Department of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano is working with Muslim groups across the country to prevent a backlash against Muslims. Army chief General George Casey said, “Speculation could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers and what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here.”
Chris Matthews of MSNBC's Hardball.
Witnesses state that Nidal Hasan screamed “Allahu akbar” before shooting. Most western media translates the phrase as “God is great”; others translate it is “Allah is greatest.” The westernized version of the phrase is much less controversial than “Allah is greatest.” While many will claim it is a harmless phrase, I and most other Americans will run for the exits if we are in a crowded place and someone yells, not “Fire”, as in the great Oliver Wendell Holmes decision on the right to limit free speech, but “Allahu Akbar.”
Groups like the Counsel on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) are trotted out on the cable news shows to damn whatever act of violence an Islam-affiliated person has committed, yet they invariably mention in a smug manner Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph. CAIR and others claim that McVeigh and Rudolph are proof of Christian terrorists. A tenuous claim at best, but guys like MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, who had CAIR on his show Friday, lap it up wholesale. I don’t remember McVeigh in any way tying his heinous crime to a belief in Jesus. McVeigh and Rudolph were anti-Government morons. That doesn’t matter to Matthews and the other cable talking heads, they just want to avoid the issue of Jihad in America altogether. The chorus over “harassment” by other soldiers as motivation for Mr. Hasan’s actions will likely reach deafening volume soon, as the nervous media avoids blaming Islam in any way they can.
Columnist Daniel Pipes labels acts of violence like Mr. Hasan’s as “Sudden Jihad Syndrome.” He coined the phrase in 2006 after another “non-terrorist” attack by a Muslim in the name of Islam. Although Mr. Pipes was being highly critical of Muslims when he coined the term, many media types are starting to refer to the syndrome as if it was an actual psychological disorder.
Let’s not beat around the bush on Fort Hood. Nidal Hasan was acting in the name of Islam last week. That fact shouldn’t lead Americans to harass Muslims wholesale. There are over 1 billion Muslims in the world and a tiny percentage are terrorists. Many moderate Muslims are terrified of the violent among their ranks. To argue otherwise is simply silly, if all Muslims were terrorists we’d have a billion people seeking out and attempting to kill infidels. I’m not asking for Americans to rise up and discriminate and harass Muslims across our great country. We need to learn to tolerate one another and in some cases understand and become friends with each other. However, Nidal Hasan committed an act of Islamic terrorism last Thursday; to label it any other way is an act of cowardice.
Recently, I set out to write a critical piece about Dalia Mogahed, who is the Executive Director, Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and an Obama adviser, over purported pro-Sharia comments she made on a radical British TV show. After doing some research I became somewhat of a fan of Ms. Mogahed’s. Her comments were taken out of context and she handled the whole affair professionally and with class. That is a good thing and a start.
The U.S Government needs to spend less time worrying about what Americans may do or say against Islam and spend more time making sure the chances of another Nidal Hasan are slim to none. To warn against “thought” – er, hate – crimes at a time like this is a terrible idea for the Feds, but so far it looks like that’s where we are headed.
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John Romano is the publisher and editor of Yes, But However!, a musician, a former political correspondent for BBC Radio London, and a serial web entrepreneur. Follow him on twitter: twitter.com/yesbuthowever or John Romano on Google+John Romano article archive.
