Victor Davis Hanson notes our societal attitude about Moslems and terrorism:
…The society at large, driven by the sermonizing of its elites, has come to an unstated conclusion that, unfortunately, a few Americans will have to be sacrificed from time to time, for the larger goal of establishing the fact that Americans in no way think Muslims are any more likely than any others to commit either random or premeditated terrorist violence. I think that is the initial lesson of Fort Hood. (I remember something similar from the 1980s and 1990s, when we accepted that to be a diplomat or a soldier stationed in the Middle East or Africa or anywhere in the Muslim world meant that there was some chance that your barracks, camp, hotel, embassy, or ship would be attacked — and very little chance that the U.S. government would do much in response other than launch an occasional ineffectual cruise missile or offer a bombastic “this will not stand” speech.)
If the lone-wolf incidents start happening ten times a year, rather than three or four, and if one or two terrorist plots succeed and result in several hundred killed, then attitudes may change (at least for a while).
This seems to be it. I know Moslems – good, decent people who offer no threat at all; but what we are actually doing is transposing our view of these decent people on those who are hate-filled and always just an instant away from going on a personal Jihad. While I am distressed to think that patriotic, law-abiding American Moslems will have to be discomforted, I believe that we must do it. We don’t want an “acceptable level of violence”. I don’t want to bow down before Political Correctness on a pile of innocent, American corpses. I’d rather offend than attend funerals.
And, in truth, patriotic Moslems should be eagerly seeking such scrutiny – and they should be making loud, bold statements of loyalty to the United States and disdain for people who murder in the name of Islam. The fact that such actions are rarely – if at all – seen after incidents of Islamic terrorism is in itself disturbing. And it may be indicative of a fear in the Moslem population – fear that if they speak out, they’ll be the next victims of the Islamists; fear that we, their fellow Americans, won’t protect them from the radical Islamists who pour hatred in to our midst.
We must start treating radical Islam as a subversive element in our society – an internal enemy which must be rooted out. They are trying to overthrow our government and, indeed, our entire way of life. This is the United States of America. We are a Judeo-Christian nation. We are part of Western civilization. We welcome all who come here – but if you are to live in the United States of America, you’ll have to live as an American. This means, at a minimum, you never seek, advocate, justify or even mildly excuse violence against your fellow Americans. And if you are a member of a group which is routinely producing people who violate this basic trust, then you’ll have to accept a certain level of inconvenience as we attempt to separate the good from the bad.
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