Weary of dodging bullets

How much longer can we dodge bullets? How many bullets can we dodge?

The attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwestern flight to Detroit from Amsterdam is just the latest in a series of near-catastrophes masterminded by al-Qaida or other Islamist groups around the world. Nine years after Sept. 11, 2001, have we learned nothing?

Before the Christmas Day attempt to ignite a sophisticated high-explosive strapped to a Nigerian passenger's leg, there was the Fort Hood shooting, when an Army psychologist with the rank of major opened fire on soldiers. Immediately, political correctness demanded that reporters play down Major Nidal Malik Hasan's Muslim religion and Palestinian ancestry. But it turns out that Hasan was not some run-of-the-mill deranged nut case. He had touted Islamist hatred of the West and advocated allowing Muslim soldiers to claim conscientious objection to fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. His violence was motivated by Islamist hatred of America.

These, unfortunately, are not isolated incidents. American Muslims have been charged with plotting an attack on Fort Dix. American Muslims of European ancestry in Wake County, North Carolina, have been charged with plotting attacks. Other "sleeper cells" have been uncovered before they could carry out their plots.

So far, so good, but how long can our good fortune last? In the days immediately following 9/11, America braced for another attack. Thus far, none has succeeded, but it's apparent that this lack of success if not for lack of trying. Blowing up a federal building or a shopping mall or taking down an airliner would strike a blow at American confidence and might cripple the struggling economy. A bigger blast — a small nuclear device or a "dirty bomb" or chemical weapon detonated in a major city — would devastate the country. Terrorists' sophisticated plots, even though they haven't succeeded, indicate that they might well be capable of creating a catastrophe from which America might not recover.

The Obama administration had better get serious about homeland security, airport security and intelligence gathering. We're extending American civil liberties and criminal justice rights to terrorists intent on destroying this entire nation, but we're not taking seriously the threats these terrorists pose for the United States. We're more worried about "profiling" suspected terrorists than we are about protecting American lives. A successful major attack will not only devastate the economic foundation of the country, it could turn America into a police state focused solely on preventing any additional attacks. American freedoms of speech, religion, press and assembly could be lost to the fear of terrorist attacks.

America's future depends on preventing Islamist terrorists' attacks on Americans.

Uncomfortable facts about shooting are relevant

On this Veterans Day, America mourns the loss of 13 soldiers in a bizarre incident a Fort Hood, Texas, in which a commissioned officer opened fire on troops preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. The officer, a psychiatrist of the Muslim faith, will be charged under military law, but his faith, and the way the media and the public have perceived its relationship to his actions, is causing additional distress.

Alan Mutter, in his widely read Newsosaur blog, accuses the news media of ethnic profiling in its reporting on the Fort Hood shootings. The painfully politically correct Mutter claims the use of the term "terrorism" and the mention of the shooter's Middle East heritage and Muslim faith were inappropriate provocations that should never have been part of the story about the shooting. Some commenters on the blog take Mutter to task for ignoring not just the obvious but the incisively relevant aspects of this incident.

It's hard to imagine an incident that better captures the term "terrorism" than an unprovoked and well-planned shooting down of unarmed soldiers on an Army post. "Terrorism" does not require multiple participants; it is not the same as "conspiracy." A terrorist can be a lone gunman or suicide bomber and does not have to be a part of a team directed by fanatics from afar.

Although not all the facts behind Maj. Nidal Hasan's motivation are known yet, it is obvious from what is known that he opposed America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and believed Muslims in the U.S. Army should be exempted from fighting against others of their own faith. He had corresponded with a radical Islamic cleric and had made a formal presentation proposing that Muslim soldiers be granted conscientious objector status on the grounds that their religion forbade their fighting against fellow Muslims on behalf of "infidels."

These are relevant facts, not "ethnic profiling."

One can report these facts without engaging in ethnic profiling or cowering behind political correctness. NPR's "All Things Considered" aired an insightful interview Tuesday with a Muslim chaplain who had counseled Maj. Hasan and who rejected the Islamist notion that religion trumps nationality. American soldiers, he said, owe their allegiance to America. Nearly all of the thousands of U.S. soldiers of the Muslim faith know and accept this, and the public should keep this in mind even as we recognize the Fort Hood shooting as apparently motivated by religious zealotry.