Ft Hood was a tragedy...but worse if political correctness suffers

When the Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama offers condolences today to those grieving families at Ft. Hood, will he reinterate General Casey's comments to George Stepahanopolous when asked how the Army is handling a possible backlash against Muslims within its ranks?

CASEY: Again, I think that's something else we need to be very careful about, and I think the speculation could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here. And it's not just about Muslims. We have a very diverse army. We have a very diverse society.

Comments

[Dennis C. Ryan.]

"Cultural diversity" and "multi-culturism"
as philosophies are, unfortunately, chiefly supported by people with little or no understanding of those other cultures.
Such people mistakenly believe that "all people are alike." Yes, we generally are born with two hands, two feet, two eyes, a nose, a mouth and a brain. But, what's in the brain is the most important variable, and that is where "culture" resides. And, not all cultures think the same, nor do they practice the same ways of life.
To understand any culture, one must understand it's historical background, and the beliefs that stem from that background.
From my college experience majoring in
history, those people preaching "multi-culturism" were the same ones who studied sociology and psychology but never took a history class, calling history "irrelevant in these modern times."
To those I repeat the famous quote:
"Those who disregard history are doomed to repeat it."

[PeteSpeer]

of all the direct first person reports here is the best one (Mother Jones is not my usual source choice, but the letter from an Army man who lived through the shooting rings true.

www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/11/fort-hood-letter

The American Family Association Director of Issues Analysis proposes no more Muslims in the military

http://action.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147489388

An opposing point of view is contained here.

http://action.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147489434

I come down firmly on the side of the second post

[Illinois Patriot]

Dennis,
WELL SAID!

[spintreebob]

What is the purpose of the military?
- To be a killing and intimidating machine?
- To be a diplomatic corp or Peace Corp?
- To be a grand social engineering experiment?
- To reflect the political correctness du jour?

For society in general,
- should a person be judged by the content of his character? Or by his identity group membership?

And what should standards shall we set?
- A person is presumed innocent til proven guilty.
- But membership in the military has zero to do with innocence. What is good for the military is the sole criteria.

Clearly the terrorist Army Major should have been kicked out of the Army not due to his identity group, but due to his expressed character defects and lack of value to the Army. This could be compared to the alcoholics in the Army whose behavior is also detrimental to the Army. Let them drink on their own dime. But not on my dime.

[PeteSpeer]

As a retired intelligence officer, the information coming out

1. He had his college and medial school paid for under an Army scholarship and was just working off his service obligation.

2. An intelligence agency had communications (telephone and or computer on line) intercepts of his contact with terrorists

concerns me. There appears once again to have bneen a failure to communicate. And if there had been xome bean counter decided that regardless of item 2 above, Hassan owed the service time and would have to serve it.

[spintreebob]

It has been reported that Hassan's opinions were well known as he voiced them publicly often. For example, he represented the Army at a DHS seminar on domestic terrorism and supported and justified terrorism in open debate at that seminar.

His applications to reverse orders to go to Iraq, and for early discharge from the Army in which he offered to repay the Army for his education as is commonly done ... those applications reportedly cited his support of the extremists as arguments for the applications to be approved.

There was no need for a wiretap to find out how he felt.