Indifference and Major Nidal Malik Hasan: Tolerance breeds intolerance Part II

"This was an individual who does not, obviously, represent the Muslim faith"
--Janet Nepolitano

"And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse."
--General George W. Casey

"Allah-u Akbar!!!!"
--Major Nidal Malik Hasan

"What we've got here is...failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men."
--The Captain, Cool Hand Luke


Is there any human action that is more intolerant than murder? Is there any freedom more basic than the right to be alive?

Taking another person's life is the ultimate communication breakdown, the ultimate failure to understand the other side of the debate. It is the final act of a desperate man or woman, either as the ultimate expression of extremism or as a defense against it.

In that regard there could be no one less tolerant or more extreme than Major Nidal Malik Hasan. A soldier that turned his gun on his fellow brothers and sisters in arms. A doctor that destroyed life instead of saving it. A psychiatrist who created mental anguish for his former patients. An American who considered himself a Palestinian first and professed his loyalty to sharia law ahead of Constitutional law. A Muslim extremist who took advantage of the freedom he swore to protect in order to spread his extremism and rob others of their freedom to live. And it was all made possible not by lax gun laws or "disgruntled war veterans" or any of the silly excuses the appeasers (yes Janet Nepolitano I'm talking to you) of the world use to distract us from the following simple fact:

Nidal Malik Hasan is an Islamic extremist who tried (and apparently managed for years) to control his murderous impulses until he finally snapped and killed a bunch of people in the name of his religion.



Ok? Can we say that without being crucified as ignorant or racist? He dressed in Islamic robes on the morning of his attack (planned as a suicide mission), consulted with an imam tied to al Qaeda and yelled the same thing other Islamic suicide attackers (including the 9/11 hijackers) yell as they blow up a bus or school or plane.

All of the pundits on TV over the past couple of weeks have been grinding and grinding and grinding Hasan's background to death. He was a loner. He didn't have a woman (because he couldn't find one Islamic-ly pious enough). He had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He had PRE Traumatic Stress Disorder. Grinding and grinding and grinding. He was depressed. He was sad. He was misunderstood. He was upset about his imminent deployment to Afghanistan or Iraq. And grinding and grinding and ENOUGH ALREADY. Those are all excuses. Here are some more facts:

Hasan's business card had the acronym "SoA" on it.



SoA, if you are unaware, stands for "Soldier of Allah". Hasan gave speeches on American foreign policy and his demand that Muslims be given the right to become conscientious objectors and opt out of military action in Muslim countries. Even more astonishing is new information emerging now that the FBI had the following information LAST WINTER:

[Hasan] sent a message to a radical imam in Yemen saying that he was looking forward to the discussions they would have over alcohol-free wine in the afterlife.

This is the same imam by the way that was visited by 3 of the 9/11 hijackers as well as several other terrorists and attempted terrorists. Some of these attempted massacre-ists that admired al-Alawki included a group of home-grown Canadian al-Qaeda as well as the group of lunatics that tried to attack the army base in Fort Dix, NJ. Please note the common thread between these groups and Hasan - all wannabe disciples of the same guy, all radical Muslim, all citizens or permanent residents of the countries they planned to attack.

The article continues:

[Other emails] included questions about when the imam considered jihad, or holy war, to be appropriate, and whether it justified the killing of innocents.

Oh my...but we're not done yet folks - hold on to your hijabs with this one:

One result is intense interest in the American-born Mr al-Awlaki, who has never been arrested in the US but served time in jail in Yemen in 2006 and is seen by some intelligence agencies as an al-Qaeda recruiter.

Three weeks before Major Hasan bought the guns he used at Fort Hood, Mr al-Awlaki posted on his website an endorsement of attacks by Muslims on “government armies in the Muslim world”. He stated: “Blessed are those who fight against them and blessed are those [martyrs] who are killed by them.” Since the Fort Hood rampage, Mr al-Awlaki has called Major Hasan a hero.

