Major Nidal Hasan and the Killing at Fort Hood, Texas

Bahu Virupaksha

Join Date 09/2004

Major Nidal Hasan and the Killing at Fort Hood, Texas

Identity based politics leads to crime

The horrific incident at Fort Hood, Texas, should come as a wake up call to all those in the American academia who promote identity based politics:Gays, lesbians, minority, sexual preference, etc etc. Now the Muslim identity is becoming increasingly problematic in the USA and I believe that years and years of promoting identity politics has left the country without the means of even admitting to itself that the islamic identity clashes head long with that of a secular nation state. The US media is already concluding that Major Hassan's crime does in no way reflect upon the patriotism of the Muslim-American population. May be so. My point is that the growing alienation of the Muslims from the mainstream of western collective life is contibuting to the sense of unease and the killings in Fort Hood stems from that feeling of unease.

Let me at the very out set condemn in the strongest possible manner the violence against the armymen and women at Fort Hood. My point is not to justify the crime but to say why it happened. Major Nidal by all accounts was being radicalised and his peers at Walter Reed had drawn attention to a presentation he made in which he seems to have justified suicide bombings. If thiswas indeed the case why did the Army not pay any attention. The practice of identity based sensitivity forced the authorities to turn a blind eye to the increasing radicalisation of one of their own. In a conflict between secular law and identity based fith based customs the Army must enforce the secular law and in the name of minority rights it cannot permit the radicalisation of its members.

Major Nidal seem,s to have been harassed for his muslim beliefs and humiliated for praticing his religion. By the same token, if an armyman or woman is humiliated the authorities concerned must make a full and complete inquiry and set right the fraying human relations. This is absolutely essential in a heterogenous army.

Finally, it would be a good idea not to deploy Muslims in the Army to serve in Irq and Afghanistan as they would have to fight fellow muslims. Secularists may not understand this, but practicing Muslims put faith above politics and the State.

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Duh Leauki. There are numerous examples throughout history to show that religion has been used as carte blanche to murder unarmed people. If those actions were true to religion or not doesn't really change the facts for me - because it had been sanctioned in the name of religion at the time and the people committing those acts had believed it. Right now I am thinking about the crusades (an obvious example) and more specifically against the Katharer/Albigenser in South France.

People are always bring up the crusades. Why not look at Pagans and see what they did. Let's see here are few good ones Tiberias yes yes and an even BETTER ONE is Caligula (most historians now are saying either he was an athetist or thought he himself was the god of gods)

The point here is that people are still people they do violent stuff whether under the guise of religion or not. There are just as many pagans, polytheist, and atheist to bring to the table.

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Leauki, I do no such thing. You mean that religion exists independantly from humans and that evil committed in the name of religion has nothing to do with religion. I have problems with that dichotomy and with religion in general because of that.

Evil as you call it is not very clear cut. I can come up with alot of examples, prominent and not so prominent, to show those pesky grey areas. Someone believes he does the right thing because "God wills it" (Deus vult - battlecry of crusaders), does that make him evil? Someone tortures a prisoner to find out what he planned in order to save lifes - evil, not evil? It gets murky pretty fast and the question seems to revovle around the lesser evil pretty quickly.

Utemia, my point to the discussion was you need to get the root cause. The root cause is in their holy texts for some of these show how Muhammad lived.

Yes, I got that. But then Hasan's cultural/religious identity is not the norm for american muslims in general or you would be building internation camps rather quickly to contain the threat - sort of like what happened with the Japanese in the US during WW2.

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People are always bring up the crusades. Why not look at Pagans and see what they did.

Because there were never Hollywood movies about Pagans (except those old sword and sandal ones like Ben Hur), and they had no figures like Richard Lionheart, Saladin or the order of the Templar Knights to make them immortal. Very bluntly, the crusades are sexy, they are controversial, and touch both christian and islamic history, and everybody knows something about them. You have films, books, pictures, conspiracy theories like Dan Browns Da Vinci Code, it inspires peoples fantasy - it's a good story. There aren't many other events that can give you all that, even though your criticim is justified. The romans certainly have had their share of violent despots

(You forgot Nero. I always have to think about Peter Ustinov in Quo Vadis - brilliant performance.)

