Muslims in America knew immediately how yesterday's Ft. Hood shooting would effect them. Now, in an interview with CBS this morning, there is even more reason for them to be concerned. A couple of minutes into the interview, the Lt. General says the suspect yelled "Allahu Akbar"--"God is Great" as he carried out his slaughter Christians carry on terrorism in the name of their own religion too (think Northern Ireland), but in recent years it has become more and more difficult to separate terrorism and Islam..
The exclusive news about this tragedy which I've heard is confined & limited to last night's episode of "The NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw." I've neither read nor heard any other news on that item, either in newspaper, online, e-mail, magazines, radio, teevee, or from others' gossip - NONE.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I heard the offender's name last night, the remark I made was, "That's a sleeper."
Two thoughts relative to your post and my response:
1.) Our nation made a critical error during the Reagan administration - actually, it'd be more accurate to say that Reagan made a critical error - by refusing to spend money to rebuild Afghanistan after we spent billions in so-called "Black Budget" items, which were essentially to arm, support and train the Afghan people to repel the Communist Russian invaders. {If your readers have ever seen the motion picture "Charlie Wilson's War" it gives a reasonably accurate overview of what happened and how.}
Former President Clinton long ago (during his presidency) acknowledged that the madrassas (schools of radical Islam) flourished in the vacuum created after the Afghani people's victory over Russia. The "flowers" of those bad seeds planted are just now beginning to emerge.
2.) The Department of Defense is going to have to seriously review with an eye toward revision, policies that allow almost anyone to serve in uniform.
Whether to disallow membership in the service (I sincerely doubt), or to disallow secret clearances or access to certain jobs or information... something must be done to prevent the subterfuge that has likely already occurred through infiltration of such "sleepers."
Though an unpleasant thought, it is in the best and long-term interests of peace in this nation and others (European nations, and worldwide) to annihilate the Taliban, Wahhabism and other schools of radical Islam. There are two choices: violence and peace. Though some must be killed, the greater objective can be achieved through peaceful means. I rather think the people of this nation and others would prefer peaceful methods.
Peaceful change means we must, in collaboration with others (nations and peoples), embark upon a course of humanitarian action that effectively and unequivocally demonstrates the benefits of democratic form of governance, and education.
That means, of course, money must be spent.
In recent history, we in this nation have tended to pooh-pooh foreign spending, while we have accelerated and applauded spending for weapons of war. However, we can (and do) use our military for humanitarian missions, for it is in our and the world's best interests so do to. Remember: Those whom live by the sword will die by the sword.
By increasing spending in military budgets for humanitarian missions, we could effectively find a compromise between the misguided "all or nothing" approach to ending such humanitarian and foreign spending (and thereby seriously eroding more than international goodwill).
Imagine further... what serious dent could be made in Narco-Trafficking and illegal immigration if we in the U.S.A. were (in collaboration with Canada) to embark upon such a humanitarian mission with our next-door-neighbor, Mexico!