[BRIGADE] PJB: The Two Faces of Maj. Hasan
Published: Tue, 11/10/09
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For the Cause -- Linda
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The Two Faces of Maj. Hasan
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Nidal Malik Hasan was two men.
One was the proud Army major who wore battle fatigues to mosque;
the other, the proud Arab who wore Muslim garb in civilian life.
What brought Hasan's identities into fatal conflict was his belief
that Iraq and Afghanistan were unjust wars, and his shock that he,
a Muslim, was to be sent to serve in one of those wars, against
fellow Muslims--a sin against Allah meriting damnation.
Hasan was conflicted by a dual loyalty--to the country he had sworn
to protect, and to his perceived duty as a Muslim. When Hasan told
his neighbor that morning, "I am going to do good work for God,"
the call of jihad overrode his oath of loyalty as an American
soldier.
Hasan proceeded to shoot, wound or kill 44 U.S. soldiers, and die
on what he saw as the side of right, the side of Islam, against
America. "Allahu Akbar!"--"God is great!"--Hasan shouted as he began
firing.
An Internet posting by "Nidal Hasan" compared suicide bombers to
Medal-Of-Honor winners who throw themselves on grenades to save
fellow soldiers. Hasan had decided to become a suicider for Allah.
Though this was an act of treachery against his fellow soldiers, of
treason in wartime, of terrorism and mass murder, Hasan must have
seen himself as a hero and martyr.
Few ever commit atrocities like this. But conflicts in identities
and loyalties are common in the cauldrons of war.
"Let none but Americans stand guard tonight," said Washington at
Valley Forge. Irish Catholics deserted the Union army to fight
beside Mexican Catholics in the San Patricio battalion against what
they thought was American aggression. Honored today by Mexico, the
San Patricios were hanged when captured by Winfield Scott's army.
In Scott's march to Mexico City was Robert E. Lee. The hero of
Buena Vista was Col. Jefferson Davis, who had married the daughter
of his commanding officer, future President Zachary Taylor. Davis
went on to serve in the Cabinet of Franklin Pierce and the U.S.
Senate.
Yet, in 1861, Davis and Lee would depart the service of their
country to wage war against the United States on behalf of their
new nation and the kinfolk to whom they belonged and whom they
believed had a right to be free of the Union. Were they traitors--or
patriots?
This is not to compare the deeds of the San Patricios, Jefferson
Davis and Robert E. Lee, all of whom declared themselves openly and
fought heroically and honorably, with the crimes of Maj. Hasan.
But it is to raise the issue of conflicting loyalties in the hearts
of men in a nation that has declared religious, racial and ethnic
diversity to be not only a national good but a national goal.
Whence came this idea? No previous generation believed this.
In World War I, Wilson feared that if he went to war,
German-Americans might march on Washington. FDR was so fearful that
the blood ties of Japanese citizens and residents would trump their
loyalty to the United States he ordered 110,000 transferred from
California to detention camps for the duration of the war.
In Arkansas last year, a Muslim opposed to the U.S. wars shot two
soldiers at a recruitment center, killing one. In Kuwait, before
the invasion of Iraq, a Muslim soldier threw a grenade into the
tent of his commanding officer, killing two and wounding 14.
This is not to suggest that all American Muslims or Arabs should be
citizens under suspicion. Muslims have died fighting in Afghanistan
and Iraq, as German-Americans died fighting against Germany in two
world wars. But it is to say this:
America is unraveling. No longer are we one nation and one people.
Tens of millions have come and tens of millions are coming whose
first loyalty is to the kinfolk and country they left behind, and
to the faith they carry in their hearts. And if, in our long war
against "Islamofascism," we are seen as trampling on their nation,
faith or kinsmen, they will see us, as Hasan came to see us, as the
enemy of their sacred identity.
There is no American Melting Pot anymore. It was discarded by our
elites as an instrument of cultural genocide. Now we celebrate
America as the most multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural country
on earth, the Universal Nation of Ben Wattenberg's warblings.
And, yet, we are surprised by ethnic espionage in our midst, the
cursing of America from mosques in our cities, the news that Somali
immigrants are going home to fight our Somali allies, and that
illegal aliens march under Mexican flags to demand American
citizenship.
Eisenhower's America was a nation of 160 million with a
Euro-Christian core and a culture all its own. We were a people
then. And when we have become, in 2050, a stew of 435 millions, of
every creed, culture, color and country of Earth, what holds us
together then?
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http://buchanan.org/blog/faces-of-major-hasan-2937