Pharyngula

Posted by: Paul | November 12, 2009 1:34 PM

I'd hardly say that his Islamic beliefs have been minimized in the press accounts. There's been plenty of fearmongering about Muslims in the military since the event. Articles with statements such as "a majority of Americans fear Muslim backlash". What is being minimized is the number of Muslims that fear collective retribution or backlash from people getting whipped up about the evils of Muslims in the military.

That said, I agree that it is important to keep in mind that he was religiously motivated. I just don't think anyone is ignoring that angle, except maybe a very limited number of people in the atheist blogosphere. Everyone else is firmly in "OMG MUSLIM!!" mode, because it attracts eyeballs and sells to the masses.

Posted by: raven | November 12, 2009 1:42 PM

I hate to second guess the FBI and US army notveryintelligence, but this guy showed a number of screaming red flags before he went on a rampage.

He was a Moslem. By itself no big deal, a lot of Moslems in the military.

He was a vocal anti-Iraqi and Afghanistan war resister for years. A lot of people who dealt with him thought he was going to snap sooner or later.

They really should have just asked him if he wanted out and then gave him a discharge. They would lose some expensive training of an MD, a psychiatrist, and 13 people would still be alive.

Posted by: Michelle R | November 12, 2009 1:43 PM

Sigh. If it wouldn't have been Islam, it would've been something else...

And no, it's not been forgotten. Just look at Fox News. They love telling he's a muslim.

Posted by: Abdul Alhazred | November 12, 2009 1:43 PM

Bravo Ibn Warraq. Again.

Yeah I'm a fanboy. :)

Posted by: Fire Ant | November 12, 2009 1:48 PM

As long as you have influential religious figures and writings extolling the virtues of a better life once you are dead, I think you have an attractiveness to ignore the present-day life.....

Posted by: Zifnab | November 12, 2009 1:50 PM

Should Christians in the U.S. Army in WWII have been able to claim conscientious objector status fighting Nazis, since the Nazis were Christians?

What happens if there was a war declared and nobody showed?

Would have been fucking awesome if Germany had had a similar conscientious objector policy. Then maybe we could have spared the US and Europe several million lives followed by another 50 years of Soviet occupation.

It would have been fucking horrible if more servicemen could turn to their cousins in foreign countries and honestly say, "I come in peace". Instead, we get a domestic massacre.

Hurray! I know I feel better.

Posted by: LtStorm | November 12, 2009 1:54 PM

Guh, this guy is just trying to give Islam a bad name.

I don't like vilifying Islam for things like this. It makes it seem like there are inherently evil and inherently good religions.

And that gives Christians a moral high ground they don't deserve. Views on religion need equality; all monotheistic religions are equally likely to turn out fundamentalist nutjobs that will one day kill someone in the name of their religion.

Then the polytheistic religions tend to have human sacrifice associated with them, from the Meso-American religions to the Thugees of India.

But I digress. I don't like seeing Islam vilified by Christians, it's not right, and highly hypocritical.

Posted by: Madam Pomfrey | November 12, 2009 1:58 PM

"But I digress. I don't like seeing Islam vilified by Christians, it's not right, and highly hypocritical."

It doesn't matter who Islam is vilified by, as long as the criticisms are valid, and not followed by a phony rationalization that other religions are free from criticism.

"It would have been fucking horrible if more servicemen could turn to their cousins in foreign countries and honestly say, "I come in peace". Instead, we get a domestic massacre."

Bullcrap. If someone volunteers to join the armed forces and takes an oath to defend his country, he has no right to disregard that oath and murder his fellow citizens over loyalty to a religious "brotherhood" that he values more highly.

Posted by: Paul | November 12, 2009 2:05 PM

I take it by "Abrahamic death cult", you mean Islam and not the US military, right?

Actually, I took it to refer to the family of Abrahamic religions, although the Major in question specifically was a follower of Islam. The US military does have a lot of evangelical Christians, some branches of which it would not be wholly inaccurate to refer to as a Death Cult (especially if they are like the ones I attended, Rapture Monkey types).

Posted by: JediBear | November 12, 2009 2:06 PM

Actually, I think it's getting a bit too much attention, and I was half-convinced I was being poe'd by PZ here.

I'm pretty sure I'd never catch PZ actually arguing for religious persecution, but we're actually perilously close to that aren't we? A man preaches the word of a God commonly worshipped among our enemies and less commonly worshipped within our own borders. This is a sign he is aligned with the enemy! Clearly he should be stripped of rank and rights! Confined! For safety! For victory!

There were reasons to question his loyalty and to question his sanity, and Islam barely had to come into it. How is understanding our enemies as Muslims rather than as the deranged criminals they are supposed to inform our strategy for dealing with them, without needlessly persecuting innocent muslims?

You kill poverty. You kill ignorance. You kill lawlessness and disorder. If you've done that, our true enemies are dead. Maybe the abrahamic cults are too. But those are not especially our enemy, and it's important to remember that.

Posted by: lose_the_woo | November 12, 2009 2:10 PM

...this guy is just trying to give Islam a bad name.

Too late for that. They've already earned it - and not just because of 9/11. It was the muhummad cartoon fiasco that solidified my opinion. Yes, all religion is evil, but islam just isn't afraid to outwardly express it.

Religious thought is one of only a few things that can bring out the most evil tendencies of men. What makes it the most evil plague of humanity is because so many people gladly embrace it and don't see past its disguise of being virtuous and good.

Posted by: Alyson Miers | November 12, 2009 2:13 PM

Views on religion need equality; all monotheistic religions are equally likely to turn out fundamentalist nutjobs that will one day kill someone in the name of their religion.

Except...they're not equally likely.

It's all well and fine to point out that most Muslims are not terrorists, but in the present time, a disproportionate amount of terrorist violence does come from Muslims. It isn't giving Christianity a free pass to ask what role Maj. Hasan's religion played in his actions. It isn't Islamophobic to observe the body count that Jihadi violence is racking up. If we're going to hold religion accountable for its destruction, then we can't afford to draw equivalencies where none exist.

Posted by: Chuck | November 12, 2009 2:23 PM

Fuck these rationalizations. Islam is a death cult. Period. Christianity is a death cult, too, but it has been neutered in countries that experienced the Enlightenment. If you go to developing nations where Christianity is practiced widely, it is still just as barbaric as it was in the West before the eighteenth century. The only country in which Islam is widely neutered the way Christianity is in the West is Turkey, and there this process is tenous at best.

Posted by: lose_the_woo | November 12, 2009 2:24 PM

...a disproportionate amount of terrorist violence does come from Muslims.

And violence is only 1 dimension of religious dysfunction. Subjugation of women (and others), mind warping, anti-reality, anti-education, totalitarianism, the list goes on. If religionists had their way to run the show the human enterprise would be unrecognizable in comparison to its current state.

"There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as the Dark Ages." Ruth Hermence Green

Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | November 12, 2009 2:30 PM

It's all well and fine to point out that most Muslims are not terrorists, but in the present time, a disproportionate amount of terrorist violence does come from Muslims. It isn't giving Christianity a free pass to ask what role Maj. Hasan's religion played in his actions.

I agree with the spirit of what you are saying, here... but I do think we need to be aware of the problem of perspective, to some degree. If a local Afghan or Iraqi viewed the US military as a christian army... could we really make a convincing case otherwise, given the overt religiosity of the commander in chief that sent us there in the first place and the reputation of the US as a christian nation?

Given that perspective, one could at least see the argument that a muslim would see the US military as a religious front.

So I guess what I'm saying is that it's important that we keep in mind that the point of PZ's post is not to pick out Islam, but religion in general, as the straw that stirs the drink of atrocity... go back not to far and remember PZ making the same point regarding the christian who had kidnapped and kept captive the young girls in California in his backyard. The religion was different... the point was the same.

Posted by: felixthecat | November 12, 2009 2:35 PM

"I don't like vilifying Islam for things like this. It makes it seem like there are inherently evil and inherently good religions.

"But I digress. I don't like seeing Islam vilified by Christians, it's not right, and highly hypocritical."

Nonsense. Christianity, though maybe not a "good" religion, is not nearly as "evil" as Islam. To paraphrase Paleologos, Islam has brought only evil and endless strife to the world. To equate the two as being equally good or bad is a complete denial of their histories and their theologies. To argue that no Christian, or I would imagine any Westerner should never criticize Islam, is wrong-minded. Tell me, do give only religion the special status of "all are equal", or do you apply that to political ideologies as well? "How dare anyone criticize Stalinism. It is no better or worse than Democracy!"

Posted by: Susan | November 12, 2009 2:36 PM

Unfortunately, there's another factor that seems to be getting minimized in the press accounts

Posted by: Kausik Datta | November 12, 2009 2:40 PM

From whatever news reports I have seen so far, I cannot doubt that religion, specifically the Islamic religion of Major Hasan, is at fault in this sad incident.

From the NY Times:
In recent years, he had grown more and more vocal about his opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and tortured over reconciling his military duties with his religion... Over the past five years, he also began openly opposing the wars on religious grounds.
During his years in Washington, Major Hasan turned increasingly toward Islam, relatives and classmates said. In part, he was seeking solace after the death of his parents, in 1998 and 2001... Major Hasan took the death of his parents hard, isolating himself and delving into books on Islam rather than socializing.
Major Hasan gave a PowerPoint presentation about a year ago in an environmental health seminar titled “Why the War on Terror Is a War on Islam.”
The night before the shooting, he had dinner with Mr. Reasoner (a fellow attendee at the same mosque) and said he felt that he should not go to Afghanistan. “He felt he was supposed to quit,” Mr. Reasoner said. “In the Koran, it says you are not supposed to have alliances with Jews or Christians, and if you are killed in the military fighting against Muslims, you will go to hell.”
Is it too much of a stretch to think that Major Hasan's viewpoints were acutely shaped by his faith?

I am perhaps being overly emotional here and not thinking straight. But someone please tell me, why is it right or justified for a Muslim to take any life other than that of a fellow Muslim? Why is a Muslim enemy any different than an enemy of some other faith?

Another report on NYT quotes another muslim soldier, a marine.

