"The only common ground that you can find with radical Muslims is for you to be dead. They believe that all infidels should die. So if you do not want to fight them, your only other choice is to be slaughtered by them. If they were a nation that had some logical reason for fighting, then maybe we could negotiate a peace, but these people are crazy and will never negotiate. This is not like the Arab-Israeli conflict where they are fighting over land and economic resources. Our only choice is to destroy them. Or continue to be picked off a few at a time until they are capable of a massive attack and kill of millions of us at a time.
"And this attack shows just how much damage one terrorist can do. Just think how many people the guys that wanted to attack Fort Dix could have done. But at the time they were downplayed as just a few guys with rifles, they couldn't really do much damage to an army base right? Well tell that to the families of the 43 people shot by this whack job at Ft. Hood."
What he said is typical of what is said by the right wing and it's totally wrong on about every level I can imagine. First of all most us thought that the Bush administration had been actively working on protecting us all from terrorist attacks in this country. Is not that what Dick Cheney has told us how much they did to keep us safe? Who guessed that that didn't include our military bases?
Who, not in the military, had any idea that our bases would be so unprotected. How many of us knew that on a US base, the soldiers are never armed and have insufficient guards to protect them from entrances by just about anybody. Now this guy could have gotten in anyway because he was in the military. Could they not have had simple metal detectors though to check if someone was coming in with a weapon? They apparently do not.
How would you manage to kill all radical Muslims, ingineer? How would you know who they are when you have a bunch of teabaggers who believe that even Obama is one of them? Your answer to kill all radicals is unrealistic and impossible unless you want to kill all Muslims period which I am sure you don't mean.
So let's get to the guy who actually did this, who clearly was a radical Muslim and was making zero secret of it. He had been given poor reviews on his performance, was transferred to Fort Hood as a second chance, had argued with many people that he was a Muslim first and American second. He is probably the one who posted sympathy with suicide bombers and saw them as heroes. None of that was considered or explored by the military before his cowardly attack on a bunch of unarmed people-- which although most of us didn't know would be the case, he clearly did.
So what was the military doing about this man who sent out the warning signs? Sending him to Iraq or Afghanistan because why? Likely because they are stretched so thin that they could not pay attention to the warnings. They are understaffed and that won't get better if the war in Afghanistan is expanded as people like ingineer apparently (based on his comments regarding how Obama should do what the general demanded) believe should be done.
This killer was a man who proudly declared himself to be a Muslim and who was put in a position of counseling men and women coming back from a Muslim war zone and not every returning soldier but those who suffered post-traumatic stress, so traumatized by what they had seen and done that they needed help. He was put in a position of listening to their stories of what war is really like, about the awful things that happen in war even when people are good at heart. He heard all the things the rest of us would prefer to not imagine and likely his grievances against the United States grew.
This man was not a nutcase. He was a radical Muslim who decided the villains were the military. He said while doing it that he wasn't shooting anyone not in uniform. He saw himself as fighting a war. The fact that these soldiers were unarmed just made it easier. He probably knew plenty of stories where the same thing had happened to Iraqi civilians.
So whose fault is this? I would say it was his superiors but can we blame them if they simply didn't have the staff? I think the blame goes to the people in this country who wanted to fight a war on the cheap and even now resent taxes to cover the true costs. I say his being ignored as a risk is the fault of all the people who favor war as long as it's not their own lives on the line.
After Vietnam, I saw what happened and felt that whenever you fight a war overseas because you think you can spare your own country the spilling of blood, that blood gets spilled back at home in other ways. Call it karma. Call it what you will but war ends up with more violence and you see it time after time. If it is a solution, it's a lousy one and too often innocent people pay the price.
Parapluie put a positive comment into that last blog also which is a good ending here. I don't know that I believe that she is right. She is an idealist and I am not. I am not sure all things can be resolved by negotiations, but I do know we went into Iraq for no reason. What we think we can do in Afghanistan won't happen and in 10 years, we will be more broken, have more dead people on our conscience, have created more terrorists, and likely Afghanistan will go on with the same political and cultural system it has today.
Parapluie's comment:
I think your photos are spectacular. And very comforting during this time of national tragedy. I feel guilty, however, of a part of me saying that my fears were justified. When we first went to war in Afghanistan shortly after 911, I took to heart an article in the University of California Monthly by a professor of Middle Eastern Studies. He said that war was counterproductive and would only create more terrorists abroad and at home. My prayer, in addition to the ones for the families of the victims, is that we will come to our senses and see that war is not the answer.
There are studies on how to conduct conflict resolution. And one area that is most compelling is finding common grounds. One way to find common grounds is through the arts. Photography is one of the arts. The "Small Things" are something we should look at and encourage in times like ours.
