U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan will be recalled as the officer-turned-terrorist who is currently charged with 13 counts of murder and 32 counts of attempted murder after opening fire at Fort Hood, Texas.
The recommendations of the Senate committee overseeing what happened at Fort Hood? Improve the Defense Department’s training and policies, so as not to overlook the “radicalization” of individuals such as Major Nidal Hasan, as Congressional Quarterly reports:
“Our painful conclusion is that the Fort Hood massacre could have and should have been prevented,” Lieberman said at a news conference. The evidence, Lieberman said, “shouts out, ‘Stop this guy before he kills someone.’”
The report recommends that the Department of Defense improve its training and policies to directly address radical Islam.
“It is clear from this failure that DoD lacks the institutional culture, through updated policies and training, sufficient to inform commanders and all levels of service members how to identify radicalization to violent Islamist extremism and to distinguish this ideology from the peaceful practice of Islam,” the executive summary states.
This strikes at the question as to whether or not a “peaceful practice of Islam” can be separated from a “radical Islam” exhibited by Hasan.
Much has been made about Islam being “the religion of peace” while its most prominent voices advocate for the implementation of shariah in Muslim enclaves, the most recent graphic example ofIslamic shariah being implemented upon a 14 year old girl, who had been raped by her cousin. The penalty for this adultery? Flogging… not as punishment for the rapist, but for the 14 year old victim:
Hena Begum was sentenced to receive 100 lashes by a village council made up of elders and Muslim clerics in the district of Shariatpur, about 35 miles from the capital, Dhaka, the BBC said today.
She endured about 80 lashes before collapsing Monday, according to The Daily Star, a Bangladeshi newspaper. Her family took her to a hospital, where she died.
"What sort of justice is this? My daughter has been beaten to death in the name of justice. If it had been a proper court then my daughter would not have died," Dorbesh Khan, the girl's father, told the BBC.
Yet it was in a shariah court where this so-called “justice” was meted out, and a young girl’s life snuffed out based on a legal system totally alien both to justice and to the West. Radical? Most certainly.
Recently, the Pew Research Center polled the Egyptian public on their thoughts on democracy and the implementation of shariah law in their own country. Egypt has often been held up as the last hope of any chance for an emergence of a more moderate, tolerant form of Islam.
What did this survey say? 59% of Egyptians want to see a democracy, while a mere 22% oppose. But what sort of shape will this democracy take? Some of the numbers are quite chilling:
95%: Say it’s good that Islam plays a large role in politics
85%: Say Islam’s influence on politics is good
54%: Believe men and women should be segregated in the workplace
82%: Believe adulterers should be stoned
84%: Believe apostates from Islam should face the death penalty
77%: Believe thieves should be flogged or have their hands cut off
Back in 2006, the Bush administration pressured Israel to hold elections inside the Palestinian Authority. The elections were held, and the terrorist organization HAMAS -- in the tradition of Muslim paramilitary political parties such as Hezbollah -- won the elections in the Gaza Strip. Thus did the transition from authoritarianism to democracy end with the imposition of an Islamic regime with no love for either democratic rule or Western values.
What the Israelis learned is what the Lebanese just recently learned months ago with Hezbollah formally dissolving the government, and what the Egyptian government is learning today. For Islam, there is no moderation. There is no middle ground. There is no peace… until every government submits to Islamic shariah law.
In the Western tradition, the rule of law presides over our affairs. Adulterers are not stoned, rapists (and not their victims) are punished, thieves restore what they have taken away and pay a debt to society. Those who abandon one faith to pursue another -- or none at all -- are not put to death.
Yet a full three-fourths or better of Egyptian society -- held up as the most moderate of nations where Islam holds sway -- believe the opposite.
At the end of the day, the response will consist of either a secularist lowest common denominator, or an assertion of the Judeo-Christian ethic that has kept America free since the first boots pressed into the sands at Jamestown. It is, as authors such as George Weigel profess, the choice between the Cube or the Cathedral.
Accommodation… or resistance? Make no mistake. With Islam comes shariah, and with Islamic law comes violence. What the Hasans of the world say with their actions is that there is no “moderate” Islam -- they are in a fight to the death with Western culture, values, and civilization.
Accommodation… or resistance? Make no mistake. With Islam comes shariah, and with Islamic law comes violence. What the Hasans of the world say with their actions is that there is no “moderate” Islam -- they are in a fight to the death with Western culture, values, and civilization.
The answer isn’t better training or policies, as the Senate panel suggests, but understanding the challenge we must meet. The sooner we realize this, the better chance we have at answering Islam.
