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Diversity and Political Correctness Obsessions Caused Fort Hood Tragedy
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In the Baltimore Sun, Ron Smith notes that the "Fort Hood massacre shows how political correctness can kill." "Critics say political correctness caused Fort Hood," notes CBS.
A Muslim writer notes in Forbes that even militaries in some Muslim countries, like Turkey, wouldn't have put up with the pro-terrorist views, and radical extremism, that the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan, got away with in our military, out of a misguided sense of sensitivity and political correctness.
In The Sun, Smith writes,
"The accused mass murderer, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, couldn't have been more open about his lunacy if he'd taken out billboard ads proclaiming it to passing motorists. The army psychiatrist conducted an hour long PowerPoint presentation . . .that was ostensibly a medical presentation but turned out to be a rant against non-Muslims - infidels, he said, who should be burned in oil and beheaded. That should have set off alarms, but reportedly, none of the doctors in attendance filed a complaint for fear of being seen as 'discriminatory' against Muslim soldiers. And they had good reason to be wary. As we know from Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey's appearance on 'Sunday Morning,' a greater tragedy than the carnage inflicted on unarmed soldiers by an officer of their own army would be anything that called into question 'diversity' as a priority of the American military.
Major Shawn Keller made the same point earlier, in a column entitled "An Officer's Outrage Over Fort Hood." "There was no shortage of warning signs that Hasan identified more with Islamic Jihadists than he did with the US Army. From speeches, writings, conversations, affiliations and postings on Jihadist websites, there were more than enough dots to connect that should have exposed Hasan as someone inclined to attack innocent people in the furtherance of a political, religious and ideological agenda. There were more than enough red flags raised that, at a minimum, should have gotten Hasan kicked out of the Army. But just like September 11, those agencies and individuals charged with keeping America and Americans safe failed to connect the dots that would have saved lives. Jihadist rhetoric espoused by Hasan was categorically dismissed out of submissiveness to the concepts of tolerance and diversity. . . . the leaders in Hasan's chain-of-command failed to act . . . out of fear of being labeled anti-Muslim and receiving a negative evaluation report."
As military attorney Thomas Kenniff notes, there is a climate of "obsessive political correctness" right now in the military. The Fort Hood shooter escaped any preventive action because this politically-correct obsession with "diversity" made officers reluctant to report Hasan's "anti-American propaganda" and extremist remarks against non-Muslims, lest they be accused of discrimination or insensitivity. Although his anti-American, pro-terrorist views were common knowledge, "a fear of appearing discriminatory . . . kept officers from filing a formal written complaint," reports the Associated Press. Moreover, “a key official on a review committee reportedly asked how it might look to terminate a key resident who happened to be a Muslim," notes NPR. As a result, he escaped any disciplinary action or review of his fitness.
Some military leaders, catering to liberal Congressional leaders and the Obama Administration, continue to cling tightly to the "diversity" dogma, demanding that those in the military keep silent rather than saying things that might call into question their "diversity" obsession:
"Naval Academy senior commanders decided during the World Series to remove two Midshipmen from the color guard that appeared. What was their offense? The color guard was deemed too white and too male. There was accordingly a push to make the color guard more 'diverse.' Two members of the color guard were removed and replaced by a Pakistani and a woman to achieve the requisite 'diversity.' The Pakistani unfortunately forgot his cap and shoes. He himself had to be replaced at the last minute by one of the two middies removed earlier. The midshipmen have reportedly been ordered not to speak of these events."
The Fort Hood shooter had previously said that Muslims should rise up against the military, "repeatedly expressed sympathy for suicide bombers," was pleased by the terrorist murder of an army recruiter, and publicly called for the beheading or burning of non-Muslims, talking "about how if you’re a nonbeliever the Koran says you should have your head cut off, you should have oil poured down your throat, you should be set on fire." But thanks to a politically-correct double standard, nothing was done to remove him from a position where he could harm others, as we and the Manchester Union-Leader noted earlier.
The lesson of the Fort Hood shootings is that applying politically-correct double standards, rather than treating people equally, can be lethal.
(Intelligence officials knew that Nidal M. Hasan, the soldier who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, was trying to contact Al Qaeda. He once attended the same mosque as 9/11 terrorists.)
In a desire to curry favor with the liberal Congress that funds it (and the Obama Administration), the military has increasingly adopted politically-correct policies that abandon equal treatment. One example is racial preferences in admissions to the military academies, imposed in the name of “diversity.” (In practice, “diversity” seems to mean crude “racial proportionality”: it is harder for Asians to be admitted to the academies than for whites and Hispanics, and harder for whites and Hispanics to be admitted than for African-Americans. Such preferences are of dubious legality under Supreme Court precedent.)
In this climate of political correctness and double standards, it is understandable that officers were afraid to file complaints about Hasan, for fear that they would incur the wrath of the “diversity” police.
Even now, the Army Chief of Staff, General George Casey, denies that the military failed to pick up the obvious warning signs about Hasan, and he is more concerned that the shootings will undermine the army’s commitment to “diversity,” than he is about the tragedy itself. He claims that a backlash against diversity would be an even "worse" tragedy than the one that took place at Fort Hood. He remains wedded to a policy of "zero tolerance" for criticism of "diversity," i.e., double standards. He seems more concerned that “diversity” will become a “casualty” of such shootings than that American soldiers will.
President Obama’s initial response to the tragedy on November 5 was embarrassing, even for some liberal journalists. Obama’s initial remarks about the tragedy came buried in the middle of a speech laced with “wildly disconnected” ramblings about an unrelated topic, starting with a “joking shout-out.” Even the liberal Boston Globe chided the president for a speech lacking in ”empathy” for the victims.
In an absurd display of political correctness, early media reports chose to harp on the false claim that the killer had PTSD (which he didn’t: he never even served overseas) or the unsupported claim that he had been subjected to harassment (support groups for Muslim soldiers say they have received no recent reports of harassment). Charles Krauthammer, who was a practicing psychiatrist for years, has debunked the false suggestion that the shootings were caused by mental illness.
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