Abdi Akgun joined the Marines in August of 2000, fresh out of high school and eager to serve his country. As a Muslim, the attacks of Sept. 11 only steeled his resolve to fight terrorism... But two years later, when Mr. Akgun was deployed to Iraq with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, the thought of confronting Muslims in battle gave him pause... “It’s kind of like the Civil War, where brothers fought each other across the Mason-Dixon line,” Mr. Akgun, 28, of Lindenhurst, N.Y., who returned from Iraq without ever pulling the trigger.

Mentions the above report:

During the first gulf war, Muslim scholars in the United States debated whether members of their faith could righteously engage in combat in a Muslim country on behalf of the United States military. The consensus was yes, provided the conflict met the Islamic standard of a “just war.” “In the Koran it says that war is to end the state of oppression and to uplift the oppressed,” said Khaled Abou El Fadl, a professor at the law school at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Religions disgust me.

Posted by: Greg Laden | November 12, 2009 2:42 PM

Religion is not a ... sacred principle

Yes it IS a sacred principle. Which is the problem!

Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | November 12, 2009 2:43 PM

Unfortunately, there's another factor that seems to be getting minimized in the press accounts: he was also a member of an Abrahamic death cult.

I'm going to have to agree with others here who find this statement difficult to believe... in all the media outlets I've perused, right-wing, left-wing and seemingly non-affiliated, there has been quite a focus on his islamic background. From whether or not his attack was purely an act of islamic terrorism to whether or not being overly PC about his religion was a reason the many red-flags were ignored... the opinions and debate are rabid, and run the spectrum, from what I've seen...

However, where I will agree is that the focus is being put squarely on which religion he belongs to, instead of on the fact that the detrimental effects of religion itself should be more closely examined, in part at any rate, because of acts such as this.

Posted by: Richard N | November 12, 2009 2:51 PM

Tons of racist people here, no surprise. PZ is not going far enough methinks. Yes, it is an important factor that the perpetrator is a muslim, and this needs to be brought up alongside the fact that USA has taken up the banner where UK and France left it in subjugating and murdering people of semitic descent, and the countries they form a majority in. If this crucial fact is left out, one cannot make sense of this retaliatory strike, nor the ones in Spain and London.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | November 12, 2009 2:54 PM

oh, FFS. Islam is in no way inherently more conductive to violence, tyranny, and human rights abuses than Christianity is. they're pretty much equal in the fucked-up department. The main difference is that Christianity is prevalent in the developed world, while Islam is prevalent in the developing world, and especially in those parts that have been fucked hard by the West in the last century. IOW, Islam exists on much more fertile ground for spreading Teh Crazeh.

Are Muslims tasked with conquering the world for Allah? yes. but so are christians; do do Muslims treat their women like shit? yes, but so do the christians; just ask an ex-QF'er, or an ex-FLDS'er.

point is, Islam can be weakened the same way Christianity has been weakened, to become nothing more than a cultural background the way it is in Europe. Isn't that the whole goal of atheist activism? to secularize the world and reduce religion to a hobby?

------

As for the Ft. Hood shooter, I REALLY don't think his Islamist connections are being ignored. Rather, they're being triumphantly crowed from the rooftops by smug Christians everywhere. Personally I think assigning a strict Muslim as a psychiatrist to troops that just returned from killing Muslims was probably not the brightest idea, if the sort of language they use to describe their experiences off-base is anything to go by. They should have let him leave the military, because I can't imagine that the stress of harassment combined with the cognitive dissonance of having to listen on the job to christian soldiers telling him about how they hated dealing with "those dirty muslims" didn't heavily contribute to him snapping like that.

Posted by: Steven Mading | November 12, 2009 3:09 PM

LTstorm #14:

There were reasons to question his loyalty and to question his sanity, and Islam barely had to come into it.

Look, I know that conservatives and xenophobes are too quick to blame Islam for everything these days, and that one should be skeptical by default of all such claims, but the exact opposite extreme approach taken by some liberals where they always assume Islam is NEVER to blame, and any attempt to trace the blame to Islam is always bigoted in every case, (and I say this AS a liberal) is just as disgusting. Sometimes it's to blame. Sometimes it's not. Take it on a case-by-case basis. In this case, it was a major factor. Even if it's politically dangerous to admit this it's still true.

Posted by: vanharris | November 12, 2009 3:21 PM

Kausik, you're shootin' way too high.

Posted by: Madam Pomfrey | November 12, 2009 3:27 PM

"Don't overgeneralize Islamic tribablism. We are not fighting alone in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is us and our local Moslem allies against other Moslems. The vast majority of Islamic terrorism is against....other Islamics."

It was Hasan who made the generalization, by claiming that no Muslim in the US armed forces should be made to fight another Muslim. AFAIK he made no distinction between sects or nations.

Posted by: zeroangel | November 12, 2009 3:28 PM

...if a joke has to be explained...

Posted by: lose_the_woo | November 12, 2009 3:29 PM

Not one eyewitness reported him yelling "Allahu Akbar."

That's not true.

From the article:
Soldiers reported that the gunman shouted "Allahu Akbar!" — an Arabic phrase for "God is great!" — before opening fire Thursday,...

I witnessed a tv interview where a soldier made that statement.

Posted by: Kausik Datta | November 12, 2009 3:42 PM

Was that any clearer, Kausik?

Posted by: Jim | November 12, 2009 3:42 PM

"Without Islam, the long-term strategy and individual acts of violence by Osama bin Laden and his followers make little sense."

This is stupid, because not only is it wrong but it is also willfully ignorant of the foreign bull-in-a-China-shop approach to foreign affairs in the Middle East. Osama bin Laden's primary complaint has always been foreign interventionism and occupation of Arab lands. He couches it in Islam because religion is a powerful weapon to wield.

Posted by: vanharris | November 12, 2009 3:58 PM

Kausik, i did detect a second possible interpretation, but i'm pleased the joke got recognized.

Posted by: darth_borehd | November 12, 2009 4:00 PM

I disagree with your stance that his religion has a causal relationship to his actions. There are BILLIONS of religious people in the world and only a small percentage commit horrible actions.

While I do think religion has a net negative effect, it alone cannot account for the atrocities committed in its name. Rather, the mentally ill, criminal, and power hungry use it to support their activities. They are able to do so precisely because religion is not required to make logical or rational sense or even be consistent. Religious faith is a human fiction masquerading as an unquestionable universal truth. It requires a suspension of rational thought to believe the irrational and from there, any actions can be justified within such a framework.

Religion in itself is not evil. It is however mostly bad because it is often used as a tool for justifying evil. What good religion can bring is easily fulfilled with science and simple human compassion.

Posted by: Graham Positive | November 12, 2009 4:06 PM

IMO, it's a little dangerous for non-Muslims (& especially for the non-religious) to make sweeping statements about Islam based on translations of the Quran.
Like all big belief systems, Islam has undergone some evolution. IIRC it became OK to kill other Muslims during the Turkish Caliphate when there was a temporary shortage of non-Muslim enemies.

Posted by: rawnaeris | November 12, 2009 4:14 PM

The fact he was Muslim is ALL we're hearing about in Texas. The reaction against all Muslims is depressing me. I've even heard some otherwise rational people suggest that concentration camps of sorts should be set up. Which is also religious bullshit. I don't think the xtains or muslims are gonna give up until one side has completely killed the other off.

Posted by: bobxxxx | November 12, 2009 4:28 PM

Not all Muslims are terrorists, but I bet a fairly large percentage of Muslims call terrorists "martyrs" as if that's a good thing. I suggest when I doubt, assume a Muslim is a dangerous asshole. One thing is for sure, every Muslim is an idiot, as is every Christian and every religious Jew. If anyone disagrees, please consider the bullshit they believe in.

Posted by: Kausik Datta | November 12, 2009 4:31 PM

@67: The Chemist,

Meanwhile can we apply actual principles of inquiry and ask Mr. Ibn Warraq to prove and substantiate that Fort Hood was religiously motivated?

Posted by: Rrr | November 12, 2009 4:36 PM

Posted by: JJR | November 12, 2009 4:02 PM
@ Robert H. -- who made you arbiter of who is/isn't a true/devout Christian/Muslim/Jew/Pastafarian?
Never heard of the No True Scotsman fallacy?

Posted by: Knockgoats | November 12, 2009 5:11 PM

The Chemist,
While I agree with your scepticism about strawman-constructors like Ibn Warraq (his piece is bizarre, because he cites numerous press reports stressing Hasan's religious motivation, while claiming it is being largely ignored) it does seem practically certain this guy was motivated by his Islamic beliefs - unless all the reports about his past behaviour, and others' concerns, are false. He's out of the coma, by the way, but refusing to talk to investigators, according to latest reports.

Posted by: Paul | November 12, 2009 5:22 PM

Look at the primary teachings, not the exegesis. According to the gospels, Christ laid down a clear path of action which included non-violence, caring for the poor and the weak, and various abjurations in re the pursuit of wealth. If someone claims to be a Christian, or a Moslem, or anything else for that matter, but eschews the core teachings, then that person is either deluded, or is trying to delude you.

"Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."

Their interpretation is just as valid as yours. that is why people point out your assertion as an easy to ignore "No True Christian" fallacy.

Posted by: Gilbert | November 12, 2009 5:49 PM

"he was also a member of an Abrahamic death cult".

He was also a member of the US military, the biggest and best death cult in the world.

Posted by: Cimourdain | November 12, 2009 6:18 PM

Nice to see this getting mentioned. Not so nice to see the usual apologetics:

The man who slaughtered 13 unarmed people in Fort Hood, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was clearly mentally ill

Really? On what evidence is Hasan considered mentally ill? Fact is, everything about this can be explained perfectly by reference to the fact that he was a devout Muslim who acted in an Islamic manner, with the full justification of Qur'an, Hadith and Sunnah. That's the beginning and the end of it.

I wonder if the next - in two or ten years - abortionist shooter will get a similarly lenient treatment here. Doubt it. Doubt it very much.

I'm really unsurprised to see first rate minds like Ibn Warraq being defamed by twentieth rate maggots like Knockgoats.