All right. So...this guy was becoming friendly with a possible al-Qaeda recruiter, the same guy that inspired at least TWENTY THREE HOME GROWN TERRORISTS to attempt to murder hundreds if not thousands of their own countrymen...and Casey and Nepolitano's top concern is DIVERSITY. Our leadership shouldn't be making excuses for the rest of the law-abiding Muslim Americans, they can do just fine in speaking up for themselves in this free country of theirs. Why do they need Nepolitano apologizing for them anyway? Does the Homeland Security Chief need to get onto a podium every time a serial killer chops up some drug addicts in Cleveland and remind us that these creeps do not "represent" the Christian faith? Ridiculous!

And excuse me, with all due respect to General Casey, this incident was NOT a tragedy. Tragedies are things like hurricanes or tornadoes. Earthquakes are tragedies. A cancer diagnosis is a tragedy. Tragedies are terrible events beyond our control. This event was absolutely under someone's control. Hasan's rampage wasn't a tragedy - it was a MASSACRE. It was a TRAVESTY. It was a bloodbath. And MOST IMPORTANTLY it could have been prevented if just one of two things happened:

1. If the FBI hadn't dropped the ball by not pursuing the very real possibility that this guy wasn't just "conducting research" and was behaving increasingly erratically.

OR

2. If someone that knew him had spoken up.

You've already read about Nidal Hasan's rantings on Muslims in the military. You already know by now that several doctors and others were very disturbed by his presentation but chose to treat him with "kid gloves" despite the fact that he was a poor psychiatrist with terrible evaluations. You already know by now that Hasan has been reported as saying: "I'm a Muslim first and I hold the Shariah, the Islamic Law, before the United States Constitution." You know all this because it was all in the same article I just linked to from Fox News that is now almost TWO WEEKS OLD. Why then, is he still not being referred to as a terrorist? Because he wasn't a card-carrying member of the jihad? Oh wait nevermind, he was.

Believe it or not, General Casey, Secretary Nepolitano and the rest of the diversity brigade are more interested in not offending Muslims than they are in performing their most basic duty...that being to defend the country from all threats, be they foreign or domestic. Instead of being concerned with how this happened, how it could have been prevented and how to prevent it from happening again they are sacrificing our safety on the altar of Political Correctness.

Their indifference, their apathy towards reality allows people like Hasan to succeed in their acts of passion, their acts of evil. Their tolerance allows the intolerant to succeed.

Because you see, it doesn't end with Hasan. Praise be to Allah, our good friends over revolutionmuslim.com have fixed their website and we can now present their original video on the Ft. Hood shooting:

In the video, the speaker (an American) explicitly states his support for the massacre as a legitimate attack on military targets during a declared war, using Holy Qur'anic verses to back his points. He is in effect supporting the enemy of his country during a time of war.

trea⋅son  [tree-zuhn]
–noun
1. the offense of acting to overthrow one's government or to harm or kill its sovereign.
2. a violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or to one's state.
3. the betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.

se⋅di⋅tion  [si-dish-uhn]
–noun
1. incitement of discontent or rebellion against a government.
2. any action, esp. in speech or writing, promoting such discontent or rebellion.
3. Archaic. rebellious disorder.

It's not just about Nidal Malik Hasan. There are movements right now in the United States, that are literally committing acts of treason/sedition like this one on American soil, using American companies and proudly displaying their work to the rest of the world. Would these people be allowed to speak like this about the countries they support IN the countries they support? Why are we tolerating this? Why do we allow these people to operate at will and poison uninformed minds on the internet?

They are using our own rules against us. And the media is ignoring them. Our politicians are ignoring them. How can we afford to ignore them? How can we afford to continue being indifferent to this evil while it plots against us and our families? Why do we refrain from calling it what it is? Why are we afraid to be honest with ourselves?

I'll tell you why. You see while Nidal Malik Hasan acted to kill those soldiers at Ft. Hood he did not act alone. Political correctness aided him. Indifference abetted him. Tolerance of evil gave him aid and comfort. And we are all accomplices.

In the end...WE as a society killed them. Our collective conscience silently screams in desperate horror for us to blank out this fact but we cannot do it anymore. Our future as a liberal democracy depends on it. Hasan needs to be punished for his act of war but it's time we as a society started taking responsibility for our own actions, or lack thereof.

Because if we don't, the next massacre will be on our conscience too.

Tolerance Breeds Intolerance

SOME say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
--Robert Frost, "Fire and Ice"


Fire and Ice.

