didn't scheme to kill Americans though until the government was ready to force him to go fight in that war though."

He was never going to fight. He was a psychiatrist. They don't give the doctors guns.

"Your rules just killed 12 and injured 30."

Yes, this is ridiculous. You agree to deployment when you enroll in the army. Having been in for ten years and received hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of specialized education, it was his turn to go and do the job he'd been trained for all that time--again, not fighting, but practicing medicine. You can't just decide to abandon your commitments that far in.

Not all Muslims are terrorists
But all terrorists are Muslims.

A recent bombing in Pakistan (largely unreported) targeted a bazaar that specialized in women's clothing and children's toys. The results were predictable and horrific. Anopther favorite target is elementary schools. The motive for these actions is still under investigation, but has nothing to do with Islam, a great religion of peace.

In memory of Raymond of Toulouse, Deo Vult!

Badger, you're an apologist for a mass murderer who could have accepted jail if he really didn't want to deploy after willfully accepting the responsibility and benefits of joining the army. You disgust me.

I do want to be explicit about something here: neither Paul nor Lydia has libeled the roughly one-billion Muslims of the world; both are concerned with that determined and unstable minority, and it is unjust to attribute to them the broader claim.

Albert, no one is apologizing for the mass murderer or his actions. There is some difference as to their proper interpretation.

Your rules just killed 12 and injured 30. That's what rigidity will do.

Yes, Maximos, he is an apologist for the mass murderer. He is bringing up all this disgusting junk as some sort of mitigation, and it makes me ill. See the quotation above, and several other of his comments. I'm not inclined to tolerate much more of it on my thread.

Washington - A top US Army official confirmed Friday that the suspect in the killing of at least 13 people at a Texas army base likely shouted 'Allah Akbar' (God is great) before opening fire.

Army Lieutenant General Robert Cone, commander of the Fort Hood, Texas, base where the shootings took place on Thursday, made the comment in answer to a question from NBC news.

Cone said 'there are first hand accounts' to the effect that the suspect, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, had yelled the Muslim religious chant.

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/usa/news/article_1511803.php/US-Army-shooter-likely-shouted-Allah-Akbar-death-toll-rises-Extra#ixzz0W5IvdCMP

I will try to add this later as an update but don't have time to log in as author right now to do so.

But what's a little Allah Akbar among friends? I'm sure he was just expressing criticism of the Iraq war.

"He was harrassed."

Field grade officers are not harrassed, except maybe by generals who send them for coffee. Sorry, it doesn't happen. Anyone who claims this or believes it is ignorant of military culture.

I feel sorry, though, for those in the military here at the Pentagon, who have Muslim names. Their friends and acquaintances may be looking at them a bit differently today.

Meanwhile the NY Times takes on Catholicism and Archbishop Dolan.
You have to keep your eyes on the real enemy, you see. You can't allow trivia to distract you.

If allowing Muslims in the military is imprudent and what caused the tragedy, then it is not less reasonable to allege the insistence in the name of following rules that a Muslim provide service under manifest and public opposition to himself providing service was knowingly to allow a tragedy. That isn't an apologia.

What caused this massacre, Badger, is a single man's derangement. That religious dogma is at the root of this derangement is now pretty clear. What is far from clear, what is indeed wildly speculative, is that a rigidity or insistence on "following rules" had anything to do with it. The man was a career military man. His rank alone disposes of all plausible argument that a deployment order could possibly come to him as catastrophic psychological shock. The Army had probably dedicated upwards of a half million dollars to his education and training. His oath of obedience was not obscure. No one rises to the rank of Major without ample opportunities to discontinue the martial career.

In a word, your eagerness to exonerate this wicked traitor and coward does not speak highly of your judgment or intelligence.

My eagerness to exonerate? I'm not the one calling him a mindless to jihadi. You have a lot of nerve.

Your rules just killed 12 and injured 30. That's what rigidity will do.

You blamed the terrible rigid rules, oh Lord, the rules! for this "tragedy" -- the rules in this case being simple things like the oath of obedience to lawful orders that every soldier takes. By this reckless formulation you indeed exonerate a despicable enemy of America and betrayer and slaughterer of those he was sworn to protect and defend. Talk about nerve.

He was, in fact, very far from mindless. His was the mind of the Jihad.

We take this short commercial break from the name-calling and general frustration of this thread to ask an important question:

Who the heck is J. S.?

Sadly, I am genuinely clueless. I am not a political wonk. The only person I can think of is J. S. Bach, which shows you where my head is.