Posted by: Cimourdain | November 12, 2009 6:31 PM

Paul, you lie not even prettily. Still upset that I don't play your little games? You shouldn't be: gives you more time to lick the boots of the Jihad.

Posted by: LtStorm | November 12, 2009 6:39 PM

"Nonsense. Christianity, though maybe not a "good" religion, is not nearly as "evil" as Islam. To paraphrase Paleologos, Islam has brought only evil and endless strife to the world. To equate the two as being equally good or bad is a complete denial of their histories and their theologies."

You're forgetting a few hundred years where Islamic countries were the powerhouses for enlightenment and innovation in the world that eventually precipitated the Renaissance in Europe under Christianity's yoke.

Posted by: Cimourdain | November 12, 2009 6:40 PM

I repeat: I have had experience of dealing with apologists and Islamosuckups for some time now. There's no point in discussion with those for whom facts are irrelevant, reason is superfluous, and learning is a wearisome duty. Those who are intellectually honest, will read for themselves, and come to the correct conclusion. Those who are not, cannot be helped.

Btw, I don't think you're sympathetic to Islam - I think even that's beyond your kind. I think you polish the Jihad's boots without even being sympathetic to it.

Posted by: llewelly | November 12, 2009 6:46 PM

Robert H | November 12, 2009 3:48 PM:

A devout Christian, following Christ's teachings instead of the fulminations that flow from Right-wing pulpits and over the airwaves, would not pick up a gun in the first place.

Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.

Posted by: Martin Brock | November 12, 2009 7:02 PM

We're in no danger of underestimating the influence of Islam in terrorism. Rush Limbaugh and practically every other talking head has noted how he's the only one paying due attention to Islam.

The danger of ignoring other influences is much greater. Religion is ubiquitous, particularly in the middle east, but Robert Pape argues persuasively that most suicide terrorism is motivated by territorial and nationalistic considerations. Religion is a decisive factor in terrorism when it's a decisive factor within the threatened territory or nation.

Posted by: Dan | November 12, 2009 7:07 PM

We don't know if religion was the cause of this yet. This may have been a case of a mentally ill person who wasn't being listened too (in his mind) and who decided that since they wouldn't let him "quit" the armed forces, he was going to make them pay.

Posted by: Brian | November 12, 2009 7:16 PM

I've only very lightly skimmed the comments thread, but his religion has hardly been ignored. Nightline went into some detail about his contacts with a radical Muslim cleric who's believed to be a main recruiter for Al Qaeda. He asked to be discharged because he felt he was in conflict between being a muslim and being part of a military that he saw as occuping oppresors against his fellow Muslims.

As far as what to do about Islam on a global scale in face of the failure our invasion of Iraq's been, well that's another question.

Posted by: Paul | November 12, 2009 7:36 PM

Any realizable sense out there of how to make this a just and equitable world where everybody is free to think what they choose as long as they don't force their beliefs on others?

It's cute hearing a Christian say that. Atheists aren't the ones trying to enshrine their irrational beliefs into law. They at least try to keep the ones that can be rationalized in a way so as to convince others of their purpose. We'd be a lot closer to the condition you're wistfully idealizing if people stopped trying to make laws enshrining religious "values".

Posted by: Glen Davidson | November 12, 2009 7:59 PM

I sort of hate to link to a constant liar like David Klinghoffer, but since he responded directly to this post, here's his usual dishonest chant, slightly changed to be lying about what PZ wrote.

I'm not responding there, as I've had enough of his constantly ignoring everything that goes against his mindless tripe, while he simply repeats what has been intelligently refuted, like a somewhat more articulate Joe Gallien or BornAgain77 (you who know these two know what I'm saying).

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

Posted by: eddyline | November 12, 2009 8:04 PM

felixthecat @27:
Allow me to break an internet law here: if Hitler had been half as cunning as Mohammed and had decreed National Socialism to be a religion, we would have teary eyed, hand wringing apologists falling all over themselves defending Nazism from the bad, bad "Naziphobes".

"National Socialism is a religion, born out of blood and race, not a political world-view. It is the new, alone true religion, born out of a Nordic spirit and an Aric soul. The religions still existing must disappear as soon as possible. If they do not dissolve themselves the state has to destroy them."--Lecture at a course for the few leaders of the youth of the German states, quoted from Johann
Neuhäuser, Kreuz und Hakenkreuz, part 1 (München: Verlag Katholische Kirche Bayerns, 1946), p.
261.

Posted by: raven | November 12, 2009 9:04 PM

Not to defend Islam but xianity was and is a religion bent on world domination as well. It is all through the New Testament.

Rarely is it explicitly going to do so through military conquest. At the time the NT was written, xians were a small minority in danger of feeding the lions. That would have been the end of the religion if they had said that and made some moves.

But they had a hidden weapon. God/Jesus is going to show up any minute, destroy the earth, kill more or less everyone, and set up the end goal, The Kingdom of god. Ruled by jesus and his henchmen. A lot of xian thought is apocalyptic and imperialistic to the max, like all True Religions.

To our western eyes, this all looks very routine and we don't see it. Xians telling everyone they are going to hell and hoping and waiting for the End Times when everything dies is just cultural wallpaper. To people from the outside looking in, it can look very different. Like crazed religious fanatics determined to destroy everything and send most of the earth's population to hell to be tortured forever.

Of course, later, when the xians gained a power base, we had the crusades and the colonization of the New World, Australia, and parts of Africa by....xians with guns and swords. I guess they got tired of waiting for jesus to show up and started early.

Posted by: Mark | November 12, 2009 9:55 PM

The tragedy at Ft. Hood exemplifies the need, as Dan Dennett put it, to “break the spell” that protects people’s religious utterances and behaviors from criticism. Whether it is a white-bread, American Christian shooting doctors that provide abortions, a deranged Muslim attacking those they deem enemies of Islam, a Nazi convinced of their racial superiority, or a Stalinist purging anyone that does not accept the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat, they are all linked by an absolute faith in the correctness of their picture of the nature of reality. T.H. Huxley put it well when he said, “It is wrong for a man to say he is certain of the objective truth of a proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty.” This maxim is something that followers of all ideologies cannot seem to comprehend.

[rant]

One stark difference between the modern West and Islamic nations that has always struck me when watching the news, is that in the first decade of the 21st century they still talk about tribes for crissake!!!! There are simply too damn many people and this planet is too damn small, too interconnected thanks to modern technology, for the civilized world to wait while these jokers catch up with the rest of humanity. It is bad enough that American Christians have a thoroughly 19th century mindset, on top of that we have the Islamic world with a 12th century mentality armed with modern weapons!

I am not a racist by any stretch–we are all one species and there are no biological traits that make any one human superior or more worthy of our moral concern than any other human. I am however, most definitely a “culturist” in the sense that there plainly are some ways of constructing a society that are inherently better than others. I happen to think that the Enlightenment values of reason, naturalism, religious skepticism, and empiricism embraced by, for example, the American “Founding Fathers,” were among the greatest ideas in human history.

If instead of occupying nation-states on this one planet, the nations of the world occupied whole planets and if there were in fact a “Star Trek”– style interstellar confederation, I would vote that those worlds that had repeatedly demonstrated that they were unprepared to work and play nice with the grown-ups were placed under quarantine. Whether they work through their childhood or implode – the choice would be theirs alone. Of course, this is not a workable solution on our small planet and would certainly run counter to the ethical impulses of many, myself included, but could we not implement this on a small, case-by-case basis when confronted by the irrationality, religious or otherwise, of those we come into contact with.

[/rant]

Posted by: nfp | November 12, 2009 10:27 PM

Because only Muslims hate Imperial powers plowing over their countries and taking over their resources and wholesale murdering their civilians?

I'd like to see how many Redd Bluddud 'Murcans would put up with that on home soil before the IEDs started popping the trucks of occupying forces on Intersate 80.

Posted by: Gilles | November 13, 2009 12:15 AM

Religion is not a mitigating factor. It is not an excuse or a defense. it is not a sacred principle that must not be questioned. Too often, it has a complex causal relationship to evil.
   — P.Z. Myers
As illustrated by Jack Teitel amongst others.

Posted by: windy | November 13, 2009 12:35 AM

One stark difference between the modern West and Islamic nations that has always struck me when watching the news, is that in the first decade of the 21st century they still talk about tribes for crissake!!!!

Sorry, but I have to say this complaint sounds really ignorant and parochial. You have hundreds of tribal entities in the US! If people want to organise themselves into tribes, or clans, or nation-states, how is that any of your fucking business? And how is that relevant to the current case where the shooter was raised in the US?

Posted by: JThompson | November 13, 2009 2:07 AM

While I won't argue that Islam isn't a religion of violence, I will argue that Christianity is just as bad when they can get away with it.

How about The National Liberation Front of Tripura? A cheery Christian cult/army that takes over towns and converts the inhabitants by force. After they've turned the women into prostitutes and forced them to produce pornography at gunpoint. The ones they don't rape and sell anyway. (All perfectly Biblical, by the way.) And some of their funding has been traced back to churches in the US. So where are the cries of "Baptists are inherently more likely to produce terrorists!"? Are those crickets I hear?

Lord's Resistance Army? You know, child soldiers, rape, pillage, selling sex slaves, selling slave slaves, at least some of their funding traced back to US churches?

Russian National Unity? (At least the American Churches aren't funding this one that anyone knows of.)

Dead abortion doctors? The Klu Klux Klan? ANP? WWMP?
Anyone wanna bet on American Xians remaining so civilized if our Constitution and non-Christian population didn't keep slapping them down?

Yes, Islam is a violent religion that encourages atrocity. So is Christianity. Neither has a place in modern society. At least not if society is to remain modern.

Posted by: Moremony | November 13, 2009 2:43 AM

Terrorism is a strategy and tactic which seeks a political goal, either a change in government policy or a regime change, through commission of indiscriminate public attacks.

Killing fellow soldiers just because one has decided that America is an enemy of one’s religion is, in and of itself, not terrorism. It may be genocide; it may be a hate crime; it may be treason.

