Don’t ignore facts in Fort Hood case to be politically correct

In the aftermath of the Fort Hood massacre, a line is taking shape: Whatever possessed the shooter to kill 13 Americans, it is beneath our dignity to discuss the Muslim connection to the suspect.

Adhering to this principle requires glossing over certain facts.

For instance, it has been reported that the suspect ““ Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan ““ had given a speech at Walter Reed Army Medical Center where he justified beheading and torturing infidels.

On another occasion, according to a colleague of Hasan, he told her: “Maybe Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor.”

He also allegedly posted on extremist Web sites and associated with a radical imam.

If this was not enough to imply that Hasan might have been a terrorist, his alleged actions on the day of the massacre should have removed all doubt. Before the shooting, he reportedly distributed Qurans to his neighbors.

It has also been reported that Hasan shouted, “Allahu Akbar” (“God is Great”) during the shooting.

Given the history of this country’s struggle with Islamic extremism, it’s mind-boggling to think how Hasan was allowed to remain in the U.S. Army when his superiors apparently knew about his dubious behavior.

In that same vein, it is incomprehensible why many peoples’ first instinct was to do everything possible to direct blame away from Hasan and onto anything that might obscure his Islamic background ““ or, to claim that extenuating circumstances, such as emotional pain and suffering from being in the Army, sufficed as reasons behind the act.

This Solomonic act of cutting the baby in half may be appropriate in some cases, but not when the perpetrator fancied himself a soldier of Islam and clearly acted in pursuit of religious goals.

One of the lamest excuses we’ve heard is that a disease called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder could be to blame for the violence.

Forget that he had never been deployed, much less seen man-to-man combat. It is risible to suggest that something like PTSD could possibly explain the premeditated acts that were involved here.

That Hasan was Muslim and had radical tendencies are no ancillary parts of the puzzle. Since 19 terrorists linked to Islamist groups hijacked planes on Sept. 11, wreaked havoc on major U.S. cities and declared a war on “nonbelievers,” we have had every reason to treat people who espouse radical Islam as immediate threats to national security.

Meanwhile, the guardians of political correctness are ready to pounce on anyone who would insensitively claim that one man’s actions speak for an entire religion (i.e., Islam).

While some have made this soritical leap, a much larger part of the population is on pins and needles to avoid making any direct connection between terrorism and Islam lest they be labeled racists and forced on their knees to begin mea culpas.

Instead of calling these kinds of attacks by their proper name ““ Islamic extremism ““ we are now told by civil libertarians (in the media and in the Obama administration) that doing so might offend Muslim sensibilities.

Out of fear, we amend our vocabularies by replacing convenient expressions like “Islamic extremism” with the euphemism “extremism.” (The potential for an evolving conflict between the adherents of free speech and the devotees of political correctness is clear.)

It was this puerile environment that gave free rein to cultivate the anti-American pathologies that spearheaded the sudden act of violence ““ the murder of 13 adults and an unborn baby.

With all of their self-satisfying talk about Islam being a peaceful religion, however ““ or, as peaceful as any other religion ““ many people on the Left seem to be aware that the dangers of challenging Islam are somewhat greater than, say, challenging Christianity.

An example from 2005 is illustrative.

It was in that year that a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published titillating cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The ensuing response of the Muslim community (or some of it) was to boycott Danish goods and stage protests to force the newspaper to retract the parodic cartoons.

Three men were even arrested on suspicion of plotting to kill one of the artists.

Granted, all this hullabaloo took place outside of the confines of the United States, but is it not foreseeable that in a matter of years a U.S. newspaper the equivalent of a Jyllands-Posten will face a similar situation?

Publishers everywhere live in fear that it will, which is why the New York Times shied away from publishing the Muhammad pieces.

The Fort Hood ordeal has forced a critical examination of our priorities.

It has shown what can happen when the desire to not appear anti-Muslim takes precedence over our desire for self-protection: People literally become so afraid of saying something that could be construed as offensive that they say nothing at all.

This brings up these derivative questions: What would happen if we did the same for every group with a history of violence? What about white supremacists?

The problems that arise from this should not be elusive to anyone who has been alive for the past eight years.

Since Sept. 11, at least 21 domestic terror plots have been uncovered and foiled ““ an average of about one every four months. Of those, terrorists who had links to Islamist groups plotted to blow up buildings, subways, airlines, a bridge and a military base, and to perform other types of destruction.

Why then, when we allow terrorists to incubate in the hospitable clime of latitudinarianism gone awry, are we suddenly surprised when a man takes out a dozen people in the name of a radical creed?

The people who are now calling Hasan a victim of PTSD and preemptively wagging their fingers at others as to warn them not to make generalizations have done very little to deplore the heinous acts that are being committed in the name of Islam.

The people who worked at the Abu Ghraib prison (those being accused of torture) have something in common with Hasan: they all give bad names to everyone who is like them.

Just as most people in the U.S. military are good, decent members of society, so too are most Muslims peaceful.

In the process of responding to a tragedy, we tend to forget this. But we also cannot forget the atrocities that are being done under the banner of religion by the few.

E-mail Pherson at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected].