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Both Political and Correct

by Scott H. Payne

I hesitate to even write this post, in all honesty. I fear that we’re still too close to the set of events and too much remains unknown for us to be able to have a clear and grounded and constructive conversation about what happened at Fort Hood. In retrospect, I feel like posting on the shootings as quickly as I did was a mistake, even if my intentions were honourable.

But over the weekend, I heard something that I think requires some push back and rebuttal. And in providing that push back, I am hopeful that we can resist the impulse to descend into the kind of ugliness that often attends these discussions.

On the November 13 Week in the News segment of On Point, host Tom Ashbrook and guests Ellen Goodman, David Gergen, and Jack Beatty continued to discuss, among other things, Nidal Malik Hasan and the shootings at Fort Hood. During the course of that conversation, David Gergen said roughly the following (I paraphrase only slightly),

While it might true that right wing radio has been quick to jump on calling Hasan’s actions terrorism, I don’t understand why the left is so hesitant to call them acts of terrorism.

Now, off the top, I think we need to jettison the suggested dichotomy that the “right” is universally for calling Hasan’s acts terrorism and the “left” is universally opposed to the proposed labeling. Things just don’t break down that cleanly anymore, if they ever did. The fact of the matter is that a clear majority of Americans believe that Hasan’s acts constitute terrorism and want them investigated as such.

That being said, I think there are good reasons for remaining hesitant about calling Hasan’s actions terrorism, which lie outside of the general throw away explanation of “political correctness” that we’ve heard so much about. It may well be that Hasan’s actions were acts of terrorism and if so they should be labeled as such, but the reality is that at this point we remain in a state of conjecture about the matter. But I think we would do well to look at the context around the use of terms like “terrorism”, “Islamofascist/ism”, and “jihad” to understand why a certain subset of the political class is wary about their use. [Read more →]

November 16, 2009   21 Comments

Leave It To NRO…

by Scott H. Payne

And Andy McArthy not to fan any flames in the wake of brutal attacks. McArthy pushes,
First, the question on everyone’s mind, the 800 pound gorilla in the middle of the room that we are supposed to ignore or be ostrasized from polite society is:  Was the gunman (or gunmen) Muslim?  Under the circumstances of the war against us by Islamist terrorists, it is bizarre that this perfectly natural question can’t be asked.
[Read more →]

November 5, 2009   87 Comments

Shooting at Ft. Hood Army Base

by E.D. Kain

The numbers of dead and wounded are different according to the source, but it looks like American soldiers opened fire on other soldiers at a Texas Army base.  According to the New York Times: [Read more →]

November 5, 2009   2 Comments

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