Posted by: Leigh Williams | November 13, 2009 3:59 AM

Chuck #26:

Islam is a death cult. Period. Christianity is a death cult, too, but it has been neutered in countries that experienced the Enlightenment. If you go to developing nations where Christianity is practiced widely, it is still just as barbaric as it was in the West before the eighteenth century.

Oh, if only you were right, and Christianity had indeed been "neutered" in the West. Dr. George Tiller was assasinated in the vestibule of his church by a Christian fanatic. The KKK is composed entirely of Christians. The Nazi forces were Christian, and the final solution was only a slight extension of Luther's views.

Hasan put more stock in being a Muslim than in being an officer in the Army. Huge numbers of other officers, especially in the Air Force, are more loyal to Christ than to the Constitution. The fools who painted "Jesus Killed Mohammed" on their Bradley, and then went out with a bullhorn, trolling for Iraqis to kill -- weren't they just as wicked as Hasan?

Religion makes a great cover story for evil, as the Catholic hierarchy has so comprehensively demonstrated.

Posted by: Beelzebub | November 13, 2009 5:22 AM

I don't have time to read all the comment, but as I'm sure others have noted, his lunacy probably won't deter the Texas chainsaw massacrers from executing him -- which is a shame, since it would be a whole lot more informative to the world (although perhaps less compassionate to Hasan) to deprogram him from Islamic insanity, give him the meds he needs, etc., just to illustrate to the world how religion feeds mental illness and the kind of insanity that leads to these acts.

Posted by: Stuart Weinstein | November 13, 2009 6:41 AM

Richard N. Writes:

"Tons of racist people here, no surprise. PZ is not going far enough methinks."

Oops P.Z. you have just offended an uber-left multi-culturalist douche bag.

Good work and keep it up.

Posted by: Jud | November 13, 2009 7:05 AM

Unfortunately, there's another factor that seems to be getting minimized in the press accounts: he was also a member of an Abrahamic death cult.

Minimized? Where're you getting your news? An hour ago I heard CNN anchors saying the fact that Hasan said his allegiance was to the Koran, not the U.S., was a big red flag. So if we found someone in this country saying his allegiance was to the Bible or Jesus and not the U.S. government, that would also be considered a "big red flag"? Not so much, I think.

It's all well and fine to point out that most Muslims are not terrorists, but in the present time, a disproportionate amount of terrorist violence does come from Muslims.

Really? Let's define "terrorist violence" as the type that impacts innocent civilians, OK? Now how many civilian deaths do you think have been caused by Islamic terrorists, and how many by the "developed," "Christian" nations invading Iraq and Afghanistan? And wasn't it "the Father" who told GW Bush to invade Iraq?

This is not meant in the least to excuse anyone or draw equivalences, just to say let's do some more thinking before we consider the First World past acts of religiously motivated violence.

Posted by: Knockgoats | November 13, 2009 7:14 AM

"The Nazi forces were Christian" - so were most of the forces (including USA) that defeated the Nazis and their Shinto and MUSLIM allies. wiley

Most of the forces that defeated Hitler were in the Red Army. Difficult to estimate how many were privately Christian, but the officer corps were selected for ideological conformity with Stalinism, and so would have been almost entirely atheists.

Posted by: Knockgoats | November 13, 2009 7:21 AM

"The Nazi forces were Christian" - so were most of the forces (including USA) that defeated the Nazis and their Shinto and MUSLIM allies. - wiley

The Red Army, and the British Indian Army, also contained a lot of Muslims. I'd guess, though I'm open to correction, that more Muslims fought on the Allied than the Axis side.

Posted by: Anarchist606 | November 13, 2009 7:56 AM

I have seen lots of dull people trying to push the 'Islam=terror" meme and here we go again. It is a simplistic argument; they say - 'hey look, this terrible thing happened and the person who did it was a Muslim, so Islam must somehow be an evil thing.' It's related to the comments of Berlusconi that somehow Western Civilisation is the best and we do things in the right way and those crazy Muslims go around using violence to make their point yada yada yada.

So in Germany there was this guy who refused to move of a swing in a park to let a little kid on it. A row ensued and the guy (born in Russia, now German) racially abused her (screaming "terrorist" and "Islamist whore" at her). How did she respond? She used the very civilised means on taking him to court for defamation. His response? Stab her 18 times in the court room and kill her.

Does that mean Russians and/or Germans and/or Christians are inherently evil? No - the actions of a minority do not define the majority. Religions go though phases - sometimes violent and sometimes not, just like the other creations of humanity, they are nothing more than a reflection of the cultre that creates them. Nothing inherently magic and/or evil in that.

Posted by: Copyleft | November 13, 2009 8:23 AM

It's amazing that the only learning opportunity from the tragedy of 9/11--the irrefutable fact that religious fanaticism is DANGEROUSLY EVIL--seems to have been lost in the shuffle. Instead, Christians across the country seized on the opportunity to declare a NEW holy war of (Judeo-)Christians vs. Muslims... "This one's for all the marbles!" Sigh...

How long will it take for most of humanity to admit the obvious: religion itself is what's a danger to civilization. The specific flavor doesn't really matter much, as history has shown.

People who BELIEVE crazy and stupid things... are more likely to DO crazy and stupid things.

Posted by: Stuart | November 13, 2009 8:36 AM

Ooppsss P.Z. snagged another one...

"I have seen lots of dull people trying to push the 'Islam=terror" meme and here we go again. It is a simplistic argument; they say - 'hey look, this terrible thing happened and the person who did it was a Muslim, so Islam must somehow be an evil thing.' "

Wrong you silly SOT.

His own words made it quite clear why he did what he did, as well as his contacts with a radical Yemeni Cleric.

Hasan was on a personal Jihad. While no religion is completely immune to Instant Jihad Syndrome, Islam has more than its share.

"It's related to the comments of Berlusconi that somehow Western Civilisation is the best and we do things in the right way and those crazy Muslims go around using violence to make their point yada yada yada."

Douche Bag.

I don't see Xtians going nuts rioting in the streets and killing people every time somebody craps on Jesus. Yet Muslims went nuts over a fucking cartoon and are trying to get the UN to outlaw criticism of religion. I could be wrong, but I haven't seen any Vatican involvement in that. Yeah P.Z. has received hate mail, but other than that loud mouth Donahue, nobody else really gave a shit... and PZ is still breathing and doesn't need round the clock armed guards like a Danish Cartoonist, Ayaan Ali Hirsi and other folks who have stood up to islamofacism. they could have it worse after all, like Theo Van Gogh.

The intimidation doesn't stop there. the Yale U. Press censored cartoons out of a scholarly book cuz they might offend you know who.

Stop with the stupid "Xtians, Jews etc. are just as bad" crap. It doesn't quite wash.

Islam has a problem and its idiotic to blame it on the West. Muslims chopping off heads in the Philippines, Thailand.. etc.

Also fault of the Great Satan?

Give it a rest clown. This has got nothing to do with Berlusconi.

Posted by: Cimourdain | November 13, 2009 8:39 AM

Stuart, you said it.

Posted by: Stuart | November 13, 2009 9:01 AM

Yeah P.Z. has received hate mail, but other than that loud mouth Donahue, nobody else really gave a shit

"Actually, during crackergate PZ received a number of threats including threats to send him poisoned cracker/communion wafers. "

Considering PZ wouldn't eat a communion wafer even if you offered him a million dollars, that was utterly comical.

I don't see Chris Hitchens or Dawkins traveling around with armed body guards.

"Women's health clinics-whether they actually perform abortions or not-routinely hire guards and take precautions such as requiring ID be shown before entering because of anti-abortion threats and actions. Dr. Tiller was shot twice-murdered the second time-in an admitted effort to stop his work and to intimidate others. That's not even counting the Christian armies in Africa which engage in rape, murder, enslavement...Sorry, but the argument that Christianity is less violent or even currently less dangerous really doesn't work. "

You forgot Eric Rudolf.

I stand by what I said. And with respect to Hutu-Tutsi conflict in Africa, you simplify the issue. What happened there and is happening there is as much, if not much more so, about tribal rivalry and conflict than religion. And I suppose you are loath to comment on Muslim armies and terrorists operating with impunity in Africa?

Sorry, it doesn't wash. Thanks for playing.

Posted by: Cimourdain | November 13, 2009 9:07 AM

Actually, during crackergate PZ received a number of threats including threats to send him poisoned cracker/communion wafers.

Uh-huh. Sending poisoned wafers - I'm trembling in my boots. Fact is, try that stunt with a Koran, P.Z. would be under twenty-four hour protection.

Equating modern day Islam with modern day Christianity isn't just unfair and unjust - it's pathalogical.

Posted by: Bernard Bumner | November 13, 2009 9:16 AM

And with respect to Hutu-Tutsi conflict in Africa, you simplify the issue. What happened there and is happening there is as much, if not much more so, about tribal rivalry and conflict than religion. And I suppose you are loath to comment on Muslim armies and terrorists operating with impunity in Africa?

But tribalism is certainly one of the cultural constructs which is exploited by sectarian Islamists in order to recruit followers, and it is one the confounding factors which means that conflicts amongst Muslims and between Muslims and non-muslims defy simple analysis. It is difficult to disentantgle the contribution of Jihadist Islam and tribal identity in many conflicts.

Equally, the recent Balkan conflicts are a good example of tribalism and sectarianism coming together, and resulting in ethnic and religious cleansing. It would be wrong to pretend that Christianity is no longer a source of sectarian and inter-religious violence.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | November 13, 2009 9:25 AM

Uh-huh. Sending poisoned wafers - I'm trembling in my boots. Fact is, try that stunt with a Koran, P.Z. would be under twenty-four hour protection.

Fatwa envy?

He did, there were pages from the Koran in the very same trash pierced with the same nail and covered with the same refuse as the wafer.

Posted by: Stuart | November 13, 2009 9:44 AM

"Sorry Rev, I usually find myself chortling in agreement with you, but really - try telling, e.g., the Bosnian Muslims that the Serbian Christians were insufficiently plentiful or organized."

