BLAME AMERICA FIRST…THE DIALOGUE ON FORT HOOD
Exclusive: ‘Blame America First’ Takes Root in Fort Hood Narrative
Peter Huessy
The horrific attack on our brave American soldiers at Fort Hood brought to the surface many of the things that are wrong with American society. Most of the drive-by media were quick to blame the killings on the “stress†that had been placed on the (alleged) murderer, Maj. Hasan, an Army mental health provider.
In bold print above the fold, the New York Times explained to us the stress of going overseas and being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan was the “trigger†that pushed Hasan over the edge. At the same time, a veterans group, meeting in Washington with Senate staff about the time of the shooting, said that the Army had failed to increase the number of mental health professionals working with U.S. soldiers coming back from the war zone and this was the reason for the killing spree upon which Maj. Hasan had embarked. Unremarked by the press coverage of the group’s claims was the seemingly obliviousness that Hasan hadn’t even gone to the war zone, let alone come back.
Thus while the need for caring for our soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan is unquestionable, the idea that we needed more shrinks to care for the shrinks state-side so they wouldn’t go “postal†seems a real stretch. But we shouldn’t be surprised. The New York Times especially has been pounding the drums that our soldiers, being overstretched and largely traumatized by their tours of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, are returning home and committing violent crimes far greater than their numbers would suggest would be the norm if they were stateside. The template is recognizable — building the case day after day for leaving both Iraq and Afghanistan, because after all these all are “wars of choice.â€
In attempting to “blame America,†in this case the policy of fighting in Iran and Afghanistan, the Times and others simply continued a policy that is exactly similar to the way they treat many violent crimes here in America. If the murderer is white, and can be linked to some kind of church-going when he was four, or to the NRA, meaning gun owning, or some fringe “militia,†then automatically a warped religion, excessive zeal for the second amendment to the Constitution, and an opposition to “government†is blamed for the killing. This then is blamed in turn on “talk radio†because of course somewhere on “talk radio†some conservative sometime during the past week had declared the need to reduce the size of government, protect second amendments rights and probably said a prayer at some high school, college or Elks Club meeting somewhere.
Thus the murder of a fellow citizen can always be placed at the foot of those “rascally Republicans,†to borrow from our brilliant friend Rush Limbaugh or “conservatives†in general. But should the shooter, Stanley Tookie Williams, or bomber, as in Bill Ayers, be part of a protected social or political class, the arguments completely change. Tookie was oppressed, you see. He came from poverty. He was, I guess, “stressed.†And despite murdering people in cold blood, for a few bucks mind you, he was lionized by the Times and other radical outlets because in jail he wrote children’s books and had become a “role model.†As for Ayers, we know the Weathermen, the violent wack-job group he belonged to, assumed a sort of beat generation aura of respectively like Che Guevara, although both were killers or advocated killing.
Other killers, especially cop killers, got international petitions signed to get them released from prison, or at the very least granted a pardon or clemency. But they had to be black, or Marxists, and thus part of a protected class. And so we come back to Hasan. We now find that while in Maryland attending school his ID said he was a “soldier of Allah.†He lectured fellow doctors on the need for violent Jihad, including his support of “suicide bombers†and the killing of American soldiers.
Despite American and coalition soldiers having liberated over 50 million Muslims from the tyranny and horrors of Saddam’s torture chambers and the prisons of the Taliban, Hasan was driven to “blame America first.†Sound familiar? We know he attended mosques in Virginia and Maryland where the hateful and violent creed of killing apostates, Jews and Christians was preached.
Where have we seen this before? In the Fort Dix case? In the case of the shooting at a recruiting center in Arkansas? In the case of the beheadings and torture the Baathists and Al Qaeda brought to Iraq and which the Taliban and al Qaeda continue to bring to Pakistan, Afghanistan and London, and Madrid and Bali? They are all operating on the same principle — it is all right, in fact commanded by God, to kill Americans, and Jews, and Christians, and apostates. But, God forbid, should we ever criticize Islamists or the imams and states that pretend that Allah gives them protection for their wanton acts of murder.
And thus we must understand this same fervent murderous outlook motivated the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, led by the bomb-maker Ramzi Yousef who was working for Saddam Hussein. Remember the February 1993 attack occurred exactly on the day that Saddam surrendered in Gulf War 1991. And the CIA Director who said the mastermind of the 1993 attacks was exactly the mastermind of 9/11 — but we seem to forget that al Qaeda was never blamed for the 1993 World Trade Center attacks, nor were the Taliban.
Whether motivated by the obsession that Islam requires a global campaign of murder, or as a client of the Mullahs of Iran, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, or al-Assad of Syria, whether Hezbollah, Hamas, or the myriad groups that we lazily call “al Qaeda,†their aim is the same — the destruction of Western civilization, wrecking revenge against the United States, or the random killing of infidels protected behind the veil of a supposed religion, used by states, their intelligence agencies or police to destroy their enemies, garb riches and booty, or conquer lands. It is the same totalitarian tentacles we fought in Nazi Germany and throughout the half-century war against communism and the Soviet Union.
But these unpleasant facts we do not want to face. Much better to grip our fetish, (obsession?) with “multiculturalism†or as some call it “diversity,†and pretend that our foolish love of “the other†did not drive us to look the other way when confronted with Hasan’s rants some years ago — we would not want to get on the wrong side of CAIR, would we? Or face a lawsuit or angry worded press release should we say “Boo†to violent jihadis intent on killing us or their often state sponsors who hide in the shadows.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Peter Huessy is President of GeoStrategic Analysis, a defense consulting company in Potomac, Maryland.
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