Two ways for humanity to come to a tragic end. Generally "Fire" has been interpreted as a massive Armageddon-style war of passion between hotheaded, nationalist countries and "Ice" is the opposite.

While there are many possible explanations of Robert Frost's poem - inevitably they reach the same conclusion - he is referring to two possible ways that life (or civilization) can be extinguished. Growing up in the 1980's our greatest fear was always that the Earth would be incinerated in a massive fiery nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. With the end of the Cold War, this fear has subsided somewhat to the point that we reinterpret history today to convince ourselves that it was all just a big misunderstanding between great superpowers with different styles of government...

But there is another way to tragedy, one that doesn't require massive nuclear devastation.

It is ice. The opposite of fire. The opposite of passion.

I am talking of course about the ultimate sin of indifference. The sad sad spectacle of good men and women tolerating the evil actions of others and failing to rise up against them before it is too late.

Recently we observed the two November memorials of Kristallnacht and Veteran's Day. Kristallnacht commemorates the first state-sponsored act of violence of the Holocaust, a national pogrom against the Jews of Germany and Austria. Veteran's Day commemorates the end of World War I...and inevitable march to World War II and the Holocaust. Interestingly, the icy reception of the Versailles treaty by the United States and the failure of the Allies in enforcing it are in large part responsible for the fires of WWII. Had the West not been indifferent towards Hitler's rearming of Germany, a true nightmare may have been averted.

Passion and Indifference. Fire and Ice. And in the end, total destruction.

Over the past few decades as Americans we have been taught in schools and on television that tolerance is the cornerstone of a free and liberal society. In movies and on TV, the young protagonist or team of protagonists (often made up of one representative of every race) are often antagonized by an intolerant, usually older Caucasian individual, that sees the world as black and white as opposed to the glorious rainbow we have been taught it actually is. In the end we learn that all we need to do is get to know each others' cultures and we will see that humans are humans and we have much more in common than we have differences. If we are simply more TOLERANT of each other, we can all finally get along.

A beautiful message to say the least - and that's fine and well and good for TV and movies and ideals, but reality is a little different.

Because there is another side to tolerance. A darker side.

The issue with tolerance is that it often causes us to be indifferent to genuinely evil acts. Can there be any doubt that there were many good Germans in the 1930's that saw the Nuremberg Laws and simply TOLERATED them because going about their lives was more important than some Jews they didn't really care much about anyway? Could the Holocaust not have been averted if the entire Western world didn't sit idly by and TOLERATE Hitler's rise to power?

When hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were being brutally murdered, raped and pillaged in Rwanda - could this have happened without the de facto TOLERANCE of the Western democracies?

When the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia sacrificed 1.5 million of their own people to an insane ideology - could this have happened without the TOLERANCE of the Americans, Europeans and every other civilized nation that had the ability to stop it? In the end, it took an invasion by Vietnam...COMMUNIST Vietnam mind you...to put an end to the Killing Fields.

When Somalia collapsed into chaos and anarchy. When the Ayatollah Khomeini seized control of Iran. When the Congo plunged into civil war. When pogroms and purges raged all over Russia. When the Congo plunged into a second civil war. When the Taliban imposed sharia on Afghanistan. EVERY SINGLE DAY that the Darfur genocide continues.

All of which is made possible by our indifference. By our tolerance of evil.

"It's just their way" - "It's just their culture" - "Who are we to tell them how to live their lives"

How many times have we heard these phrases? How many times have we been told that it is not our place to get involved. That it is not our place to JUDGE other cultures no matter how brutal or repressive or anti-woman or anti-Jewish or anti-democracy or anti-gay they may be? And ironically, how often do we hear these phrases from women or Jews or gays or Democrats?

But it is specifically the fact that we allow these evil people to spew their ignorance and take steps towards achieving the backwards, anti-liberal, anti-tolerant societies that allows them to succeed! By TOLERATING these actions and giving these EXTREMELY INTOLERANT people carte blanche to operate we are fostering the greatest intolerance there can be.

It is the indifference of the decent majority that allows the passion of the indecent minority to catch fire and create the very destruction the majority claims to oppose.

Indifference creates passion. Tolerance breeds intolerance. Ice causes fire. All seemingly opposite - yet...indisputably connected and intertwined. And, perhaps ironically, they are consumed by that which they created.