14 comments:
As a moderate, I am astonished at some of the you-know-what about that's being spewed on both sides.
I don't believe in this war anymore than I believed in Desert Storm -- which my brother (who served in it and is now serving in Iraq) said was about oil -- but I support our troops. My brother might be simplifying but I don't think he's too far off the mark. Our nation is no longer benevolent; it is about greed and greed is one of the 7 Deadly Sins.
As to radical Muslims, I see little difference between them and radical Christians and have no use for either.
That Fort Hood isn't secure is a travesty. We were attacked on our own soil on 9/11 which should have served to alert us that we are not safe -- none of us.
Furthermore, did anybody notice this guy at Fort Hood was unstable? If not, why not?
AND don't even get me started on Afghanistan. They have been fighting among themselves since time immemorial. The Soviets tried to go in and bring them under their wing for a long time and finally gave it up as a bad job. I recommend reading James Michener's "Caravans." It's a novel but it gives a good picture of the mentality and culture of the Afghan people.
We obviously are not learning anything from history. Therefore we are doomed to repeat it.
I'm just glad I'm old. It means that I won't be around to see the retribution that will no doubt be the exacted for our stupidity and greed and unfortunately the greedy, holier-than-thou people who have perpetrated it will not suffer. It will be the people like you and me.
I mourn the tragedy at Fort Hood and my prayers are with the troops and their families as I pray everyday for our men and women stationed around the world.
This lended some insights into this: A Muslim Soldier's View
"A Muslim Soldier's View" is very illuminating. Thanks for the link. Perhaps very quietly there is a change within the structure of the military towards negotiating bridges. I hope so.
On the other hand people I have known may have some true vision. They viewed the native peoples of the Palestinian area and surrounding countries as inheritantly flawed for Western style open confrontation. In other words they are cowardly and attack from behind. Does that mean we should confront them with a war? No, it means reducing at home all stimulus that excites violence. Perhaps discovering how much we all have in common with the time honored values of Islam. Building bridges is what we need.
Good thoughts on methodology, parapluie.
I think the people who view how the Palestinians attack as being cowardly are wrong. When you are few in number, weak in supplies, and are facing a superior foe, you fight how it most helps you win. the United States did that in the Revolutionary War after learning how to fight Indians the years ahead of that. Fighting head on if you don't have equal forces would be foolish.
What I don't like is how so often when a foe is weaker, they turn to terrorism, which means they kill innocent people to inspire terror and change policies. That is what makes terrorism a political tool that is very damaging and the civilized world needs to take a hard-line with it, not letting it influence outcomes or it will become a more and more popular tactic which would make civilization just about impossible.
It is one of the things that I think makes a good conclusion in Israel so difficult. The Israelis see that if they give in on one thing, another will crop up. There has to be a bottom-line and without that, chaos will reign.
If people could see that if they use terrorism, their own homes will be at risk, perhaps they would see it's not a good way to operate but zealots and those easily led aren't good at looking long distance for what kind of world will that leave us with?
And I agree Kay that we have to learn from history and we sure don't seem to be able to do that :(
I guess the security is different at different bases. I have been to several Marine and Navy bases in the last 5 years and the security is pretty tight at most of them. They have concrete barriers so you cannot approach the gate at high speed. They have pop up barriers after the gate if you somehow get past the guys with M-16s and shotguns at the gate. I have been to my grandson’s daycare that has concrete barriers around it to prevent car bombers from getting too close. Maybe the Marines take security more seriously than the Army does. But I do agree that most of the security is to prevent an outside attack. I would bet most people do not expect an attack from one of their own, especially an officer. Sometimes enlisted men snap and do something bad, but officers are normally more in control and more carefully screened. I guess in our desire to be politically correct even Dr. Hasan’s scary statements were not dealt with as seriously as they should have been.
You are correct. There is no way to kill all the radical Muslims. But it is possible to kill enough of them that they are no longer a significant threat to the world. We need to take away their ability to wage war. We did not kill every Nazi in World War II, but killed so many of them that they had no choice but to surrender. We crushed the Nazi war machine. Now the country does not have the balls to prosecute such an effort. And with the media constantly reporting on every miss-step or set back by our military with such enthusiasm we likely never will have the ability to do it.
And Rain this is not about politics, this is about survival. The war being waged by Al Qaida started before Obama or W. was in office. And it is not a war against Islam. Most Muslims do not agree with Dr. Hasan’s or Bin Ladin’s interpretation of the Koran.
