The Fort Hood shootings are a horrific tragedy, one for which all Americans mourn. Even if the right’s assumption that Nidal Malik Hasan was primarily motivated by Islamist ideology proves correct, however, it’s going to take a lot more such slaughters on American soil for me to feel at elevated risk of injury or death from deranged Muslims, as opposed to from other homicidal maniacs such as the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University shooters, or from garden-variety black criminals, or from a car crash. So far, the number of attacks by Muslims in this country is low (though of course Muslim representation in the population is also quite low, so perhaps on a per capita basis American Muslims engage in slaughter at a higher rate than other groups, but I tend to doubt it. The three thousand victims of 9/11 is a stupefying loss, but that vicious and cataclysmic blow is looking more and more like a highly rare event).
The right rejects singling out hate crimes for separate treatment. Yet it regards violence inspired in whole or part by Islamic resentment of the West as a far greater threat than other types of violence. The right’s fervent reaction to Islamic crime may well be a valid position: when there is ideology behind an attack, in theory that ideology can quickly breed other attacks (though the number of even remotely Islamic-related killings on U.S. soil is miniscule compared to the routine tit-for-tat chain killings by inner-city gangs). But then the “Islamic violence is different” reasoning would seem to cover hate crimes as well.
Two somewhat related points. The use of the term “tragedy” to mean “some really bad event we wish had not happened” is an intensely irritating gloss on the nature of the event in question. It was an attack. It was premeditated murder. It might be characterized by some (me) as a terrorist or jihad event. It certainly was not an accident or event derived from some sort of passive character flaw in the perpetrator. It was a willful act of destruction. A toddler drowned in a swimming pool from inattention might be a tragedy. Shooting 40-odd people while shouting the name of your god is, surely, something else.
Further, to conflate such an act with what are either random choices of victim (“other” homicidal maniacs) or with gang business crime (tit-for-tat) is also a colossal piece of obfuscation and intentional point missing.
If it’s the frequency of incidents (as you suggest) or the quantity of victims that will get your attention, you might not have long to wait. Or do you imagine that the lack of incidents since 9/11 was an accident as well? The essential point may be that such acts are more in the nature of war than they are crime at all.
muslims are ~1% of the american population by most estimates (the interval on this isn’t trivial, but we’re talking 0.5-2% as 95% confidence for sure). should be easy to do the calculations.*
* might have to correct for racial and age breakdowns of muslims. all that is available.
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While I agree that; “The right’s fervent reaction to Islamic crime may well be a valid position: when there is ideology behind an attack, in theory that ideology can quickly breed other attacks”, I think the prejudice, that is manifested in *some*, exasperates the harm to civil society.
In too many individuals a false equivication is manifested. They equate all individuals of a particular ideology (or theology), and if one follower of an ideology commits a destructive act, by this equivication, all follower are accompli.
This is the motive behind the common occurance of equivicating those of an opposing view wth Hitler.
Such false equivications are very harmful, for two reasons. First, these equivications falsely manufacture justification for hate and intolerance. This punishes those who have live civiliy. Thus creating an unecessary and destructive division in society.
Second, this pursecution is a boon for those who actually are accompli as the thirst for justice has already be satisifed by the punishment / pursecution of the innocent.
Well said Ben, and kudos for the first positive application of “Godwin’s Law” I have ever seen.
Good point by Heather on the similarity between this and hate crimes. I think one could reply that jihad has potential for much more serious destruction, though. If the 9/11 attacks had been perpetrated by homophobes, then her argument would be more convincing. But it’s an important point nevertheless.
Agreed with a commenter on the misuse of the word “tragedy”, but his example – a toddler drowning in a swimming pool – is not properly called a tragedy either. My own pet language peeve is calling the guerrilla attack at Ft. Hood “terrorism”, as practically everybody seems to be doing. If attacking soldiers on an army base is “terrorism”, then the word has lost whatever vestige of meaning it still had.
i think it is important to distinguish what happened on fort hood from the type of thing that happened on 9/11 or the recent plots/individuals exposed. this was clearly the work of someone with a lot of mental and personal problems (39 year old muslim man who isn’t married, is very introverted, attended mosque regularly but didn’t socialize, refused to have pictures taken with women, etc. etc.), while other acts of terrorism are done by individuals who are eminently balanced aside from their total lack of concern or empathy with their victims. e.g., the persons involved in 9/11 were acting out a political program, not lashing out due to personal demons.
Major Hasan’s aberrant behavior and gang behavior manifest themselves in significantly different ways. Whether it’s 9/11 or Fort Hood, the predominating connection is Islam and therefore, Koranic. Gang behavior, while often planned, is predatory-opportunistic.
Ms. MacDonald’s excellent research and subsequent articles point out that for the short term gang violence may pose a more immediate threat in the United States, while Islamic Jihad is an emerging threat. History shows us that this has been the case. However, this truth may be short lived since the professional historical revisionists scramble to scrub it from our histories so that “The Religion of Peace” is not defamed.
@David Hume
Please. Was he an orphan from a broken home? Did he not receive enough self-esteem counseling? Perhaps he was lashing out for personal reasons. The form he chose for the lashing is what makes it a political act or, more correctly, an act of religious war.
In the Fifties and Sixties-way before the concept of “hate crimes” came into being-the nation became exercised over a handful of murders committed by white supremacists. LBJ even gave a prime time TV address in which he warned “If you’re in the Klan,get out now.” That kind of violence today-if committed by non-Westerners-would be called “Fourth Generation Warfare” by some.
“If attacking soldiers on an army base is “terrorism”, then the word has lost whatever vestige of meaning it still had.”
I think it would be terrorism unless he were acting on behalf of an enemy state or some equivalent entity the US is at war with like the Taliban. When Baader-Meinhof attacked US military bases in Germany in the Seventies and Eighties those attacks were considered acts of terrorism.
I am confused by the conflation of hate crimes law and terrorism here. The former is a set of identity-based penalty-enhancements enforced through a highly politicized social movement empowered to train prosecutors and police. It was designed, some say, to “combat domestic terrorism,” but it is used primarily to insinuate that certain street crimes are more important than others: for example, luring Matthew Shepard from a bar, offering him drugs, then beating him to death is hate, but doing the same to ten women in Cleveland is not. Nowadays, it empowers some victim groups by denying others, with toxic effects on the notion of equal protection for victims.
Terrorism is an extra-military attack against a nation. It is a form of warfare. Why would opposing the enforcement of identity-based penalty enhancements in domestic law enforcement mean that you should not be concerned about the intentions of suicide bombers and other terrorists?
Is Mac Donald saying that she feels Hasan should, or perhaps should not, be charged with hate crime offenses? If hate crime laws were enforced equitably (which, so long as we have them, they should be), then his actions ought to “rise” to the standard of bias as a part (part counts) of the motivation in the commission of another crime (murder).
Doing so actually underscores one of the many absurdities of these laws, reminding us why it is such a bad idea to carve out a subset of prejudices, set up a subjective system for seeking them out, and then ascribe an unique status to them as evidence in criminal prosecutions.
But that is a separate matter from terrorism, also.