Major Dilemma, Blood Thirsty Media and the Muslim Soldier

Just some general thoughts on Thursdays shooting and things I've seen or heard or read...

It wasn't near as long after as I expected, but, as always, when there is a mass shooting that receives mass publicity, somebody always follows up. 

At work, a television was on CNN who was reporting on the shooting and pointing to the Ft. Hood massacre with a subtitle of "Blood Thirsty Society?"

Uh...no more than any other societies and a much less than many.  The title did have my eyebrows shooting up.  Mainly because we know that copy cats spring up because they see the massive coverage of the original mass murder and want some of that attention.  Most of those that commit mass murder believe that no one sees or hears them.  So they go out and make people see and hear them in a really heinous way. 

I could be just as ignorant as CNN and make some generalization about the mass media being culpable because their coverage results in Mass Murder.  Blood Thirsty Media? 

No doubt someone will support the argument that the media is culpable in these events and that they are blood thirsty.  If it bleeds it leads.

I'd actually disagree.  I don't always like what they choose to report or how they choose report it, but a free press is a necessary tool in a democratic society.  Individuals decide.  Individuals act. 

Someone like Mr. Rodriguez already had multiple problems, already believed he was lost and no one cared and, very likely, had already been contemplating how he was going to get revenge, make his mark or whatever it was he wanted to accomplish.  He may have seen the coverage of the Ft Hood event and decided that was an excellent way to accomplish his goals.

Does that make the media culpable?  No. 

I recently saw a news report about a man who tried to jump off an overpass on I-70.  Did I go out and try to jump of a bridge into on coming traffic?  No. 

Was the media responsible for convincing me NOT to jump off a bridge?  No. 

Because I had no inclination to do so in the first place.  Individuals decide.  Individuals act. 

That is the lesson that the media needs to learn.  There is no 'blood thirsty society'.  There are bloody minded individuals and some groups who act.  "Society" is not responsible for their blood thirst.  Individual experiences, individual psychology creates the mindset and the desire.

If there is one thing that media may be culpable of in this whole fiasco, it is their idiotic insistence that some greater 'society' is responsible for creating every blood thirsty maniac who decides to act.  They are culpable of giving these people an excuse and cover.  They are guilty of creating an ever increasing veil between right and wrong.  The individual is not guilty, society is. 

Horse hockey.  Individuals decide.  Individuals act.  Stick that in your blood thirsty pipe and smoke it.

Which leads to our Major Dilemma, brought on by the media that is asking the question: how did this man slip through the cracks if he gave off "red flags", or some such bullsh*t. 

How did Mr. Rodriguez slip through the cracks?  Did no one see the warning signs?  Hsu at VT...did no one see the warning signs?

Individuals decide.  Individuals act.  We aren't part of the borg.  We don't have one mind.  We cannot know every thought or decision of another individual.  Even in the United States Military.  We don't pre-suppose that every person around us is about to have a psychotic break or that they are mass murderers in the making. 

One of the reasons that CNN's 'blood thirsty society' was so laughable.  We simply do not live our lives on the edge of fear.  Our society, the idea of freedom, could not exist or long survive in such an atmosphere.  Mind you, vigilance is not the same as paranoia. 

Societies that are truly paranoid, that live on the cusp of constant fear, are usually blood thirsty and tyrannical.  Examples would be Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, Rwanda, Burma/Myanmar, Iran, etc, etc, etc.  It may have escaped the bloody media, but we refused accept those ideologies and we refuse today to live in that fear.  We refuse to live in a blood thirsty society.

That's why criminals are prosecuted, why we have a judicial system that punishes those who commit those crimes.  We reject them categorically. 

In regards to what we could have or should have known.  Yes, we can look at Maj. Hasan's action today and point to the "red flags".  Hind sight 20/20.  These events did not take place all within hours or days of the attack.  They were spread out over years, months and weeks. 

Since Maj. Hasan was not plugged into the matrix, we could not process a data run looking for specific data subsets and come up with a defective unit.  Even if you could, as anyone who does such runs today knows, you often don't know what you should be looking for until a problem in the system occurs in the first place.

The point is, Maj. Hasan was not a computer.  He wasn't plugged into a main frame.  He was an individual with individual goals and individual actions.  That is not to alleviate any responsibility for the military to insure safety procedures are in place and that response times to events are appropriate and help to limit the potential for these actions in the future.