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Leauki,

In regards to your explanation of Leviticus and it's practical applications I agree with you 100%

I intentionally cherry-picked tidbits to "prove" that Christians and Jews are barbarians, in order to illustrate what happens when one looks at an ancient document with bias and without any understanding of historical context.

While I lay no claim to understand the complexities and nuances of the various societies and history at the time, I think one could say with certainty that the world that existed during what I call the Old Testament was indeed a very different world than we live in today.

Customs, practices, laws, socially accepted norms as well as taboos and so on and so forth. For example, committing a crime today such as theft of food will usually mean a loss of profit for a merchant but little else, whereas in a tribal bronze-age period it could put the survival of the entire community at risk and therefore have a zero-tolerance policy (death penalty) applied to it. For us to look back and consider the death penalty for something we would call minor theft and declare a society, culture or religion barbarian is doing so without looking at the historical context.

The_Peoples_Party-

I know your pain in regards to the wacky posting that sometimes happens on this site. I have enjoyed this discussion as well as the consideration of the position you have argued. I will admit that, yes, there will always be extremists in any religion or culture.

However, we run a serious risk in how we deal with extremists. If they cause such a big enough ruckus that we turn around and go after the entire religioun or culture that they claim to represent then they win, as we've effectively then radicalized the entire religion, thereby allowing them to hijack it. 9/11 was carried out by 19 men, most of whom hold beliefs that are radically in the minority of the 1.4 billion muslims on the planet. If we turn around and decide to go to war with those 1.4 billion people, we've effectively let those 19 criminals win.

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Quoting Artysim,

reply 80

Leauki,

Customs, practices, laws, socially accepted norms as well as taboos and so on and so forth. For example, committing a crime today such as theft of food will usually mean a loss of profit for a merchant but little else, whereas in a tribal bronze-age period it could put the survival of the entire community at risk and therefore have a zero-tolerance policy (death penalty) applied to it. For us to look back and consider the death penalty for something we would call minor theft and declare a society, culture or religion barbarian is doing so without looking at the historical context.

However, we run a serious risk in how we deal with extremists. If they cause such a big enough ruckus that we turn around and go after the entire religioun or culture that they claim to represent then they win, as we've effectively then radicalized the entire religion, thereby allowing them to hijack it. 9/11 was carried out by 19 men, most of whom hold beliefs that are radically in the minority of the 1.4 billion muslims on the planet. If we turn around and decide to go to war with those 1.4 billion people, we've effectively let those 19 criminals win.[/quote]

Again, Art, I want you to know I am not saying ALL muslims believe that. My main point was that if you actually look at the text I can easily see how a Muslim can come to that conclusion. Especially, when reading the Hadiths. I'm not some lepton that usually comes to point that sounds good or that is the popular trend. I tend to read and do my research. With reading and doing my research as well as living in the cultures I can see and understand how they can come to the conclusion.

Not all of them come to that conclusion for example not all Christians believe in Jesus or for that matter not all Christians believe that Jesus even existed (yes, I've met people that would say their christian but don't believe that Jesus even existed). In my brain, this does not make logical sense (why call yourself a christian?) but people don't always follow logic.

Just with hedonism and satanism, I am sure that there are things in each that people can claim are good (I find it hard to). This is why I was again going back to how Muhammad lived his life and that this is very important. Just with most Christians, how the life of Jesus according to the gospels is very important. Now, not all christians emulate Jesus (I know as a believer I want to but I fail a lot), but that is one of the main goals, emulating Jesus that is.

In conclusion, I understand what you are saying: that not all muslims are radical (believe in death to everyone that is not Muslim) and again I know that's true.