I don't worry about Serbs issuing Fatwas or blowing up Pizza parlors in the name of Jesus. Their issues with Kosovo go back 6 or 7 centuries. With respect to mass graves, the Serbs were mere pikers compared to what happened in Iraq. But mass graves are only justification for intervention when Europe deems it so.

"We've got to be able to expand our focus enough to realize it's never just us (whether "us" is defined as our religion, culture, nation, region of the world, whatever) being threatened by the horrible, evil Other."

This a problem between the West, moderate Muslims in and outside of the west, and islamofacists. We do not help moderate and reform minded Muslims by paying lip service to islamofacists or excusing their "excesses" cuz after all, there are nutty Christians too.

Posted by: Feynmaniac | November 13, 2009 10:16 AM

Cimourdain,

Uh-huh. Sending poisoned wafers - I'm trembling in my boots. Fact is, try that stunt with a Koran, P.Z. would be under twenty-four hour protection.

***facepalm***

Posted by: Dianne | November 13, 2009 10:24 AM

Fact is, try that stunt with a Koran, P.Z. would be under twenty-four hour protection.

He DID you idiot! As part of the cracker stunt he stuck a nail through a communion wafer, several pages of a Koran, and a bit of one of Dawkins' books. (Then he threw them into the trash along with the peel of an intelligently designed banana.) As far as I know the ONLY threats he has received were with respect to the communion wafer. PZ has criticized Islam as virulently as he has criticized Christianity. He's gone after Judaism too periodically. As far as I know, all his hate mail comes from Christians. Therefore, using PZ as a sole example, Christianity "wins" the title of most dangerous religion.

Posted by: Raging bee | November 13, 2009 10:28 AM

PZ, you're really starting to sound like the "Christian" bigots on this issue: first trying to blame a religion you don't like for the murders, then making self-serving and TOTALLY FALSE complaints about how the media are "minimizing" the role of the evil religion in the incident.

If you actually READ those media accounts, you'd see plenty of reports about Hasan's expressed religious views, right along with confirmations that, yes, the Army did indeed look into Hasan's communications with that imam in Yemen, only to find them consistent with Hasan's job as a psychiatrist -- and, I must add, only to find them not at all outside the range of THOUSANDS of similar allegations they have to look into every year.

We already have right-wing hacks and George-Will-wannabees like Chuckie Krauthammer screaming about how this is all about Islam and how dare those PC liberals refuse to face the facts. You're not doing atheists any favors by echoing the same religious divisiveness -- and disregard for reality -- you pretend to despise.

You're insulting the victims of this incident by trying to use their suffering to support your pet peeve.

Posted by: Matt | November 13, 2009 10:34 AM

"Islam is worse than Xians!"

"No, they are equally bad!"

"you are wrong"

"you are"

"neener neener"

BOOOOORING. How many times are we gonna have this emotional, tribal, and ultimately pointless discussion? Lets talk about what we're going to do.

In America, after reviewing the last 8+ years of policy since 9/11, I propose we do the exact opposite of the BushObama policy: "invade the world/invite the world"

Why dont we pull up stakes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and ban immigration from the Muslim world?

A major step in the right direction, no?

Posted by: Dianne | November 13, 2009 10:36 AM

And I suppose you are loath to comment on Muslim armies and terrorists operating with impunity in Africa?

Not at all. Both Islamic and Christian missionaries have been active for years in Africa, setting up (along with multiple other factors including tribalism, residual of colonialism, and continued corruption and poor governance) a situation where a full scale religious war appears to be starting. The Christian sects who are busy committing atrocities are funded by churches in the US, among others. The Islamic sects are funded by mosques in the US, among others. Neither religion is harmless, not even in the "neutered" form that it appears in Europe: AIDS is epidemic partly because of Catholic misinformation about condoms. The Vatican may not be using guns, but it's surely killing people.

Posted by: Lost Left Coaster | November 13, 2009 10:37 AM

Wow, reading this entire statement, it could have easily have been put out by Pat Robertson. Especially the part where he suggests that we should consider now allowing Muslims to serve in the US military at all.

What garbage! No one is ignoring the possible religious component of what happened. But drawing sweeping conclusions about the millions of Muslims living in the United States based on the actions of one murderer at Fort Hood is worthy of the Christian Right, certainly not of a supposedly freethought intellectual organization.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | November 13, 2009 10:43 AM

violet christians

those DAMN PURPLE CHRISTIANS ARE PISSING ME OFF

Posted by: Dianne | November 13, 2009 10:52 AM

Really, can we blame Hasan's behavior on Islam or religion in general? It was an ostensibly secular branch of an ostensibly secular country which taught him to kill efficiently, praised him when he learned to kill well, and was about to send him overseas to kill more. He's not in trouble for killing, but for killing the wrong people. If he'd killed 13 random people in Iraq or Afghanistan he'd probably get a medal (or, if it was really egregious AND caught on camera, maybe a slight reprimand.)

Posted by: Bernard Bumner | November 13, 2009 10:58 AM

Trying to use this heartbreaking incident to trash and discredit one or more religions, is just plain mean, callous, and downright stupid. PZ, you just went a long way toward reinforcing that old stereotype of atheists as mean, small-minded, and totally contemptuous of other people's feelings; and I have no doubt the religious bigots will eagerly use your comments for their cause. Way to represent, fool.

It really is as though you didn't read the original post.

Posted by: Raging bee | November 13, 2009 11:00 AM

It was an ostensibly secular branch of an ostensibly secular country which taught him to kill efficiently, praised him when he learned to kill well, and was about to send him overseas to kill more.

Um...he was a psychiatrist. And he was about to be sent to Afghanistan to act as a psychiatrist. Can't we at least show a little respect for facts here?

Posted by: Dianne | November 13, 2009 11:06 AM

BTW, it's a bit late to worry about bringing Moslims to the US when the most conservative estimates state that there are over 1 million Muslims in the US. These are your neighbors you're talking about. Deal with it.

Posted by: Knockgoats | November 13, 2009 11:15 AM

Why dont we pull up stakes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and ban immigration from the Muslim world?

A major step in the right direction, no? - Matt

What's with these pussy-footing half-measures? If you "ban immigration from the Muslim world" (where does that exclude, BTW? They get everywhere!), that will just stir up the ones who are already in the US, surely? What's more, they breed like rabbits, don't they? Expel all Muslims! Or better yet, why not just round them all up and gas them?

/racist shitbag mode

Posted by: Raging bee | November 13, 2009 11:16 AM

Hasan is still alive. When he sits up in bed and says "I killed for Islam", then will you believe him?

Not necessarily, because we'd still have the context of his past unhinged behavior weighing against his own statements of motive.

In particular, we have his hijacking of a medical discussion to warn of Muslim soldiers acting on divided loyalties. That's the kind of warning terrorists don't tend to give when they're planning a major action; it's the kind of warning/call for help that stressed-out people tend to give when they're starting to crack. We didn't hear Mohammed Atta warning about suicide-attacks using airplanes, did we?

Posted by: Raging Bee | November 13, 2009 11:22 AM

I'd like to minimize the number of Islamic motivated terrorism on American soil in the future. Ive presented my plan to do so. What's your plan?

Let the intelligence and law-enforcement communities handle it? That plan was working pretty well before extremists like you came to power in 2001. At least they got wind of suicide-attacks in the US before you did.

Posted by: Alyson Miers | November 13, 2009 11:31 AM

Pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq, yes, but why ban immigration?

Dianne, Matt likes to sing the praises of curtailing immigration. He focuses most of his finger-pointing at Muslims, but not all of it; he doesn't want America to become home to too many Chinese or Hindus, either. And this would be a totally brilliant idea because we all know that refusing to offer asylum to people whose home countries are fucked sideways due to American foreign policy would just do nothing but starve the terrorists, right? Right? And after all, nobody ever immigrates illegally!

Posted by: DragonIV | November 13, 2009 11:42 AM

Apologies if someone has taken this angle already, I ran out of steam reading comments about #100.

A man walks into a crowed facility and opens fire, killing a number of people before either killing himself or being killed/wounded by responding officers. Heard this story before?

Of course we have. It plays out a few times a year, at least, varying mostly in the number of victims. In each case, we typically find hints of mental illness in the shooter, and often find they constructed an elaborate web of hatred for a segment of the population either due to outright delusion (colored by their life experiences) or hatred generated by perceived slights by members of the target population.

Sometimes these folks wrap religion around themselves--not hard to do, given that religion is fantasy to begin with. So, they effectively take the ball and run with it. They don't really snap, but they instead work up the confidence to pull off their grand exit strategy.

We almost never see this in advance because this type of individual is rare, and a very small subset of the "angry and deluded" part of the population. Of course, we see it from the rearview mirror and it seems oh-so-clear, but it's simply not very preventable from the oncoming position without implementing absolutely draconian measures.

So, trying to label this a terrorist attack? Meh. I think the Islamic terror cells do a great job of recruiting these kind of angry killer angels, but in this case it seems far more likely that he just took the some nasty hate-filled ammo from some Islamic firebrand and cooked it in his web of delusions till the recipe for mayhem was complete.

You can make the argument that the "death cults" of Islam ferment this kind of thinking, and the Christian death cults are equally adept at this process (and you'd be right), but the idea that this incident was a true terrorist attack is likely hogwash. It's just another nut with a gun incident.

Posted by: Raging Bee | November 13, 2009 11:43 AM

Both the Clinton and Bush admins got wind of impending terror strikes and they did nothing.

Wrong again: outgoing Clinton appointees warned incoming Bush appointees, and it was the Bush extremists who did nothing (and then lied about it, with help from their media whores in ABC and elsewhere).

Posted by: Matt Penfold | November 13, 2009 11:48 AM

The Taliban was the central Afghanistan government, of sorts, before and after 9/11. No longer.

There are an awful lot of dead bodies being sent home from Afghanistan for a country that no longer has any internal conflict.

Posted by: Davo | November 13, 2009 11:57 AM

Most Muslims are not terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslims. As simple as that, and it should be acknowledged.

Posted by: Matt | November 13, 2009 11:59 AM

"So tell us, Matt, if we've cut and run, how can we "keep a much closer eye" on what we've run away from?"

hmmm, how do we know anything about China? I mean, we arent militarily engaged with them or anything. How do we know whats going on over there?

