Reactions and Overreactions to Fort Hood

"[T]he more devout a Muslim is, the more of a threat he is to national security."

~Bryan Fischer, American Family Association

"Our diversity, not only in our Army but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse."

~Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., Army Chief of Staff

On November 5, Nidal Hasan walked into the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood and opened fire, killing 13 and wounding dozens more. Hasan was a major, an Army psychiatrist, and yes, a Muslim.

On November 6, Bryan Fischer, the "Director of Issues Analysis" at the American Family Association, posted on an AFA blog his idea to prevent future Fort Hoods: Forbid Muslims from serving in the U.S. military. Some excerpts:

Devout Muslims, who accept the teachings of the Prophet as divinely inspired, believe it is their duty to kill infidels...

Of course, most U.S. Muslims don't shoot up their fellow soldiers. Fine. As soon as Muslims give us a foolproof way to identify their jihadis from their moderates, we'll go back to allowing them to serve...

This is not Islamophobia, it is Islamo-realism...

While Christianity is a religion of peace, ...Islam is a religion of war and violence, founded by a man who routinely chopped the heads off his enemies, had sex with nine-year old [sic] girls, and made his wealth plundering merchant caravans.

(To give AFA some credit, there is another blog post--rated higher by AFA's readers--that argues that expelling Muslims would be un-Christian.)

"Islamo-realism," eh? This realism tells you that because one person--with their own, personal, psychological issues--goes on a rampage, we should draw conclusions about an entire group of people? There are over 3500 Muslims in the military: we should expel them based on one incident? This is not "Islamo-realism," this is bigotry, pure and simple.

We should, if anything, be encouraging more Muslims to join the military: Linguistic and cultural knowledge would be useful in a counterinsurgency campaign. The Army can effectively "break down barriers [between] different ethnic groups." (The complaint that, as AFA's Fischer says, "[t]he military is not about social engineering" has been debunked here before.) Efforts to enforce current anti-discrimination standards should be redoubled, both to catalyze the barrier breakdown and to prevent an anti-Muslim backlash.

Diversity and tolerance are fundamentally American and are part of what makes us strong. Those who would discard these values so easily would be--and this is an analogy the AFA should appreciate--Delilahs brandishing scissors at Samson's hair.

Last word.