I appreciate you keeping me in check and the discussion. I enjoy having open philosophical discussions. You can ask Leauki, we've had our share of disagreements but I still enjoy conversing with him (its not just because we're both Jews. Its because we are actually both antisemtic jews, not really I couldn't resist. I need to resist those urges sometimes or learn how to use the backspace key)

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9/11 was carried out by 19 men, most of whom hold beliefs that are radically in the minority of the 1.4 billion muslims on the planet.

Is that true?

While I have no problems agreeing that those 19 men's beliefs are radically different from Islam, I am not sure that they are radically in the minority among Muslims.

Osama Bin Laden is very popular in the Arab world (as is Adolph Hitler). The terrorists are considered heroes by many.

I don't think the problem lies with Islam.

But it certainly lies with Muslims.

The entire discussion about whether Islam supports or does not support senseless murder is just a distraction.

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Slaves are entitled to days off and have to be released after a certain number of years. It is also not condoned, but merely dealt with

As far as Slavery is concerned the Catholic Church not only condoned slavery but also gave the sanction of papal bulls to it.

Giving a day off and treating slaves mercifully does not in any way reduce the trauma of slavery.I am not fond of the Arab version of slavery, the mamluk system, but I think it was not based on direct and coercive ownership. But of course, I amy be wrong as I am not an expert in Middle Eastern History.

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Giving a day off and treating slaves mercifully does not in any way reduce the trauma of slavery.

But releasing them after a few decades and making sure that their offspring are free certainly does.

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Quoting Bahu Virupaksha,

reply 83

Slaves are entitled to days off and have to be released after a certain number of years. It is also not condoned, but merely dealt with
As far as Slavery is concerned the Catholic Church not only condoned slavery but also gave the sanction of papal bulls to it.

Giving a day off and treating slaves mercifully does not in any way reduce the trauma of slavery.I am not fond of the Arab version of slavery, the mamluk system, but I think it was not based on direct and coercive ownership. But of course, I amy be wrong as I am not an expert in Middle Eastern History.

You are seeing it in the light of now-a-days and with the attitude that we have a monopoly on what is acceptable. Now, if you go back to the time that the Tanack took place and look at the surrounding nations. All of Israel's surrounding nations treated their slaves way below how they treated their slaves.

No surrounding country had the option that slave would be set free. It was for life. Also, a slave could be come an Israelie citizen once they became free. This is why G-D had them be kind to slaves 'for they were once slaves themselves' and Israel was to be a light to all nations.

Heck during the harvest season, the Israelies were only to harvest their crops once. Anything that they left or was on the ground was to be for the widows, the orpans, the poor, and the foreignors. Very few nations would ever do something like that.

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Mes think dhem Jews were onto something!

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But releasing them after a few decades and making sure that their offspring are free certainly does

Yes, but that was the infamous indenture system, not chattel slavery.

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Yes, but that was the infamous indenture system, not chattel slavery.

I described slavery as regulated by Biblical law. I don't mind what you call it.

I am not fond of the Arab version of slavery, the mamluk system, but I think it was not based on direct and coercive ownership.

The mamluk system was not the Arab version of slavery. It was an Islamic version of indentured soldiers. Their status was far above that of slaves (or even of free citizens).

The Arab version of slavery is the traditional hunt down a few black guys and own them system. Even in northern Iraq a few sheikhs still own slaves. And slavery is rampant in Mauritania and Sudan.

I wrote about the issue here:

http://citizenleauki.joeuser.com/article/344720/The_Arab_Empire_and_Slavery

You don't have to be a fanatical Zionist to notice these things, but it helps. Western liberals are very quiet about this issue.

(But they are not Anti-Semites or racists. It is the purest of coincidences that they find time to demonstrate against Israel but not to do anything at all about genocide and slavery at the hands of the people Israel is fighting.)

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I wrote about the issue here:

I will read it. Patricia Crone book Slaves and Soldiers was read years back and the who;e issue is hazy in my memory. But I will read you piece as I am interested.

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Daiwa

Join Date 07/2001

+351

Here's another very interesting article which helps explain why burying our heads in the sand is so dangerously silly when it comes to the religion of peace. Makes one wonder what it would take for us to stand our ground and insist again on intellectual honesty.

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