I agree the military resources are stretched thin. And they are likely to be stretched thinner because Obama, who wants to spend money on every program that comes down the pike cannot not find the money to spend it on the military or take the advice of the man that he put in charge of the Afghan war. It was not a demand by the General as you say. It was a report on what is required to win the war. The request was for 40,000 to 65,000 more troops. Right now the bases we have there are being over ran because we do not have enough soldiers to defend the ground that we have taken. Obama seems to be fulfilling the prophecy that the Democrats have been spewing for 8 years, that Afghanistan is the next Vietnam. Well if Obama keeps troops there but not enough to successfully prosecute the war then it will end up being like Vietnam. That is what happens when the politicians try to micro-manage the war effort. We end up with an embarrassing failure instead of a victory.
It would be nice to have an idealistic society. If we lived in a perfect world we would not need abortions or jails or even ambulances because nothing bad would ever happen. But we do not live in a perfect world and bad things happen. I believe it is better to deal with evil by being stronger than it is.
The military has always been about negotiating bridges. We did military exchanges with the Soviets during the Cold War. As an example we had people visit their Navy ships and they had people visit ours. That way the guys that were actually making the decisions during a tense situation had some insight into what the other guys were thinking. But whom do we bridge with? Do we have an Al Quaida commander that just had a woman tortured and killed for talking to a man that was not a relative come and negotiate with us? We saw how the Taliban negotiated when they blew up the 800 year old Buddhist statues in Afghanistan because they were blasphemous to Islam even though the UN and the entire world begged them not to destroy these historical artifacts.
As ingineer said, most of the security at our military bases is for protection from outside. Everyone who has ever been in the Army (and probably the other services) knows the only troops on base who have bullets for their weapons are the Military Police and those troops actually involved in training at a firing range.
I don't know who failed to notice and pay attention to this guy who did this. It now sounds like there were actually plenty of warnings out there but those in command were taking the easy way out and just transferring the problem to some other command. Kind of reminds me of the way certain religions in our country handled pedophiles in the past. They all have to learn that being a commander means to step up and act, even if the right thing to do isn't the easiest thing to do. There should be some penalties for this indecision and inaction, but there probably will not be.
How would you know who to kill, ingineer? Say there are 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide as some sources estimate, with say 2 million (again some estimate)in the United States how do you pick out the 5 to 10% who are radicals? And of that percentage, less would do damage to other people even if their religion might indicate they are radicals. But okay you have then between 100-200,000 who are of the mindset. How do you find them? How do you decide who to kill? All the people in a country you have decided is radical? What do you think that would do to the rest of the 2 billion population or even of other religions who saw what was done and began to wonder what that meant when extremism (and that is extremism) is taking over our country.
We have been in Iraq since 2003 and there are still suicide bombings regularly (with all the might you could have wanted being there). As soon as we leave any area, we find the whole thing builds up again. What kind of tax rate were you proposing to fight this war all out for perpetuity and it will be that way if we kill people without caring who did something bad and who was just standing there because it was their home.
To me people who advocate a bigger war better figure out who is going to want to fight it and how to pay for it. If they are not volunteering themselves and if they don't favor higher taxes, then their commitment is pretty weak.
If it was my choice, I'd pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq. I thought Tom Friedman's column today regarding the Israeli Palestinian conflict was right on. As things stand we are all repeating the same patterns. The end result is the cycle that we cannot get out of without just going. it's like a bad relationship where you keep trying to fix it. The only real solution sometimes is to leave and provide support for those people to work out their problems together without us playing referee with our people's lives. If this was going to work, we'd see it. Can we really keep an indefinite army going in the Middle East while our own country is losing jobs and money daily? If we lose our strength and that would be easy to have happen if this gets worse, we won't be helping anybody and it will be too late for us.
Is our jobless rate intended to get that military as to only job option for our young where some people profit so much from having in place? Is this what Eisenhower warned us about and here it is. A perpetual war with a servant class forced to fight it because the generation today cannot find jobs anywhere else. What a fine situation that is. And the middle class righties are defending it?
Last I heard obama was willing to give 38,000 which was just under the 40,000 that I had heard the general wanted and btw when you go to the media, to others and lay out what it has to be, that's a demand, not a request!!!
for those who know, are bases in the war zone the same way with unarmed personnel inside? Do they not let the soldiers have guns that are issued to them and ready to use because they don't trust them with them? In the Israeli army, they have their guns with them even in civilian life from what I read earlier. If you are at war, you are at war. This begins to look like a military who doesn't trust its people with weapons until they get overseas or out on a mission? So they are treated like cattle back here, unarmed and in one place to be easy to kill? That is very disturbing indeed.
