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.
— Army chief of staff Gen. George Casey on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with David Gregory, November 7, 2009
Do you understand what this man is saying? He is saying that the loss of “diversity”—the feel-good, meaningless, superficial, and artificial practice of ensuring that a given group has x number of whites, blacks, men, women, Christians, Jews, Muslims, gays, etc., etc.—is worse than 13 people’s lives violently snuffed out in cold blood by a radical fanatic. In short, protecting a politically correct sacred cow is more important than protecting human life.
Take that in. Because it is the reason this massacre was allowed to occur.
Where are we as a society when even leaders in our military have admitted that ideology trumps human life?
What’s almost as disgusting is the tables being turned on the U.S. military and the American people by means of a completely unsupportable premise that the first thing that came to Americans’ minds following the massacre is something to the effect of, “That’s it, all Muslims out of the military. Let’s get back to basics here: White Christian men only!” This is insulting and unfortunately all too prominent in the thinking of the politically correct—including General Casey himself!
David Limbaugh puts it well in his latest article, “Suicidal Political Correctness”:
Even as more and more realize oppressive political correctness is damaging our nation and killing our people, we still hold ourselves hostage to it. We can’t criticize Obama on his policy agenda without absurd accusations of racism, and now our authorities’ first instinct after the mass murder at Fort Hood is to victimize the identified shooter—Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan—rather than to protect our soldiers. …
I’m not sure I believe Casey is more concerned about the ethnic or religious composition of our armed forces or overblown threats to it than the actual murder of its innocent soldiers. I doubt he would express similar concerns in private, but I would be more concerned about the state of our officer corps if he did than if he didn’t.
Does anyone really think we’re going to discriminate against or expel Muslims from the service as a result of these murders? On the other hand, doesn’t the safety of innocent soldiers and our national defense demand that we get to the bottom of why such an obviously radical Islamist was not purged from our ranks and whether inflated diversity concerns handcuffed us and, at least indirectly, led to these murders?
Exactly. Everyone seems to be so concerned about this massacre causing Americans—always on the verge of rampant intolerance and bigotry—to want to abdicate “diversity” or lead a backlash against Muslim soldiers. (Speaking of diversity, is anyone going to address that this Muslim fundamentalist refused to associate with women? Or does that clash too much with the liberal template that it’s only us Americans who are intolerant?)
This backward thinking will never solve the problem and will only result in more lost lives.
This massacre happened because the American people, the U.S. military, and the FBI—which willfully dropped the ball on this Hasan guy—were too tolerant. Only in this country does a radical fanatic carry out an act of terror (or whatever you want to call it) and then we are guilted into looking within ourselves and at our past actions to figure out why it happened. It’s like we learned nothing from 9/11.
There’s a bumper sticker that defines a liberal as “someone who’s so open-minded, their brains have fallen out.” That Hasan wasn’t preempted despite his documentable radical Islamic thoughts and ties is the textbook example of this. Thirteen innocent people, including a pregnant woman and her unborn child, were the casualties of brainless politically correct liberalism.
That this alternate-universe thinking has infiltrated our own military makes it very hard for this father of two young children to sleep at night.
Related reading: Mark Finkelstein at NewsBusters, Mona Charen at Town Hall, Dennis Prager at JWR, Sacred Monkeys
No argument there, Andrew. P.S. Thanks for posting VM's 1000th comment!
Posted by: EricTheRed | Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 12:00 PM
The man is an embarrassment.
That a United States Army officer could - or would - suggest that dead military personnel are more acceptable than the shrinking of diversity among the ranks of the troops is an abomination.
What else can be said?
Posted by: Andrew Roman | Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 10:27 AM