On the other hand, it is the first of its kind on a state side base in over eight years of direct war and over thirty years of indirect war with Islamic extremists.    In five years of WWII, there were more stealth attacks and sabotage and infiltration and espionage than we experience today. 

That brings me to some thoughts on general commentary regarding Muslims, Muslims in the military and the religion of Islam in general. 

Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner , a Pentagon spokesman, said there was no doubt within the military hierarchy of the loyalty of Muslim service members. He said the military will take steps to make sure "everyone is treated with dignity and respect."

Posters to Facebook and participants in chat rooms and popular military sites were less circumspect, revealing a bitterness that Muslims say they've often felt since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 .

Someone started a Facebook page called "Against Muslims in military!...or in presidency" — a reference to the false claims that President Barack Obama is a Muslim.

One poster said he agreed with banning Muslims from the military.

Another commenter wrote: "Whoever you are you're an idiot. It's a shame you weren't at Ft. Hood."

The only person that said anything worth anything was Maj. Gen. Bergner.  Everybody else, including the person that wrote this report, are morons. 

WWII is the best example of why such arguments against "Muslims in the military" are as worthless as the bytes used to write that statement.  Need we remind such people that we already tried that 'throw them out of the country, put them in detainment camps and keep them out of the military" baloney?  Back when every person with 'slant eyes' and 'yellow skin' was suspected of being a potential spy or saboteur? 

That we over came that and deployed Japanese Americans who didn't just serve 'honorably', but gave every thing, to the last breath, for their country?  Even after being originally refused military service? 

In 1941 more than 5,000 Japanese-Americans were serving in the United States military. Pearl Harbor changed all that. In the hysteria and paranoia that followed the attack, young Nisei (second generation Japanese Americans) were summarily discharged from the service. Even as young men of other races swamped military recruiting offices to volunteer their services in defense of their beloved country, young Japanese were quickly classified as 4-F (unfit for military service) or 4-C (enemy aliens). Despite the fact that these young Nisei were born in America, held U.S. Citizenship, and pledged their allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, their desire to serve was quickly ignored. The first battle the young men who would become the "Purple Heart Battalion" faced was not on foreign shores against an armed enemy. It was a battle at home against fear, prejudice and often outright hatred--a battle to gain the RIGHT to fight.

Try reading what the 442nd did in Italy and tell me how religion or race precludes someone from believing in, loving and supporting their nation. 

If that isn't enough history to eradicate the idiocy, need I remind people that during the Revolutionary War, every one in the Continental Army and the militia were 'British Citizens' before the US declared independence?  Or, that many were one generation or less off the boat before they joined?  If someone had tried to use some sort of litmus test to determine who could or couldn't join the military, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Or, that it took three years for Lincoln to authorize the creation of black units in the Civil War, that many of these units saw thousands come to enlist and that several units, such as the 54th Massachusetts that was so decimated by its heroic actions in battle that it had to be integrated with another unit in order to maintain its viability?  One member was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at Fort Wagner that nearly destroyed the regiment.

All while many vehemently disagreed on their enlistment or their ability to serve. 

According to this report, there are currently 2,500 Muslims in the US military and only 1,500 on active duty.  That is .03 percent of the military forces. 

One lone Muslim man, apparently self radicalized, goes on a rampage.  Thousands of Muslims serve and some even give their lives for their country.  Who has made a greater impact?  Whose actions are worth more than the other? 

Do Maj. Hasan's actions outweigh the service and sacrifice of Michael Monsoor, Medal of Honor recipient? 

FOR CONSPICUOUS GALLANTRY AND INTREPIDITY AT THE RISK OF HIS LIFE ABOVE AND BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY AS AUTOMATIC WEAPONS GUNNER FOR NAVAL SPECIAL WARFARE TASK GROUP ARABIAN PENINSULA, IN SUPPORT OF OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM ON 29 SEPTEMBER 2006....