Hitler would have been much easier to stop in 1933 than he was in 1939. Pol Pot would never have been able to massacre his own people if the world (or even just a few democratic nations) had united against him. The Rwandan genocide could have been extinguished had it not been tolerated by the outside world. Al Qaeda would never have been able to fly planes into the World Trade Center and kill thousands of innocent Americans had we not TOLERATED the Taliban overrunning Afghanistan and destroying thousands of years of culture in a hail of artillery fire. All in the name of insanity.

And furthermore if the citizenry of these countries themselves had risen up against these insane ideologies in their infancy - they could have been easily squashed. Instead they were tolerated and were allowed to grow until the decent people were overwhelmed by the lunatics. Once that happens the burden then falls to the free people of the world to unite and liberate them.

But tell a supposed liberal that you advocate taking action against this evil and you are immediately labeled intolerant, backwards, ignorant, war-monger, perhaps even racist.

Likewise if you speak out against an ideology that spews intolerance towards women, Jews, gays, democracy, Christians and literally every liberal ideal/achievement of the past half-century...you too will be labeled as intolerant. Somehow...we are somehow supposed to understand why Islamist ideology shows rampant discrimination and intolerance against several groups (which we often belong to) and dare not criticize it.

We are expected to protect their right to practice this rigid ideology...to tolerate their right to be intolerant, as they use our own rules against us to fill the internet, our streets and our college campuses with decidedly UNLIBERAL views, poisoning the minds of impressionable youths and leading to a scenario where they can eventually impose their beliefs on us whether we want them or not. Like the Nazis or the Khmer Rouge, the indifference of the decent majority is what allows the indecent minority to succeed.

Explain to me please, someone - how it can be that we TOLERATE movements like this one to operate on our soil:



NOTE: This article originally referenced a video clip from this group defending the actions of Major Nidal Malik Hasan as legitimate acts of war. That video has been apparently taken down in the past 24 hours.

Did you get all of that? Right now, there is a group operating in New York City that is literally denouncing the United States and its liberal ideals and verbally abusing and harassing Christians and moderate Muslim teenagers on the street. In another video the speaker implores a group of Muslims to "reject" the American military, wishes success insh'Allah on the Taliban and preaches an end to democracy.

And what's more they post videos of themselves on the internet and gloat about doing it! This is borderline treason and we are expected to TOLERATE it or be considered ignorant, uncultured or racist.

But if these people win - would they protect our rights to denounce them?

Would they allow us to voice our opinions and criticize their actions?

Or would they use your naive tolerance to smack you in the face (as the speaker encouraged the young boy to do to the Christian missionary in the video) the first chance they had the ability to overpower you? If only the people at the parade banded together to evict these extremists from their midst and get them off the street. But they didn't.

They tolerated them and allowed themselves to be abused. And so are the rest of us, every day...tolerating this abuse. It is this tolerance...this indifference of the decent many, towards the actions of an indecent few, that will allow them to rise up and destroy us.

If we don't take action now
We settle for nothing later
Settle for nothing now
And we'll settle for nothing later
--Rage Against the Machine, "Settle for Nothing"

We need to say no to these people. We need to draw the line of tolerance in the sand. Anyone is allowed to believe whatever they want - so long as they do not infringe on MY right to believe what I want. Or YOUR right to believe what you want. As soon as they cross that line...they give up their right to be tolerated.

Action always defeats inaction. Passion always defeats apathy. Fire always defeats ice...

If we don't get our act together soon we don't stand a chance.



Indifference towards Nidal Malik Hasan was the real culprit in the Ft. Hood shootings. Part II details how.

Throw the bums out

FACT:

If Corzine wins the NJ election today, no one in this state deserves the right to complain about ANYTHING for the rest of time.

What a corrupt, lying, disgraceful administration this guy has had. And apparently the DNC is robocalling people to stir up votes for the independent candidate Daggett - knowing it will take votes away from the Republican challenger Chris Christie.

In the words of Haynes from the Wire...

"That is some shameful $H!@$ right there."

If everyone is so mad about the status quo and they keep the status quo in power...they have NO RIGHT to complain.

Get 'em outta here!

UPDATE: Christie won! Beat it Corzine!!!!