We didnt pay any attention to Afghanistan prior to 9/11 because we didnt view it as an important country. And then it hosted the people who committed a massacre upon us. We will pay attention to Afghanistan now, and we dont need to occupy the country in order to do so.

Posted by: Raging Bee | November 13, 2009 12:04 PM

Most Muslims are not terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslims. As simple as that, and it should be acknowledged.

"As simple as that" only to a simpleton who doesn't know shit about history. In another century, most terrorists were American white racists. And earlier in the last century, a certain white Christian totalitarian regime killed more innocent people than any Muslim terrorist then or since.

Take your obvious religious bigotry and shove it back where it came from.

Posted by: Cimourdain | November 13, 2009 12:08 PM

As part of the cracker stunt he stuck a nail through a communion wafer, several pages of a Koran

Yes, which you can see at the bottom of a long, whinging post about Christians. Uh-huh.

On the other hand, when cartoonists were hiding for their lives, and embassies were being burned, and people murdered, P.Z. folded like a cheap beduin tent and got his hide to safety behind mealy-mouthed apologetics. Very, veeery interesting.

I'll make the same bet I've done a dozen times: I will select a city, and you will. I will walk around in the city of your choice with a sign denouncing Christ and Christianity. You will walk through the city of my choice with one denouncing Islam and Muhammad. I'll hear from your next of kin how that went.

To be able to spout the kind of things spouted here, you don't just have to be ignorant, in the regular sense. You have to ignore every single incident - and there are several a day - that has happened year in, year out. Youneed to force from your mind the realities of the Qur'an, Hadith and Sirah, the Sunnah, Tafsir and Shariah, the way these have been interpreted and laid down for millenia, forteen hundred years of Islamic history, the endless polls showing that this sort of thing is approved of by seriosly large numbers of Muslims, and on and on. You need, in short, to engage in an act of self-inflicted mental violation.

Posted by: Matt Penfold | November 13, 2009 12:16 PM

Penfold, can you not detect the difference between knocking the Taliban out of nice, large, concrete, target rich, government buildings, and cleaning out every cave in rugged Waziristan?

Yes I can.

However you gave an answer that in context meant you thought the Taliban had been defeated. You either are very bad at communicating, stupid, ignorant or lying.

Posted by: inkadu | November 13, 2009 12:23 PM

I've read several commenters ask the question, "Muslims kill each other all the time. Why should they start caring now??"

The answer is in the way identity is formed. If you're muslim in the United States, all muslims are your brothers, because you're more worried about being different from Christians. If you're muslim in Saudi Arabia, well, that's only the most preliminary part of your identity -- after that you define yourself by different sects.

I can easily give two examples of this: Before Europeans settled in America, Native Americans we were at war and peace with each other and identified by tribe. Three hundred years later, "Native American" is a much more unified concept.

Or take black slaves in the United States. Dragged from Africa after being captured by competing black tribes, their modern descendants now feel a kinship with the entire continent.

But back to muslims... after 9/11 I read a lot of analysis that said terrorism didn't really originate in the Middle East, but in the West, where muslims became radicalized by their differences with European culture; they defined themselves as muslims first because that was the primary identification Western society thrust upon them.

Thread's dead, baby. Thread's dead.

Posted by: raven | November 13, 2009 12:30 PM

Hasan gave a huge number of warning signs before he cracked.

He didn't want to be deployed against other Moslems.
He paid back his student loans for his MD degree. They were probably considerable. Don't know the details but he was educated at the military med school. They probably have a deal where you get a free MD if you serve long enough.

He had hired a lawyer to try and get a discharge. Hasan wanted out badly and tried hard to get out.

He had made many speeches and comments about being against the war and about not being thrilled fighting against his own religious adherents.

He didn't plan his assault very carefully. Just started shooting at a crowd with two handguns.

These are not the actions of a crazed terrorist bent on slaughtering crusaders.

He really does fit the profile of a lone gunman better. Religion probably played an exacerbating role. Psychological problems played a role. Being put in a stressful situation played a role. Put them all together and 13 people are dead.

And if the army and FBI had just paid attention to numerous red flags and given him a discharge, it probably wouldn't have happened. They pushed a cracked pot too far and it broke.

Posted by: Matt | November 13, 2009 12:42 PM

"Knockgoats is right. You would just love to get to kill Muslims."

Both of you are lying, little cowards. You cant deal with what I say, so you make up stuff.

Though I am not a pacifist, I despise war. I despise war-makers. I support politicians who espouse that view. For a time, I thought Obama might be that politician. No more.

You liberals, however, like war quite a bit. W. Wilson, Kennedy, L. Johnson. Hero's all, to you righteous liberals.

Its not that you want out of Iraq or Afghanistan, you just want a Democrat running the show. A Democrat who will emote in just the right tones, hand wring with such subtely, to assuage your conflicted conscious when making the decision to drop the bombs, send another 40,000 troops into a losing proposition. Ohhh, but Obama does it with such grace and senstivity, he's not a meanie like Bush.

Either that or you're too cowardly to say what you mean: Time to cut and run in Afghanistan. I could care less what hawks think of me.

Posted by: Matt Penfold | November 13, 2009 12:46 PM

Its not that you want out of Iraq or Afghanistan, you just want a Democrat running the show

Democrats are not running the show, at least not where Knockgoats and myself come from.

Why did you assume we were American ? A bit of your nationalism slipped out there I think. Nationalism that would seem to be bordering on xenophobia.

Posted by: Paul | November 13, 2009 12:55 PM

Indeed, that is right up there with blowing up pizza parlors. Now, will you present references that back up your claims?

...are you serious? An estimated 2.7 million people contracted AIDS in Africa in 2007. In one year. That's easily more than have died from terrorist activities since the turn of the century, unless maybe you count the Iraq war as a terrorist act (which I'll note was inspired by "the Father", so it's not unfair to call it a Christian action whatever the individual motives of the soldiers are). The Pope has stated that condoms transmit AIDS. That is terribly irresponsible and bears responsibility for more deaths than can be pinned on Islamic terrorism.

But no, it's just baseless equivocation. Don't bother thinking, it's too hard.

Posted by: Stuart | November 13, 2009 12:57 PM

"He didn't plan his assault very carefully. Just started shooting at a crowd with two handguns."

He is being charged with premeditated murder. Your conclusion maybe premature.

Posted by: Cimourdain | November 13, 2009 1:03 PM

You know what's cheery about all this? And by "this" I mean the number of pharyngulites who are able to take big but wimp out in the real struggle, you know the one on which civilization depends? What's cheery is that you lot are marked for spiritual extinction. You see, it's one thing to be windbags online, quite another to fight in the real world.

There are a handful of major groups in the West capable of using fanaticism - i.e. being willing and able to fight and die for what they hold dear - and are able to enunciate a vision of their desired society. Some are loathesome - the Jihadists and the neo-fascists of Europe - and some are questionable - our own homegrown fundies. And then there are those, such as myself, who are atheist defenders of civilization.

The point is simply this: you're not on that list. And therefore, when things get bad, as they will, you and yours are marked for spiritual extinction. Like the dodo, you're views simply will not survive. And as for whether you'll survive, in fact, will depend on people like me winning this fight. One of the others groups wins out? You'll be dead meat. So, not only are my views inevitably going to win out over yours, my views present the best hope of your own survival.

Amusing, isn't it?

Posted by: Matt | November 13, 2009 1:11 PM

Cimourdain, I think you raise the most important point, and conundrum.

While also an atheist lover of civilization, I am not as optimistic as you, as I don't think there are enough of us.

So, who do we make common cause with? This is what annoys me about so many of the pharyngulites. They ought to be our allies, yet they wake up in the morning, flip on Fox news, and program their daily political positions to the exact opposite. So when a situation like Fort Hood arises, these otherwise sane people will see Fox 'demonizing' and 'casting aspersions', take the other side, and thus be forced to defend or explain away the shooting, typically in economic or psychological terms. As long as they are not agreeing with Fox, cant be seen running with that crowd.

Posted by: Alyson Miers | November 13, 2009 1:18 PM

The point is simply this: you're not on that list. And therefore, when things get bad, as they will, you and yours are marked for spiritual extinction. Like the dodo, you're views simply will not survive. And as for whether you'll survive, in fact, will depend on people like me winning this fight. One of the others groups wins out? You'll be dead meat. So, not only are my views inevitably going to win out over yours, my views present the best hope of your own survival.

Keep frothing, Cimourdain! It's so funny watching a survivalist bigot whack off to the coming Armageddon of Us vs. Them!

Alyson, Islam is a race?

You speak of Muslims as if they're a homogeneous monolith, so they might as well be a race in your view. They clearly can't be Americans, in any case.

Posted by: Matt | November 13, 2009 1:26 PM

No Alyson, you through the racist term around as an attempt to shut off further conversation on a topic that makes you uncomfortable.

Posted by: Paul | November 13, 2009 1:30 PM

@207
He's hardly an "atheist lover of civilization". He's a xenophobic fearmongerer. I've yet to see him conduct himself throughout a thread in a manner that could be considered civilized. See the Apostasy thread for example (or pretty much any thread where Islam comes up)...no matter what the topic, he will turn it around to how Muslims would take over the civilized world without freedom fighters like himself arguing to keep them away from the civilized countries.

You're just flattering him because he shares your dislike/distrust of Muslims. The least you could do is spare us the theatrics in claiming it comes from an atheistic love of civilization.

They ought to be our allies, yet they wake up in the morning, flip on Fox news, and program their daily political positions to the exact opposite. So when a situation like Fort Hood arises, these otherwise sane people will see Fox 'demonizing' and 'casting aspersions', take the other side, and thus be forced to defend or explain away the shooting, typically in economic or psychological terms.

Wow, you mean we don't try to simplify everything down to "he's Muslim, therefore Islam is the only factor in his criminal actions"? Nobody is saying it had no relevance to actions. The world isn't as simple as you'd like it to be. Believe it or not, people snap and kill each other without religion as a factor. Sometimes they use religion as a justification. In many cases, it seems likely events would have played differently without religion in place.

