from Israel My Glory, Volume 68, Number 1
Learning the Hard Way
January/February 2010 Editorial
by Elwood McQuaid
Most ordinary people laugh
off as silliness much of
what has become known
as political correctness. But in the
aftermath of Maj. Nidal Hasan’s
brutal attack on military personnel
at Fort Hood, Texas, in November,
they have stopped laughing and
started questioning the political correctness
that dodges the real issue
of Islamic terrorism.
Politicians, reporters, and military
personnel quickly made Hasan the
victim of multiple disorders, pretraumatic
stress, emotional problems, and
harassment because he is a Muslim.
He definitely, they said, did not commit
an act of calculated terrorism.
Yet a clear pattern in Hasan’s life
preceded the massacre. Middle East
expert Daniel Pipes, in an article on
political correctness, gave more
than a dozen instances of radical
Muslim attacks in America and
elsewhere that were passed off as
being anything but Islamist terrorism.
U.S. Army Chief of Staff
General George W. Casey Jr. almost
immediately expressed concern that
speculation about Hasan’s religious
beliefs could cause a backlash
against other Muslim soldiers.
And while all thinking Americans
are concerned that law-abiding
Muslim citizens not be stigmatized
by radical elements, facts are facts.
As long as terrorism threatens our
safety, it must be understood and
exposed by all, not swept under
the rug.
Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (ret.) called the army’s handling of the case “unforgivable political correctness” that will officially ascribe Hasan’s assault to his so-called victimization, leaving jihad unmentioned. That move could be a prescription
for disaster.
Because the attack occurred in the
United States, the man who murdered
in the name of Allah will
receive every protection. The reason
being that we are a free, democratic
society in which the right to a fair
trial––no matter how obvious the
evidence of guilt––is a sacred trust
under our Constitution. That is
America, where the sanctity of life is
the model upon which our system
has flourished. There is no honor in
killing innocents in the name of religion
or, for that matter, in the name
of social or personal convenience.
Unfortunately, the same cannot
be said for many other societies,
particularly those that persecute
and kill Christians regularly. Why?
Because the same warped mindset
that justifies leaping on a table
yelling “Allahu Akbar!” and firing a
hail of bullets at unarmed people is
seen by the majority as an honorable,
even heroic, act.
So the relevant question becomes,
“Why are many of our leaders so
reticent to acknowledge the obvious
distinctions between violent,
radical fanaticism and orderly
forms of moral and civil deportment?”
It’s infantile to believe
changing the semantics will alter
the circumstances by which international
terrorists conduct themselves.
Retreading such terms as
global war on terror and jihad to
depict something nuanced and
more benign does not alter the
reality of what is taking place.
America and the West suffer
from debilitating denial. They are
much like children who cover their
eyes believing they can wish away
a bad storm by not looking at it.
But in this storm people are dying,
and millions more stand precariously
in the crosshairs of the bin
Ladins of the terrorist-criminal
netherworld. The cold facts are
that self-imposed denial and inaction
can get countless people killed
and bring down nations.
Babylon’s ancient monarch
Belshazzar provides a classic example.
With the Medo-Persian army at
the gates of the great city, the
descendant of the illustrious King
Nebuchadnezzar decided to throw
a party––to play rather than pray
or prepare a military defense. He
and his guests felt secure in their
raucous distraction, a form of dissipated
denial, when God’s words
on a wall broke up the festivities:
“Weighed in the balances, and
found wanting” (Dan. 5:27).
Those words were an epitaph, not
an endorsement. Before the night
was out, the king was dead and the
kingdom was lost. Mighty Babylon
had fallen, which proves you can
play the word game and manipulate
reality any way you choose. But danger
is danger, death is death, and
defeat begets servitude.
A well-known pastor recently
issued an impassioned call for
Christians to wake up before it’s too
late. In view of the Western church’s
current drift into emergent complicity
and its alignment with the spiritually
and morally corrupt forces in
America, his words sounded like
those of the prophets of old. But one
wonders, “Is anyone listening?” Or
have we all gone to the party?
|