Via VoteVets, I found this posting by Spencer Ackerman:<\/p>\n
Ft. Hood\u2019s commander, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, said today that there are unconfirmed reports that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan shouted \u201cGod is great\u201d in Arabic before opening fire yesterday at the Army base. Again: we will soon be able to hear Hasan\u2019s motivations in his own words. Even if he shouted such a thing, it would no more reflect on his co-religionists than does the fanatic who murdered Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller and who happened to consider himself a devout Christian does on his co-religionists. It\u2019s worth remembering that nearly all mass shootings in this country are committed by white men. Do we have a white-man problem on our hands?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Now, I would like to point out that the same people pushing this line are the same ones who defended the DHS memo. The murder of Dr. Tiller was used as justification that the DHS report on “Right Wing Extremism” was accurate, and yet Mr. Ackerman is saying that Hasan’s actions do not reflect his co-religionists.<\/p>\n
The thing about most mass shootings happening by White Men seems to me to not be accurate, but either way, not really germane. the Beltway Sniper, the shootings in Arkansas etc were not white men, right? It seems that both sides (myself included) are doing the same thing here in leaping to conclusions.<\/p>\n
Chris Raissi had some excellent points yesterday, and I concede them to him. It was perhaps wrong to note this guys religious background so early, yea though the evidence is still bolstering that as the likely motive. Chris though thought I was basing it entirely on his last name, which is justified perhaps by the sloppy manner in which I stated my case. Mea culpa on all that, it was a rather emotional time, and I am on a ton of pain killers, so I wasn’t making my case too succinctly.<\/p>\n
For the record, there was a lot of info out there to justify the “lone jihadi” theory, I just didn’t put any of it in here. For one reason, we seemed to be getting WAY off track with some veering into racial areas. I am ridiculously uncomfortable with such talk. For me it wasn’t race, it was religious ideology. For the same reason that discussing the perfidy of John Walker Lindh wasn’t racial, it was religious. <\/p>\n
My anger stems from one thing. CNN. Even as evidence poured in that this had NOTHING to do with PTSD, CNN still pushed that meme. If a GWOT veteran goes in to apply for a job, I don’t want his perspective employer thinking “Man, you keep hearing about these guys with PTSD shooting places up, I should avoid this guy.” It’s unfair, it’s unjust, and it’s just not accurate. So why do they keep pushing it?<\/p>\n
Is veterans status the last acceptable place to engage in prejudice?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"