The Chicken

Dear Paul,

Thanks. I should have thought of that, since you posted on him, recently, if memory serves.

Anyway, back to the name-calling and frustration.

The Chicken

He's also quoted in Lydia's blockquote for the thread. I had no idea who he was when I read it, however. Thanks, again for clearing it up.

The Chicken

Rather than use common sense, you propose we do something stupid like boot 10K-30K Muslims out of the military.

Wow, a twenty K margin for error. Whatever, it's 10K-30K too many.

Badger's approach reminds me of the stories coming out of the UK. We'll all be safe so long as we don't expect Muslims to follow the same rules as other citizens. Surely "the best of peoples" are entitled to double standards, especially if it keeps our heads attached.

Badger, you're an apologist for a mass murderer who could have accepted jail if he really didn't want to deploy after willfully accepting the responsibility and benefits of joining the army.

Well, actually it would have been easier than that. He could have simply NOT RE-Upped his service anytime in the LAST 7 YEARS since we have been at war with Islamic nations. He didn't HAVE to stay in, did he? He didn't HAVE to remain legally under orders if he didn't like the nature of those orders, did he? The fact that he stayed says that either (a) he wanted to keep getting the benefits of service (a pay check, respect due the uniform, whatever else) and wanted it MORE than his religion was compatible with, or (b) he wanted to stay in to be able to make an impact only possible from within (re: damaging proselytizing, for example, and when that fails, something a little more direct). Neither of those options is free of moral taint.


A born again Christian would immediately go about burning his stash of pornography, forswear vulgarities and give more money to the poor. A Buddhist will turn vegetarian, try meditation and give money to the poor. Allah however demands that the devout Muslim confirm his conversion by killing infidels, that is the highest way, everything else zakat, da'wa etc is small beer.

Words of wisdom from Lawrence Auster on the subject:
When Auster is good, he's very good.

The problem is, when he's bad, he's 'orrid.

Now THAT'S revolting. Aren't there any standards of decency around here?

"it would have been easier than that. He could have simply NOT RE-Upped his service anytime in the LAST 7 YEARS since we have been at war with Islamic nations. He didn't HAVE to stay in, did he?"

Actually it's not that simple. Doctors who go through the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) have a much longer service commitment than the standard enlisted man, due to how much is invested in their training. (All doctors at USUHS learn various kinds of military-specific medicine one doesn't find at other medical schools, and in addition to the medical school there is generic officer training of various kinds, etc; meanwhile throughout all this they receive an officer's salary while providing little in return until after graduation.) My wife entered the Army over five years ago and won't even be eligible for deployment for several more. It will have been a period of about twelve years from her matriculation at USUHS to the point where she has to decide whether to re-up or to leave. It's so distant for our family that we don't much think about it or factor it into our plans: there are too many unknowns between now and then. Many or most doctors in her position don't find service feasible, financially or personally, unless they assume they'll stay at least the twenty years which is the minimum required to receive a pension.

Given Tony's response, Ilion, I'm not going to go to your link. I advise others not to do so, either. Nor am I going to have this thread derailed into a personal discussion regarding other bloggers on the Internet.

The link was innocuous, a moderately talented but fat and unattractive man singing a silly song based on the nursery rhyme.

Given Tony's response, Ilion, I'm not going to go to your link. I advise others not to do so, either. Nor am I going to have this thread derailed into a personal discussion regarding other bloggers on the Internet.
Pull-ese!

... though, given that I didn't actually watch the video all the way through, I can't vouch that it's not something I shouldn't have posted.

I'll vouch for it (I did watch it all the way through). Though, of course, I don't have any pull or carry any weight around here. Nor elsewhere for that matter. But I'm familiar with W-4's rules for posting, and I don't think it violates any that I'm aware of, explicit or implicit. Although it could be deemed as being inappropriate given the seriousness of the topic of discussion.

But anyway, interesting thread. Mildly entertaining too. And I ain't talking about the singing. Well, let me rephrase -- I ain't talking about the singing in the video Ilion posted.

Okay, okay, guys. I just didn't recognize a humorous response from Tony when I saw one and couldn't tell if there was a problem. I have a policy of not going to links that I think may be a problem. Thanks for the vouchers. We return to our regular programing.

Michael, I too have a close friend who is a doctor in the military. I know all about the extra time commitment they make. (Well, not all about it, but I am familiar with the overall concept.) Given that this guy is reported to be 39, I would pretty much assume that he has completed whatever basic obligation he has due to the schooling. Most would by that age.

