Link for atimes.com : atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KK14Ak02.html
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While the Obama administration is "bending over backwards" to prevent an anti-Muslim backlash following the Fort Hood shootings, the dumb and dumber elements of the US right wing are bending over forwards to label the massacre an act of Muslim terrorism.
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”Such [administration] statements are an affront to most Americans' intelligence, which common-sensically applies a prosaic form of the scientific method: they look for the explanation that best fits the facts. The facts - which are becoming ever more numerous by the day - are that the purported perpetrator of these crimes, Army Maj Nidal Malik Hasan, is 'a devout Muslim' who, as such, has had to follow at least since 2001 the dictates of the theo-political-legal and seditious program that authoritative Islam calls Shariah.” - Center for Security Policy president Frank Gaffney, writing in the Rev Moon's Washington Times.
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Common-sensical, scientific Mr Gaffney is clearly just the man to dictate US security policy. The facts prove that all Muslims are killers, and so he declares war on them, including 2.4 million people in his own country and 25% percent of the world's population.
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Way to go, Frank! We won't stand for affronts to our intelligence, and will bend over again to receive more kicks in our already severely bruised backsides. Congratulations too on getting the words "intelligence", "common-sensically", "prosaic", "scientific", "explanation", and "facts" into one sentence, which proves how smart you are. Oh, and "ever more numerous by the day": such bravery in the face of the anti-tautology onslaught!
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And to those stinking un-American Islamophiles who might carp that facts are facts and cannot become more or less numerous by the day, we join you in affirming that the facts are what we say they are.

"The facts prove that all Muslims are killers." Is that what Gaffney said? Let's watch our attributions. Nobody (or at least civilized people) like terrorists. I'll betcha that Muslims in general (disregarding jihad creeps) don't care for Major Hasan.

Gaffney's "explanation that best fits the facts" is that Hassan killed because he is a devout Muslim. Ergo, all devout Muslims are [potential] killers.

Put differently, according to Gaffney it is a tenet of the Muslim faith that jihad must be waged and that this requires killing unbelievers. The logic of his "scientific" explanation leads directly to the conclusion that all devout Muslims are [potential - in fact, should be] killers.

Of course, he cannot come out openly with such a stupid and scurrilous statement, but this is the message he is attempting to purvey.

Now, JtM, please explain how anything I've written in this thread makes me an "apologist for Muslim terrorism". Evidently, in your mind, Hassan's rampage was driven by his Muslim faith - it is a clear case of "Muslim terrorism". However, there is no hard evidence for this, and such a conclusion cannot be reached unless you belong in Gaffney's camp. It may well be that it was a case of Muslim terrorism, but it's not proven yet unless your and Gaffney's massive leap of non-logic constitutes proof.

"Devout Muslims" vs "all Muslims" - I'm making a note to myself that any time on The Edge we see the adjective "devout" we may assume that the writer really means "all," if by doing so it bolsters our argument. Logic be damned.

"Evidently, in your mind, Hassan's rampage was driven by his Muslim faith." Based on what "evidence?" That I stated that "Nobody (or at least civilized people) like [sic] terrorists?" Or because I stated that "I'll betcha that Muslims in general (disregarding jihad creeps) don't care for Major Hasan?" My guess is that what set Hasan off was his resentment at his mother for having given birth to him.

Jim the Moron wrote:
"Evidently, in your mind, Hassan's rampage was driven by his Muslim faith." Based on what "evidence?"

The evidence is that you have termed Hassan's act "Muslim terrorism" by labelling me as an "apologist for Muslim terrorism". If it were not so, the title of your first post would be meaningless. Hassan's act would not be an act of Muslim terrorism if it were not driven by his faith, otherwise every criminal act by anybody of any faith could be called Christian/Jewish/Buddhist etc terrorism.

My question to you is, what is your evidence that this was an act of Muslim terrorism? The same "evidence" as Gaffney's - ie, the mere fact that he is a devout Muslim?

Once again, please explain your labelling me as an "apologist for Muslim terrorism".

Actually, I did not use the term "Muslim terrorism." I used the term "Muslim terrorists." They're not the same. Hasan was evidently a Muslim, and a terrorist, and committed an indefensible act. I have no idea why he committed that act of terrorism, the "mother" theory notwithstanding. I never said that he was "driven by his faith."

Jim the Moron wrote:
I have no idea why he committed that act of terrorism ... I never said that he was "driven by his faith."

Well then, as you have no idea what drove his act, you cannot call it an act of terrorism either. A killing spree, whether sane and deliberate, or insane, is not automatically "terrorism", unless the term has become completely meaningless and Jack the Ripper can also be called a terrorist. "Terrorism" is defined by its motive, and by your own admission, you don't know what the motive was.

Yet you (apparently) chose to link the ideas of "Muslim" and "terror". Hassan was other things besides being Muslim: he was a soldier and an American, but you did not call him an "American military terrorist". Furthermore, your linkage of those ideas was used to denigrate me by implying I am an "apologist for Muslim terrorists".

But perhaps you did not deliberately choose to link the ideas of "Muslim" and "terror". Perhaps the two ideas are automatically linked in your mind. In which case, you should think hard before branding other people, as you have done with gay abandon on this forum, as "anti-Semitic" and "racist", for fear that similar charges might be levelled against you.

Finally, your splitting the hairs of "terrorists" and "terrorism" holds no water. Hassan is a Muslim and a terrorist, you write. Even if that were accurate, you used the term "terrorists" plural, implying that I am an apologist for all or many Muslim terrorists, which equates to Muslim terrorism.

Please feel free to apologise or to restate your position more carefully, thoughtfully, and honestly.


"Propaganda is neutrally defined as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels." — Richard Alan Nelson, A Chronology and Glossary of Propaganda in the United States, 1996

To paraphrase a US Supreme Court justice speaking on another subject - I can't define terrorism but I know it when I see it. And no doubt "the ideas of [Muslim & terror] are automatically linked" in my mind. Wonder why. Could it be? Could it be that the events of the last 10 years have led me down that path?

Maybe it will be shown that Hasan was just another mouthbreathing cutthroat Muslim terrorist killing innocents for Allah. They're a dime-a-dozen. But in the meantime I'll cling to my fantasy that he was a self-hating terrorist who happened to be Muslim.

I've accepted in advance your apologies for distorting Gaffney's views, and for misstating my comments to suit your points-of-view.

Terrorism is reserved for attacks on civilians or military personnel during peace time. The US is currently in the Drug War, the War on Terror, the war in Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan. The Fort Hood incident was not terrorism! It was WAR! Americans are such whiners. You go to war, you lose some people. You don't like it, don't invade other countries. The days of having your cake and getting to eat it will soon be over for the USA, it will take some time for the American population to come to grips with this new reality. As an ex-pat, it is sad to see America slide so far down.

I may have missed it, but I have not yet seen any any evidence that it was an act of either war or terror. That's not to say it wasn't. But meanwhile it could have been any number of things, such as an act of temporary or permanent insanity.

In the movie Full Metal Jacket (I think) a crazed recruit shoots his sergeant major. In real life in Vietnam, soldiers "fragged" their officers. There has been at least one recent major incident I can recall in which a non-Muslim US soldier turned his gun on his comrades. None of these were called acts of war or terrorism, and they were not, they were acts of murder.

In the absence of evidence to the contrary, Hassan's act was also an act of murder, unless all "devout" (that's for your benefit, Jim) Muslims are by definition terrorists when they kill somebody.