AN INSURGENT THREW A HAND GRENADE FROM AN UNSEEN LOCATION, WHICH BOUNCED OFF PETTY OFFICER MONSOOR’S CHEST AND LANDED IN FRONT OF HIM. ALTHOUGH ONLY HE COULD HAVE ESCAPED THE BLAST, PETTY OFFICER MONSOOR CHOSE INSTEAD TO PROTECT HIS TEAMMATES. INSTANTLY AND WITHOUT REGARD FOR HIS OWN SAFETY, HE THREW HIMSELF ONTO THE GRENADE TO ABSORB THE FORCE OF THE EXPLOSION WITH HIS BODY, SAVING THE LIVES OF HIS TWO TEAMMATES. BY HIS UNDAUNTED COURAGE, FIGHTING SPIRIT, AND UNWAVERING DEVOTION TO DUTY IN THE FACE OF CERTAIN DEATH, PETTY OFFICER MONSOOR GALLANTLY GAVE HIS LIFE FOR HIS COUNTRY, THEREBY REFLECTING GREAT CREDIT UPON HIMSELF AND UPHOLDING THE HIGHEST TRADITIONS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL SERVICE.

Or, Lt. Mohsin Naqvi

Mohsin graduated from Newburgh Free Academy. He planned to join the Army right then, but Nazar persuaded him to go to college first. He had finished about two years of schooling by the time of the Sept. 11 attacks. He enlisted four days later.

Mohsin was part of the invasion of Iraq as an Army reservist. When he came home in 2003, he finished his bachelor's and earned a master's in computer science from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Then he re-enlisted for active duty.

Tasneem says her brother knew some would be suspicious of his religion and Pakistani heritage, but he was determined to serve anyway. He planned to make a career in the Army. He spoke Urdu and was rising fast through the ranks, working as an interpreter in Afghanistan.

Cmdr. Muhammad Muzzafar F. Khan

Whose actions should we value more?

Individuals decide.  Individuals act.  Fear and paranoia are for the tyrannical and the blood thirsty.

As for the person that suggested the original idiot should have been at Ft. Hood, he/she is an idiot as well.  Such commentary trivializes the tragedy and disrespects the victims and families.  The reporter who used that comment as an offset to the original idiot was also an idiot.  I'm sure there were better, well thought out and measured responses to that comment.  Apparently, along with 'if it bleeds it leads', vitriolic is better than intelligent. 

However, the report does quote a chaplain anonymously that really goes to the heart of the matter:

"This is not a Muslim issue. It is a soldier issue. It is a punch in the gut," he said.

Because, as the chaplain notes, Maj. Hasan was a soldier first who swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against ALL enemies, foreign and domestic.  Because soldiers rely on the soldiers next to them to complete their mission and come home safe again.  Maj. Hasan, for whatever reason, betrayed that oath along with his oath to 'first do no harm' as a physician and his unspoken oath to serve the men and women in uniform next to him. 

He broke his oaths.  Not the 2,500 Muslims currently serving in the military.  Not the thousands who serve outside of the military.  Not the millions who are citizens of this nation. 

Maj. Hasan did it, on his own, for his own reasons. 

Individuals decide.  Individuals act. 

Last, let me say that I close this post with some sadness.  Eight years later and someone still has to explain the difference, to stomp the prejudice into the ground, to try to explain that...

WE ARE NOT AT WAR WITH ISLAM!

MUSLIMS AS A WHOLE NOR ANY SIGNIFICANT PART IN GENERAL ARE NOT OUR ENEMY!

Extremists who couch their political goals in religious language;  who use the faith of millions to justify their murderous, paranoid, tyrannical, blood thirsty ideology; who have killed more Muslims in the last eight years than any other faith or nationality; who try to wipe their conscience and their bloody hands clean with the pages of the Quran; who believe that freedom, particularly the freedom to worship or not to worship as an individual sees fit, is an anathema to their very existence and must be destroyed...

This is the enemy. 

He would like you to forget that he is but a small, insignificant member of a greater faith because he'd like you to believe that he represents a huge, insurmountable and unbeatable force.  So we are disheartened.  So that we give up and give him the space needed to go stronger, obtain bigger and better weapons and to, indeed, spread his ideology among fellow Muslims and convert non-Muslims to create his huge, "unbeatable" army.  So that he may, once and for all, defeat us.

So he can create a world that makes Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, the killing fields of Rwanda and Cambodia, and on and on, look like a day at a Boy Scout Jamboree.

It is my belief that, if someone truly believes that all Muslims are our enemy and that Islam must be destroyed, that person has already been defeated.

Individuals decide.  Individuals act.  Fear and paranoia create blood thirsty tyrannies.

Free people are never defeated.  Blood thirsty tyrannies die bloody, messy deaths.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I plan to live free forever.