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Particularly in times of crisis and uncertainty, few in the conservative blogosphere have the insight as well as the perspective that Mark Steyn does.
A beacon for us is yesterday's Steyn post on National Review on line "Shooting Raises Fears For Sanity Of Entire Western World" here.
Political Correctness Run Amok in Our Thought and Talk
Columnist Steyn recalled his last December's post about the Bombay bombing "Silence=Acceptance: Rabbi Holtzberg was not murdered because of a territorial dispute over Kashmir or because of Bush's foreign policy" - -
"At the Chabad House, the murdered Jews were described in almost all the Western media as 'ultra-Orthodox,' 'ultra-' in this instance being less a term of theological precision than a generalized code for 'strange, weird people, nothing against them personally, but they probably shouldn't have been over there in the first place.' Are they stranger or weirder than their killers? Two 'inflamed moderates' entered the Chabad House, shouted 'Allahu Akbar!' tortured the Jews and murdered them, including the young Rabbi's pregnant wife. Their two-year-old child escaped because of a quick-witted (non-Jewish) nanny who hid in a closet and then, risking being mown down by machine-gun fire, ran with him to safety.
The Times was being silly in suggesting this was just an 'accidental' hostage opportunity - and not just because, when Muslim terrorists capture Jews, it's not a hostage situation, it's a mass murder-in-waiting. The sole surviving 'militant' revealed that the Jewish center had been targeted a year in advance. The 28-year-old rabbi was Gavriel Holtzberg. His pregnant wife was Rivka Holtzberg. Their orphaned son is Moshe Holtzberg, and his brave nanny is Sandra Samuels. Remember their names, not because they're any more important than the Indians, Britons, and Americans targeted in the attack on Bombay, but because they are an especially revealing glimpse into the pathologies of the perpetrators.. . . . .
........
And yet we take it for granted that Pakistani 'militants' in a long-running border dispute with India would take time out of their hectic schedule to kill Jews. In going to ever more baroque lengths to avoid saying 'Islamic' or 'Muslim' or 'terrorist,' we have somehow managed to internalize the pathologies of these men."
(Underscoring Forum's.)
Steyn also pointed us to David Horowitz' post yesterday "Our Brain Dead Country" here - -
"Yet this morning the Fox News Channel chiron says 'Investigators search for a motive in the Ft. Hood killings.' Is everybody out of their mind? The Ft. Hood killings are the chickens of the left coming home to roost. Already the chief political correspondent of The Nation has decried even mention of the fact that the jihadist killer Hasan is a Palestinian Muslim. According to The Nation this is "Islamophobia." This fatuous attempt to protect America's enemies carries on The Nation's 60-year tradition as the leading fifth column collaborator with America's enemies - defender of the Rosenbergs, defender of Hiss, defender of their boss Stalin, defender of Mao, defender of Castro and now defender of Islamic terrorists. But The Nation is only the tip of an iceberg. The fifth column formed out of the unholy alliance between radical Islam and the American left is now entrenched in the White House and throughout our government. And in matters like the Muslim jihadist Major Hasan our military is its captive." (Underscoring Forum's.)
Political Correctness Run Amok in Our Failure to Act
Colonel Ralph Peters in his "Fort Hood's 9/11? here gets it right, sadly, about our Army in which he served as a career officer. We are sure "sadly" also applies to the feelings of many of us who were privileged to serve for shorter periods before starting our civilian vocations. - -
"On Thursday afternoon, a radicalized Muslim US Army officer shouting "Allahu Akbar!" committed the worst act of terror on American soil since 9/11. And no one wants to call it an act of terror or associate it with Islam.
What cowards we are. Political correctness killed those patriotic Americans at Ft. Hood as surely as the Islamist gunman did. And the media treat it like a case of non-denominational shoplifting.
. . . . .
For the first time since I joined the Army in 1976, I'm ashamed of its dereliction of duty. The chain of command protected a budding terrorist who was waving one red flag after another. Because it was safer for careers than doing something about him."
Read all of Peters' analysis here
Michael Ledeen however pointed here yesterday to another, more vigilant military base - -
"Lots of folks have wondered why there weren't more soldiers with guns at Ft. Hood, and I'm one of them. Our younger Marine is home for the weekend from The Basic School at Quantico, and Barbara and I asked him if there were Marines with guns on the base. There are. Lots of them. And they move around all the time, checking places where Marines congregate, from classrooms to outdoor obstacle courses and parade fields and barracks. Apparently it occurred to the base commander some time ago that it was a bad idea to leave his men and women unprotected."
Our Death Wish?
Mark Steyn frequently gives us an illuminating Canadian connection - - and Deborah Gyapong here gets to the root of the matter - -
"Our culture is suicidal, folks. Somehow the part of us that is still awake has to rouse the lethargic body and grab the phone and call 911.
As I said, this is NOT about Muslims. It is about the decay of western civilization and its embrace of some strange death wish. We're the ones who love death-our own.
It has to stop."
Whether the most dangerous enemy is political correctness itself (arising from cultural Marxism) or a "death wish" follow-on from that affliction - we need to recognize these pathologies and have the courage to get them out of the careless thinking and talk of even friendly politicians and friendly media and friendly former presidents. Nor should we be afraid to challenge these pathologies in our daily lives.
