by JE Tabler

“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.”

-Winston Smith, George Orwell’s 1984

In this clip from last Saturday’s Fox News Watch Judy Miller chides the left for their “psychobabble”-as-reporting, then immediately jabs the right for examining what motivated Nidal Malik Hasan to shoot 50+ people at Fort Hood rather than engaging in the “psychobabble” which she decries.

On the right you have another phenomenon which is this insidious slide from Major Hasan as a Muslim into criticizing and fears about Islam as a religion and I think we had to be … we saw a little of that, enough of that in the media to be very concerned this week. 

 

If the reporting on Fort Hood has taught us anything, it is that “politically correct journalism” is an oxymoron. This was an interesting segment, particularly for its discussion of Shepard Smith’s coverage of the massacre, on which I remarked as I was liveblogging it that, “[Shepard Smith] refused to say the shooter’s name, which mattered not by 6 pm, when Baier came on.”

Her point seems to be that identifying Islamic terrorism as “terrorism” is accurate, but identifying it as “Islamic terrorism” is dangerous. Now, I never went to J-school, but I’m pretty sure that “why” is still one the Five Ws which comprise complete reporting on a subject.

To not examine the “why” is to fail as a journalist, yet, Judy Miller condemns reporters for examining it in this case, perhaps because the answer to the question of why Hasan shot all those people is too uncomfortable to confront.

Kirsten Powers‘ assessment that he was crazy seems to be a case of projection, as it was with Hasan’s superiors who acted upon their baseless delusions about Islam by sending him to Islamic REACT lectures to learn about the “true” (i.e., safe) Islam which they imagined existed because doing so was less scary than confronting the ugly truth about jihad which Hasan had tried desperately to impart to them in his class presentation about jihad, during which he more than made the Islamic case against the US Army well in advance of 11/05.

He stressed the importance of full submission to Sharia for Muslims and the duty of jihad against those who attack Muslims. What may have been the only point in his presentation which was not crystal-clear was that he seemed to not regard Muslims who reject Sharia as true Muslims, and therefore as legitimate targets, which is probably why he felt conflicted about his deployment. Whether he was to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, he would have been with an army which was there fighting on behalf of Muslims against Sharia.

He was crystal-clear about Allah’s stance regarding those who fight against Muslims.

[Koran 60.08/Slide 40] Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with [those fight Muslims]: for Allah loveth those who are just.

He explained, with Koranic citation, his obligation as a Muslim to fight defensive jihad against the kafir, and that the only way around that required initiative on our part, not on the part of Muslims. We are given three options, per Islamic dogma: (1) stop fighting all wars against Muslims (slide 42); (2) convert to Islam or accept dhimmi status and pay a tax (slides 43-44); and (3) happen to be around when the end of times comes and go to Hell.

Nidal Malik Hasan had no problem examining or discussing openly and honestly the Islamic roots of terrorism, yet, for journalists to do the same is somehow verboten. Miller even acknowledged that Hasan yelled “Allahu ackbar!” during his shooting spree and that this gives us a strong indication as to his motivation, but she nonetheless cautions against inspecting the motivation itself.

It is here that Miller employs classic doublethink by “hold[ing] simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, [using] logic against logic, to repudiat[ing] morality while laying claim to it.” Either Islam mandates violent jihad against kafirs or it does not. Answering the question of “why” is not dangerous or something about which we should be “concerned.” Refusing to do so is. Violence against kafirs comprises fully 61% of the Koran. Ignoring this fact will not make it go away. Confronting it is the only way we can win either the civilizational war which was declared on us or the two physical wars in which we are currently engaged.

We are engaged in a war against violent jihadists. Does Judy Miller think the Taliban have different Korans from all the other Muslims? Her criticism is akin to someone condemning the Nazi invasion of Belgium in 1940 while cautioning against making inferences about what may motivate the Nazis or making generalizations about their ideology.

My advice to Judy Miller would be to follow her own advice and not make generalizations about Islam as a religion because doing so is really of no use to us kafirs. Instead, she should examine Islam as a political doctrine, because that has enormous implications for all of us, none of them good. She can start with the Koran, 61% of which is political doctrine, and maybe move on to Hasan’s lesson on Islam, which should also be required reading for all kafirs.

Political Islam is, after all, what we are fighting against in Afghanistan. It is what separates our (Muslim) enemies from our (Muslim) allies. Just as there are moderate Muslims but no moderate Islam, so Islam is political, but not all Muslims are political Muslims. Were that not the case we could have never won in Iraq. Once you realize that, Islam is not so scary and neither are Muslims. Until we can all do that, we will never be able to identify our enemy. Not understanding what makes our enemy an enemy in the midst of a civilizational war is far more frightening than anything in the Koran, many of whose scariest parts were detailed in Hasan’s class presentation.

In fact, Islam is a lot less scarier in a post-Iraq-War world because that and other events in recent years have demonstrated that we really do have several crucial factors working in our favor: (1) Muslims are human, (2) Sharia is diametrically opposed to human rights, therefore, (3) on a human level, almost nobody wants to live under Sharia, (4) we know for a fact that we can appeal to Muslims on human grounds, get them to fight along with us against political Islam, and win, so (5) our Muslim allies really can outnumber our Muslim enemies. Five years ago we were only certain of the first two.

To acknowledge that a terrorist screamed “Allahu ackbar” as he shot people at a military base but refuse to acknowledge that political Islam motivated him to do so is classic leftist doublethink, which is at least as bad as “psychobabble” because it also carries with it the pretense of ethics and acts as a substitute for intellectual analysis.