It’s Mainstreamism, Not Extremism

At the Daily Standard blog, FDD's Tom Joscelyn is doing his usual stellar work, this time detailing the FBI's shocking lapses in the failure to investigate Nidal Hasan. See Tom's posts here and here.

In particular, I want to highlight the blog written by Anwar al-Awlaki, the al-Qaeda recruiter who ministered to two of the 9/11 hijackers and whose numerous communications with Hasan were dismissed by the Bureau as insignificant. As Tom recounted, on Monday, “Awlaki posted a blog entry titled 'Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing' on his web site. In the post, Awlaki calls Hasan a 'hero.' Awlaki writes:

“[Hasan] is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush aside and just pretend that it doesn't exist. Any decent Muslim cannot live, understanding properly his duties towards his Creator and his fellow Muslims, and yet serve as a US soldier. The US is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam. Its army is directly invading two Muslim countries and indirectly occupying the rest through its stooges. Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.”

Our inclination is to dismiss this as fringe “extremism.” In fact, it is mainstreamism. As I pointed out in yesterday's column and last evening's post, the positions that Muslims must not take up arms against other Muslims as part of an infidel military force, that infidel armies occupying Islamic countries must be expelled by force, and that Muslims should not serve in the U.S. military or perform civilian services that support the U.S. military's missions in Islamic countries, are widely accepted by Muslims in the United States and overseas.

The rote government response is to point out, mulishly, that there are many Muslims honorably serving in the U.S. armed forces. This is absolutely true but utterly beside the point. And no institution should know that better than the U.S. armed forces, which – on the rationale of force effectiveness, cohesion, and protection – exclude homosexuals from serving despite the fact that the vast majorty of homosexuals would serve honorably, as do those who serve now.

The honorable service of many Muslims does not alter the reality that there is enormous pressure on Muslim soldiers, from their religious authorities, to sabotage American military operations. Hasan's massacre of his fellow soldiers is the worst incident we've seen, but it's hardly an isolated incident. Given the slavish political correctness about Islam to which government officials from President Obama to the FBI to Generals Casey and McChrystal are beholden, there is grave reason to fear that the obvious peril to our troops has not been addressed any better than the obvious peril to our nation.