I have been on military bases but nothing big since 9/11. I have been on Huachuca in Arizona since and it was very easy to drive on from the mountain side anyway.
Would metal detectors be that hard to install on the buildings. That would not protect them from a suicide truck bomber but at least this guy would not have gotten inside without alarms if nobody is going armed.
What gets me with this is bases are where all the ex soldiers or family members go to shop for a lot of things. Many many people are impacted by them not being safe.
I am not sure if you can compare the number of extreemist Muslims to the number of Natzi extreemist during World War II.
It is true that when the enemy is weakened by a haulcaust, they have no choice to resort to terror. So it makeks sense to weaken them further so a few ( only a few can create big terrorist attacks)?
It is my belief that creating rituals of respect to build bridges is the only logical direction. We need to find alternatives to violence in all our dealings as a nation.
in Nazi Germany you joined the party or you went to the camps one of my aunts emigrated here after WWII.
There are still millions in prison around the world for disagreeing with the government.
Anyone who read the Baghdad Burning blog (I really hope she and her family are okay!) knows that most Iraqis don't want this war. The common belief is that Iraq caused 9/11.
I find that interesting because all of the terrorists who were caught were Saudis which raises the burning question: Why in the hell are we in Iraq spending billions and the lives of our loved ones?
And how many Iraqis who are not radical Muslims have we killed? Is there a way to tell the assorted sects of Islam apart?
Our tax dollare are funding this travesty when we should be tending to the many problems we have here.
The whole thing is insane. This mess looks even more evil than the VietNam debacle.
A local resident's grandfather was purportedly a highly respected Afgan Warlord, and the resident's father served in Afgan. government. This resident was in the Afgan Air Force Academy, then trained in Russia when they were in Afgan. and again with the U.S. when we were there. They brought him to the U.S. and eventually he became a citizen.
Soon after we attacked Iraq he gave a talk to a small group of us on the history of his birth country, demonstrated geographic features on a large map. He explained the history of the Taliban who have been the only group on which the Afgan. people can count on as long as the people follow the Taliban's rules, so for generations the Taliban has always re-surged -- never is eliminated -- and he said, at that time, there was no reason to believe that it would be permanently extinguished this time either.
I haven't encountered him since we've moved our military focus to Afgan. and now guess I'm not likely to do so. I would really like to know what his thoughts about Afgan. are now. A recent issue of our local newspaper, The Claremont Courier, carried a large article describing that he was going to Afgan. for about a year to begin business ventures there. That being the case, he must have an optimistic view for the future of the country.
What the implications of that are in relation to our troops being there, I don't know.
As for the U.S. Military Psychiatrist, I'm bothered by the fact that he had rec'd a "poor" job performance review at Walter Reed Hospital. The fact that they shipped him anywhere, especially to a military base as sensitive as that one where troops gathered to be shipped to Iraq, seems to me to be the height of incompetence by whoever issued that order and those who approved it, if they were aware of his performance -- which I would assume they would be if they took the time to read his report, or was it just in a folder-filled stack of reports quickly and rotely signed but not read by anyone other than the office assistant? Seems to me they should have kept him there and dealt with him, rather than ship him off somewhere else to let them worry about him.
Who knew what about him and when? Suppose he was afraid for his military career at one point so wouldn't seek mental help, if he needed help, but sought it in all the wrong places -- religious figures spouting the ideas that were conflicting him. Then he crossed the line to a point he didn't recognize he needed help, I would guess. He certainly sounds like a psychologically conflicted person -- a danger to himself and others -- which, tragically, seems to happen to many extremists, most often those who become obsessed with religious views. I think they're all sick, whatever the religion. That's not to say they shouldn't be held accountable for their actions. It does say we would be wise to keep a wary eye on them for any indications they're going off the deep end.
Heard a report tonight that our nation is ill-prepared for a cyber attack on our utilities and power systems and could be subjected to the problems such as Brazil had. In fact, we've already had some probing attacks. Not good as more and more we depend on electrical power for much, info in computers and them controlling operating systems. What exactly was that group that ran our country for 8 years doing to protect us? Oh, I forgot, I think they were a bunch of Luddites so this may have been beyond them. They sure positioned us to be vulnerable in every way.
The comments this time have been really good ones and I hope anyone who reads this blog sticks with it through them.
That was particular interesting about your knowing someone from there, Joared, with his perspective on the country. It's a complex land and maybe he went back as part of his contribution as much as his faith in what will happen next. I would love to see it go well as from what i have read, the Afghani people are very interesting, complex society and all humans deserve to live as free of violence as is possible. The real question though for those of us in the US is what contribution can we really make to that (thinking Somalia and many other places). We can't fix it all
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