As far as the pension goes: yes, for most of us that sort of consideration weighs significantly. But if being in the army means doing things that are offensive to your religion, most people agree that lesser considerations like pension security (or long-term financial security in general) simply have to give way.

Lydia, yes my "revolting" comment was tongue in cheek. Although I could not stand to watch all the way through, too ghastly. I'm sorry I gave you a moment's concern.

"There were 3,409 Muslims in the active-duty military as of April 2008, according to Pentagon statistics." But "many officials believe the actual number of Muslim soldiers may be at least 10,000 higher than the Pentagon statistics."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125755853525335343.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

I doubt that very many of them go around proselytizing, expressing sympathy for suicide bombers, siding with the enemy in Iraq, etc., like this guy did. I hope everybody would agree that any who do ought to be discharged without a second thought.

I doubt that very many of them go around proselytizing, expressing sympathy for suicide bombers...

I hope you're right. But if they did, it appears that it would make no difference.

Did I miss the response given by the Army about why this psychopath wasn't relieved from active duty when he showed clear signs of, well, undeniable psychopathy?

You didn't miss it, because they won't admit it, because that "psychopathy" was too tied up with his Islam and the way he thought of Islam, so to admit that he had a problem and should have been relieved would be to admit that jihadi talk should be met not with "what are we doing to upset you?" and such nonsense but with a serious response. I swear, I just read in a news report where someone in his mosque (a secretary, it appears) says this,

Like everyone at the center, Khan is mystified by what happened. "What made him do that?" Khan asked. "Were people making fun of him or fun of Islam? Because whatever people do, there is some kind of a reason behind it."

See? Or how about this: His cousin says that if he'd taken out only one or two people, the cousin would believe he was "defending himself." Why? Because his car was keyed one time and this supposedly had something to do with his being Muslim. The poor, poor fellow.

It's always got to be our fault. To admit that they should have gotten rid of him sooner would be to admit something liberals would rather commit suicide than admit. Literally.

"It's always got to be our fault. To admit that they should have gotten rid of him sooner would be to admit something liberals would rather commit suicide than admit. Literally."

Exactly, Lydia.

And max: I think it's a cop-out to describe Hasan as a "psychopath." He's simply a believing Muslim, who, in the years since 9/11, figured out a bit more about what it means to be a believing Muslim than George W. Bush (among many others) ever did.

My point with linking to the video was simply to provide some sort of background context (just in case the casual reader was unfamiliar with the girl with the curl in the middle of her fore'ead) for the content of my comment. When I went Googling, I was really just wanting text, but I got impatient in trying to find some text that contained the entire doggerel.

My point with the content of the post was to make a serious comment on L.McGrew's comment (which I qouted), but to make it in a humorous way.

Ilion - fwiw, I actually rather enjoyed the video.

And so what if the singer is a heavy-ish old-ish white country boy? He's got a decent voice, the tune isn't half bad, and the lyrics are based on a classic nursery rhyme.

So it's not Mozart.

There isn't much that is.

... why this psychopath wasn't relieved from active duty when he showed clear signs of, well, undeniable psychopathy?

Today, we too quickly jump to a conclusion of mental illness where a diagnosis of evil is not only simpler, but simply right.

Once again, my wife, an army psychiatrist, knew and worked with this guy. She is convinced that he was not sick, but evil. Other military people have been making comments to her about his sickness and she's getting frustrated by it. I haven't heard than any of them were psychiatrists.

The vast majority of Muslims see Islam as a religion of peace and spiritualize concepts like jihad in much the same way as Christians speak of spiritual combat. But the issue is that the original meaning of jihad is conquest and the original meaning of islam is submission by conquest. Knowledgeable Muslims have no basis to repudiate taking these concepts in their original, literal sense because this is expressed quite clearly in there authoritative texts - both the Koran and the hadith. Islam is both a religion dealing with one's relationship to God, family and neighbor and a political ideology that justifies violence. This makes Muslim immigration into Western societies problematic - as the case of Major Hasan illustrates. When a second generation American Muslim starts to take his religion seriously it can and sometimes will take the form of violent jihadism and his fellow American Muslims are not in a position to reject that form of religious expression, no matter what course they would personally choose.

The urge to talk about mental illness is obviously a result of the fact that our liberal media-makers and educators do not believe in evil. They feel this overwhelming need not to see him as responsible for his acts. Moreover, since this guy was a member of a mascot group, it's especially important to them not to say that he was evil.

So it's not Mozart. . There isn't much that is.
Ah. Don't make 'the perfect' the enemy of 'the good.'

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