But that does not mean there were no non-religious factors, and trying to identify all the factors leading to a person snapping and killing others could be used to prevent future occurrences. Shouting OMGISLAM does nothing to detect or prevent further instances of violence, and just ratchets up the holy war vibe the western world has been exuding for the last several years and keeps people from coolly analyzing the evidence and events leading up to the killings for lessons learned to prevent soldiers from snapping.

Posted by: Matt | November 13, 2009 1:44 PM

"Nobody is saying it had no relevance to actions. "

read Diane's comment #160 for starters. Until the 'Allahu Akbar' comment was reported, every MSM sounded just like her. Chris Matthews said just the other day "We may never know what motivated Nidal Hasan"

Like a Xtian Abortion doctor murderer would get such a benefit of the doubt.

"The world isn't as simple as you'd like it to be. "

People, religion, culture, and behavior are all extremely complex. You believe if you just study Nidal Hasan well enough, you can tease out all his complex motivations, and then set about fixing all those problems in the world. And then their will be no more Nidal Hasans. It is you who believe the world is so simple.

I believe we are in for many lifetimes of Fort Hood events. I believe if we kept Islamic immigration to a minimum, and kept our incursions into the Islamic world to a minimum, we will have less of these incidents.

You want to believe we can construct some sort of perfectly calibrated filter to identify and separate the Jihadists from the larger Muslim population, and the rest will peacefully assimilate. I think this is folly, and more of us will die as long as this policy is attempted.

Posted by: Cimourdain | November 13, 2009 1:51 PM

Alyson & the rest...

It's just too cute whatching your little creationist mindsets on display, especially here! Really is amusing.

Should stay out of this, but this is just too rich:

facing reality in all its complexity

You want to talk about "facing reality" Bee? Have you ever bothered to study Islam? Have you read Robert Spencer and Snouck Hurgronje and Andrew Bostom and Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Brigitte Gabriel and Wafa Sultan and Ali Sina and Ibn Warraq and Andre Servier and Andrew G. Bostom and Joseph Schacht and Bat Ye'or and Raymond Ibrahim and Lee Harris and K.S. Lal? Have you bothered to read Sayyid Qutb and the HAMAS manifesto and the Qur'an and Hadith and Sira and Tafsir and the Shariah? Of course you haven't. That's a bit too much work for your kind.

Posted by: Paul | November 13, 2009 1:54 PM

You want to believe we can construct some sort of perfectly calibrated filter to identify and separate the Jihadists from the larger Muslim population, and the rest will peacefully assimilate. I think this is folly, and more of us will die as long as this policy is attempted.

You know what Muslims and Christians have in common? They're human. they have material brains. They can fall victim to the same psychological issues.

Kick all the Muslims out of the military and the country, and it still won't stop people snapping and killing people. I'm not saying you can create a filter to perfectly separate normal Muslims from Jihadis. You put words into my mouth. By the same measure you can't filter out the McVeighs from the non-violent Christians. But you can focus on the underlying cause of the violence, and work to alleviate the stress/adverse conditions/mental illnesses that causes people to snap and kill others. Once you get rid of the Muslims, who is next? The Not True Christians? But you can't erect a filter to determine which ones are True or Not True. Perhaps we need to evict them all?

Your solution is incoherent and untenable. It's also collective punishment, which rational people in this century recognize as uncivilized and extremist.

Posted by: Raging Bee | November 13, 2009 2:01 PM

Have you ever bothered to study Islam?

Have you ever bothered to study human behavior? Politics? Actual events, in both the Islamic and non-Islamic parts of the world? A decent newspaper? You're hiding behind a lot of names, using them as excuses to hate others and cop a superior macho attitude, and not showing a trace of any real knowledge of anything.

Posted by: Cimourdain | November 13, 2009 2:03 PM

I love being proved right. Raging Bee here has just demonstrated that he's not done any real reading. As for this

Have you ever bothered to study human behavior? Politics? Actual events, in both the Islamic and non-Islamic parts of the world? A decent newspaper?

As a matter of fact, I have. Which is why I'm imune from your creationist thinking.

Posted by: Cimourdain | November 13, 2009 2:12 PM

Matt, it's pointless arguing with creationist-brains. Don't waste your breath.

Posted by: Matt | November 13, 2009 2:19 PM

Paul, why do you have to exaggerate and lie?

I do not want to kick Muslims out of the military.

I do not want to kick any American out of America.

I do want to limit immigration from the Muslim world.

I think its an actual workable proposition for lessening domestic terror. Certainly more attainable then, say, promoting democracy in Afghanistan, probably more so than promoting democracy in Iraq also.

And why are you so sure it wont work? The wall has worked quite well for the Israelis, terrorism of the exploding bus and pizza shop variety is way down in Israel. Seems to me like evidence in favor of my assertion: keep Muslims out, terrorism goes down.

Posted by: Knockgoats | November 13, 2009 2:20 PM

Which is why I'm imune from your creationist thinking. - Cimourdain

As I said, stark raving bonkers. WTF is supposed to be creationist about not hating Muslims?

Posted by: Paul | November 13, 2009 2:22 PM

Not really, Copyleft. You forgot to rant about how all the scary Muslims hate you for your freedoms and want to blow you up for not being Muslim (as opposed to being violent and angry because you are occupying their lands, killing civilians, and have been funding dictatorships in the region for several decades), though.

It's sad how some atheists want to pretend religion is the only problem we face as a species, though. Religion is a big problem, which is one reason I read Pharyngula. But it's not as simple as "people are terrorists because of religion. If we keep out people of that religion, there will be no terrorism" like Cimourdain and Matt want to pretend.

Posted by: Matt | November 13, 2009 2:30 PM

So Paul, what do you propose? More of the same? Grit out teeth and put up with it? Invade and Invite and demonize and race-whip any who disagree?

Do you oppose invading? Are you American? Did you vote Obama? Do you agree with him sending another 40,000?

You'd be screaming bloody murder if Bush had done it.

Posted by: Copyleft | November 13, 2009 2:31 PM

Oh... so you really ARE insane. Thanks for clarifying.

By the way, the whole point of civilization--since you obviously missed it--is that fighting and clawing and struggling for survival and power, i.e., "might makes right," no longer applies.

Enjoy your jungle. The rest of us are going to have a society instead.

Posted by: Cimourdain | November 13, 2009 2:42 PM

Matt, is there some way you can drop me your email addy privately? I have some materials and links you might be interested in.

Copy,

By the way, the whole point of civilization--since you obviously missed it--is that fighting and clawing and struggling for survival and power, i.e., "might makes right," no longer applies.

You poor little creationist fool. Civilization is an artificial construct imposed on the cosmic process. It's not automatic, and not forever. What are you going to do, when, as now, an enemy appears who doesn't give a damn about your little speaches? How are you going to face them?

Huxley understood this. So did Darwin.

This whole thread proves my point perfectly. These twerps break out in hives at facing me - how the hell will they stand against the enemies of civilization? We all know the answer. Some'll fall, the rest will put their collars on without a fight.

Posted by: Cimourdain | November 13, 2009 2:45 PM

KG, a fool as always. It is precisely because you don't want to live under the laws of the jungle that you have to understand them.

Posted by: Cimourdain | November 13, 2009 2:47 PM

KG, a fool as always. It is precisely because you don't want to live under the laws of the jungle that you have to understand them.

Posted by: Janine The Ineffable, OM | November 13, 2009 2:54 PM

Cimourdain's message was so profound that it needed to be repeated three times to get it's awesomeness across.

Cimourdain, go read some Herbert Spencer. That would be more your speed.

Posted by: Copyleft | November 13, 2009 2:58 PM

Yes, please do hook up soon. Maybe you two could share a bunker somewhere.

Moving on to people who ARE capable of processing moral and ethical thought....

Any news from Hasan himself on what drove him to this?

Posted by: Raging Bee | November 13, 2009 3:07 PM

history is littered with ideas and civilizations that were stamped out because they didn't have the guts to fight for them.

History is also littered with ideas and civilizations that were stamped out because the people "defending" them were complete fucking idiots who had no idea what they were doing, attacked the wrong "enemies," and ended up (sometimes intentionally) destroying what they self-righteously claimed they were defending. Case in point: Nazi Germany, whose hateful ideology and fake-macho rhetoric you echo word for word. Why did they fall? Because they were ruled, and "bravely" and "manfully" "defended," by stone-cold-stupid haters who mistook intelligence for weakness and other people for animals.

Simple as that. Simple as that.

Your repetition makes you sound like just another loud-mouthed loser grousing and flexing his sagging muscles at whatever seedy redneck bar will still serve him beer. Go back to your isolated, irrelevant survivalist enclave; thre's no use for your kind here.

Posted by: Walton | November 13, 2009 3:13 PM

I believe if we kept Islamic immigration to a minimum, and kept our incursions into the Islamic world to a minimum, we will have less of these incidents.

Regardless of whether such a strategy would be effective, I believe it would be profoundly immoral.

Ultimately, the unspoken premise behind your proposal is that "we", in "our" countries, should be concerned only with protecting citizens of our own countries from the threat of terrorism. You don't seem to have much concern with the interests of those people unfortunate enough to be born in theocratic Islamic countries. Evidently, as far as you're concerned, it's just their bad luck that they weren't born Americans. And so you're quite happy to construct a wall separating "us" from "them", and deny people from the Muslim world the chance to emigrate to free democratic nations. Where is the morality in that? Why should we be concerned exclusively with the interests of our own countries, and not with the interests of those born elsewhere?

I firmly believe that nationalism is the single most harmful ideological tendency in the world today. I don't distinguish between people based on the accident of where they were born, or who their parents were, or what passport they hold, or which religion they were indoctrinated into as a child. For me, there is no "us" or "them"; just a collection of diverse individuals. Hence why I advocate (within reason) free and open immigration, universal free trade, an end to the foolish cult of "national sovereignty", and a policy of active intervention to ensure that all nations guarantee basic liberties to their citizens.

