Personal Aside: Incredible Failure to Understand the Enemy Within—and the Koran--Involved in Fort Hood Tragedy.

Imagine, an army major…not a private or new boot but a relatively high-ranking medical doctor with a degree in psychiatry with a Muslim name, Nidal Malik Husan, whose name appears on radical Internet messages that equated suicide bombers to heroic soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save others’ lives…who got into verbal fights with others in the military because he opposes U. S. action in Afghanistan and Iraq…who has been a lifelong Muslim…who attended Muslim prayers regularly when he lived outside Washington, frequently in his military uniform…who was fighting orders to be deployed to Iraq at the end of this month…who according to Terry Lee, a retired colonel who worked with Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood quoted others as saying “maybe people should strap bombs on themselves and go to Times Square”—all these things and…

Nobody for a minute suspected this guy as a potential threat? The level of innocence, naivete and gullibility is unbelievable…as is the failure of CBS (the Katie Couric network) and NBC to identify—when other news agencies did—that he is a Muslim (only ABC-TV did at the outset). This innocent belief in the good qualities of people…as with 9/11…is on one hand a fine American trait but on the other a very short-sighted, innocent, credulous view of the world. It’s the same kind of liberal think-well-of-everybody-and-for-gosh-sakes-don’t-make-judgments that left us open on 9/11. But on and before 9/11 we didn’t have the short-hand warning bells that the Army routinely received—and ignored—with Nidal Malik Husan.

For one thing, let’s stow this damnable political correctness which is a trademark of our relativistic society (“there are no absolutes; what is right for you may not be for me; what is right for me may not be for you”). Nor is believing in absolutes aping the religion of Islam. When you find someone pouring into the Koran regularly, remember some of the frightening passages from the Prophet who tells readers he is the Messenger of Allah: Koran 48:29: “Muhammad is Allah’s Apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers but merciful to one another.” In Islam law, jihad is an obligatory response when a Muslim territory is attacked. When non-Muslims invade a Muslim country or a country near to one, jihad is personally mandated upon the inhabitants of that country who must repel the non-Muslims wherever and however they can.

Are there moderate Muslims? Yes, to be sure but it is unlikely they are typical. And it is incumbent upon this nation…particularly the U. S. military…to set aside starry-eyed relativism and recognize that all religions are not the same…that the words of Jesus “Love your enemies and do good and lend, expecting nothing in return and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind of the ungrateful and the selfish” [Luke 6:35] ” are vastly different from the words of the Koran “Therefore, when ye meet the unbelievers in fight, smite at their necks; at length when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly on them: thereafter is the time for either generosity or ransom, until the war laws down its burdens…But those who are slain in the Way of Allah, He will never let their deeds by lost” [Qur’an 47:4].

Remember, Islamic law is not definitive in condemning the killing even of women and children “unless they are fighting against the Muslims” This has been interpreted by scholars of Islam as sanctioning the murder of civilians if they are perceived as even indirectly aiding the war effort. (The quote is from “Umdat al-Salik o9.10, cf al-Mawardi, al-Akham as-Sultaniyuyan, 4.2.

It is time for all of us…I thought up to now it is hardly needed to remind the military…to examine our enemy. Any view that Muslims should be accepted as…as…Presbyterians…is tragically naïve and should be relegated to abject simple-minded liberalism. The fact is that Muslims with clear ties to jihad terrorists have entrenched themselves into our political system and…as we now see—but should not be surprised to see—our military establishment. What we must do is (1) read the Koran: I have. (2) report honestly about jihadist activity in the West. (3) reclassify Muslim organizations. (4) Reexamine those who are in high posts involving the military. The case at Fort Hood wreaks of simple-minded naivete and ignorance. Finally (5) we should do what all too frequently is ignored in our education—take pride in Western culture.