Time to quit the charade...
"...His name wasn't Smith..." Diane Sawyer (paraphrased).
REALLY?!? Why is that pertinent? If he HAD been named Smith or Jones or Roberts or any other "English" sounding name would it have made a bit of difference?
While I have to admit that as soon as I heard the Ft. Hood shooter's name "sounded" Islamic; a part of my mind thought, "we must not rush to judgement" especially because I know of people from the Middle East who have names just enough different than mine that I would expect them to be Muslim only to discover they are actually not, part of my mind thought, "Here we go again!"
I have some friends who are Muslims. I seriously doubt that any of them would act as Major Hasan did.
Most of them seem pretty "normal" in the way my fundamentalist neighbor is "normal", they pay taxes, work at their jobs, love their children and act as normal people do.What is "different" about them is what they don't do. They don't drink, they don't go to church (they attend Friday service at the Mosque), some of them don't wear ties (I don't understand that one) but none of them are ranting Islamic fundamentalists with weblogs where they call the American Military "the enemy". (or if they are, they certainly hide it very well).
That said, this guy was a bad egg. It would appear that his acts constitute treason and/or are the equivalent of desertion in a state of war. Let's stop the handwringing of "looking for root causes" and "worrying about a backlash against Muslims of all stripes" and just punish this joker.
REALLY?!? Why is that pertinent? If he HAD been named Smith or Jones or Roberts or any other "English" sounding name would it have made a bit of difference?
While I have to admit that as soon as I heard the Ft. Hood shooter's name "sounded" Islamic; a part of my mind thought, "we must not rush to judgement" especially because I know of people from the Middle East who have names just enough different than mine that I would expect them to be Muslim only to discover they are actually not, part of my mind thought, "Here we go again!"
I have some friends who are Muslims. I seriously doubt that any of them would act as Major Hasan did.
Most of them seem pretty "normal" in the way my fundamentalist neighbor is "normal", they pay taxes, work at their jobs, love their children and act as normal people do.What is "different" about them is what they don't do. They don't drink, they don't go to church (they attend Friday service at the Mosque), some of them don't wear ties (I don't understand that one) but none of them are ranting Islamic fundamentalists with weblogs where they call the American Military "the enemy". (or if they are, they certainly hide it very well).
That said, this guy was a bad egg. It would appear that his acts constitute treason and/or are the equivalent of desertion in a state of war. Let's stop the handwringing of "looking for root causes" and "worrying about a backlash against Muslims of all stripes" and just punish this joker.
posted by King Tiger at 5:10 AM
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