Posted by: Cimourdain | November 13, 2009 3:20 PM

Matt, hang around JihadWatch in this moniker. Or, for that matter, just look up one of Hugh FitzGerald's reading lists.

Posted by: Casey | November 13, 2009 3:33 PM

I'd imagine it's only a matter of time before the Chinese are blogging about the differences between christians and the fundamentalist southern baptist christians and the fine differences in their inclinations towards terrorism, and how the christians as a whole are not the terrorists, but just the weird fundamental sects like the baptists and LDS and those sorts.

Posted by: Copyleft | November 13, 2009 3:47 PM

Matt: No. Your assumption that his business card somehow explains Hasan's motivation for his actions is where the paranoid conjecture lies.

Posted by: Alyson Miers | November 13, 2009 3:58 PM

Matt still hasn't answered my question. It wasn't the first time I asked him how his proposal's supposed to work, and still we haven't even seen a list of countries, for starters, much less numbers or logistics.

Posted by: Matt | November 13, 2009 4:03 PM

Alyson, how about any country with more than 10% Muslim population.

We can argue an exception over India.

Or how about, any country from the Arabian Peninsula, Syria southward.

I want to start the conversation. Getting you just to ponder it is a small victory. I dont promise we'll be completely free from terrorism, but it will decrease with either of those propositions.

Posted by: Raging Bee | November 13, 2009 4:14 PM

He says so himself, I say we take him at his word.

The overwhelming preponderance of evidence, including YEARS of erratic and incompetent behavior, observed by OTHERS, indicates he was under multiple stresses and suffering from emotional problems. All of this far outweighs Hasan's own words. Furthermore, his actions are not, by any stretch, confined to Muslims -- workplace violence like this comes from all races, all ethnicities, all religions, and all socio-economic classes.

I've told you all this before, and you have completely ignored it, because you know you can't refute it. The only reason you want to "take him at his word," is that his own words are the only evidence you have to support your own nativist religious bigotry.

Posted by: Matt | November 13, 2009 4:26 PM

Raging Bee, CopyLeft, you two are laughable. If history is any guide, in the next 10 or 20 years we'll see some whack job Xtian murder an abortion provider. I'll check back to this blog and expect to see you two defending him till the end, denying the words he will no doubt have spoken about abortion being a crime against god, and telling us all about his other 'erratic' and 'incompetent' behavior which exculpates Christianity as motivation. I cant wait.

Incompetence? Come on, a man cant be both an incompetent psychiatrist and a terrorist? Lie down a while, you must be sore from all the contortions.

Posted by: Matt | November 13, 2009 4:40 PM

I'd be interested in hearing how you think unwarranted and clearly religiously biased immigration policies would keep from radicalizing current US Muslim citizens at a greater rate than we've seen in the past.

Great Zod, Paul, such sense, such reason. And then, that last statement. Did you mean the irony? Please say yes. Lie to me.

Two problems: 1, that you think American policy should hinge on what does and does not radicalize American Muslim citizens. This is obvious madness. You admit we are being blackmailed, and you dont much seem to care.

and 2, that American Muslims will, just as you say, radicalize if American policy is not sufficiently kind towards Islam. Again, what does nationality mean if not loyalty to ones country? I thought thats why they immigrated in the first place? Dont tell me you are so up in arms over preserving immigration, but you dont believe in Patriotism. Cant have it both ways, Paul.

Fact, all immigration policy is necessarily limiting. If you accept immigration policy, you accept limits. Recognizing the geopolitical situation and tailoring our policy to that reality seems perfectly reasonable. It has the advantages of being cheap, effective against terrorism (see Israel's wall), not murderous, and flexible. When Islam goes through this wonderful enlightenment and gets on with reading Voltaire and the Bard and all the rest, we can change it back.

Posted by: Knockgoats | November 13, 2009 4:59 PM

Huxley understood this. So did Darwin - Cimourdain

Huxley, admirable though he was as a scientist, also advocated the extermination of the Australian Aborigines. Darwin, while liberal for his time, was in our terms a racist, sexist oligarch. I can see how they'd be political heroes to you, Cimourdain. Some of us, however, have progressed a bit morally and politically, not to mention scientifically, since the mid-19th century.

Posted by: Matt | November 13, 2009 5:15 PM

I'd be interested in hearing how you think unwarranted and clearly religiously biased immigration policies would keep from radicalizing current US Muslim citizens at a greater rate than we've seen in the past.

Im repeating your words, not mine, again because they demonstrate that you understand my point: There is some quotient of American Muslims that will radicalize if we arent nice enough to their respective culture.

You believe, not I, that if we were to modify our immigration policy against Muslim immigrants, that some Muslims in America would radicalize. And yet you want more of these folks in our country, thereby increasing said radical quotient.

Lets try it your way. Tell me, since you seem to understand what ticks off the radical mindset, what other policies might America avoid if we dont want to be killed by our own Islamic American citizens?

Posted by: Paul | November 13, 2009 5:36 PM

Im repeating your words, not mine, again because they demonstrate that you understand my point: There is some quotient of American Muslims that will radicalize if we arent nice enough to their respective culture.

The "putting words in my mouth" was saying I think our policy should be formed based on "blackmail". The only thing I was doing with the statement you responded to was pointing out an easy to picture side effect, to ask how your obviously well-thought out immigration proposal was going to deal with the possibility. You know, because the Bush "act first, think later" approach to military and foreign relations decisions hasn't put us in a good position.

And yet you want more of these folks in our country, thereby increasing said radical quotient.

Once again, putting words in my mouth. What I want is not the point. I want a pony. I want everyone to be atheist (or perhaps agnostic or deist, just trying to minimize delusional beliefs). But that doesn't mean I think those things make good law or foreign policy.

Lets try it your way. Tell me, since you seem to understand what ticks off the radical mindset, what other policies might America avoid if we dont want to be killed by our own Islamic American citizens?

We could stop by not unilaterally invading countries for oil. We could stop the Evangelicals from making our Army appear to be a Christian Crusade. We could actually enforce the rules against military troops bringing Bibles to hand out to Arabs, with stricter punishments than just sending the Bibles back. We could stop bombing civilians. We can get rid of mercenaries that antagonize and kill Iraqis with no provocation. We can treat Arab countries as sovereign nations, and not decide to topple their regimes and install dictators as we have in the past.

And we could avoid making laws or foreign policy decisions that unjustly discriminate against one specific religion, implying that anyone that is Muslim is our enemy and cannot be trusted. I'm not the one seriously acting like that is a workable policy proposal, so your condescension is quite misplaced.

Posted by: Matt | November 13, 2009 5:52 PM

Paul, you think they bomb us because the military hands out bibles?

Does the Israeli military hand out the Torah?

"There is plenty we can do to clean up our own house that would remove sources of radicalization"

On this, loosely speaking, we agree. Let us clean up our own house indeed, or at least not welcome any more 'sources of radicalization' into it.

Posted by: Alyson Miers | November 13, 2009 7:15 PM

and 2, that American Muslims will, just as you say, radicalize if American policy is not sufficiently kind towards Islam. Again, what does nationality mean if not loyalty to ones country? I thought thats why they immigrated in the first place? Dont tell me you are so up in arms over preserving immigration, but you dont believe in Patriotism. Cant have it both ways, Paul.

Fact, all immigration policy is necessarily limiting. If you accept immigration policy, you accept limits. Recognizing the geopolitical situation and tailoring our policy to that reality seems perfectly reasonable.

I was going to ask, "Again, which one is it?" but now I think I understand. At least, I think I understand better than I did before.

At first I was going to point out the contradiction: first you tell us the Evil Muslims are going to come in here in ever-greater numbers and take the place over, and that's why we need to keep all Muslims and their fellow nationals (or maybe it's just Arabian peninsula natives, who knows?) the heck out. Then you say they must be loyal to America if they've already immigrated here. First you say we can't let the radicals blackmail us. Then later you say, in the same post, that we need to recognize the geopolitical situation and respond accordingly, not morally. I was going to ask: so which one is it? Do we take a stand against blackmail, or do we respond pragmatically to the geopolitical reality? Do we act without regard to the American Muslims who might become radicalized, or do they pose a threat to our way of life? Which one is it?

Nidal Malik Hasan wasn't an immigrant; he was born in the USA and served in our military, and he still went on a shooting spree. I think his issues were an interaction of religion and mental illness, rather than just one or the other, but the point is, he's lived here all his life, and you seem to be under the impression that we're going to see the same thing happen a lot more often in the near future.

But now I think I get it: you apparently think that American public policy exists in a geopolitical vacuum, and that Muslims hate us just because they hate us, regardless of how we behave towards the rest of the world. You seem to think that if American Muslims become radicalized, it has everything to do with Islam being toxic and absolutely nothing to do with the environment in which they live. You argue as if Muslims living in secular countries behave in ways that have nothing to do with their environments. You make it sound like Christian or secular Europeans are hostile to Muslims because they refuse to assimilate, but never the other way around. Or, maybe, that countries' policies only have an effect on foreigners' attitudes towards them when said countries are doing things you've already decided you don't like. But apparently you think the rest of the world won't think any differently of us if we rewrite our immigration policy to be outwardly discriminatory towards Muslims and their fellow nationals, much less will people already living here start thinking any differently.

I wanted to hear you explain your "keep out the Muslims" proposal because I thought that if I saw you spell it out, that I would see how you might think such a plan would be plausible in preventing further terrorism on American soil. But now I see we have no common ground. So, actually, I won't bother waiting for you to explain why India gets an exception, or to specify whether the blacklist would be just the Arabian peninsula from Syria and further south, or every country with at least 10% Muslim population, and I won't bother asking how you'd intend to keep out Muslim immigrants using forged papers from neighboring, non-blacklisted countries. I'm with Paul; this is going nowhere.

Posted by: skeptifem | November 14, 2009 2:57 AM

What a silly discussion. Of course more "terrorism" comes from muslims, the us has defined terrorism as what they do. What we do to other countries is never called the same thing, though it would be difficult to find a meaningful distinction between the two. This conversation never comes up when terrorism is mentioned, and it is a true example of how brainwashed most people are by the terminology of the media& politicians.