The Fort Hood speech: Tom strikes out

I didn't pick this photo! I just asked for an image of a baseball player striking out.
Best,
Tom

You may be the first blogger/columnist in the history of the printed word to own up to a mistake. And in your case it was an opinion not a fact, which makes it cooler. Kudos to you for being a mensch!

You may be the first blogger/columnist in the history of the printed word to own up to a mistake. And in your case it was an opinion not a fact, which makes it cooler. Kudos to you for being a mensch!

And this Chicagoan thinks it's fine that you showed a Yankee whiffing. Double kudos to you, even if you didn't choose the specific picture.

Tackling political correctness in the military means also tackling those who see it in all efforts at equal rights. E.g., Limbaugh. E.g., Cdr Salamander.

It means rooting out all vestiges of bias and ideas of superiority based on race, ethnic class, or gender (e.g., submariners opposed to women in the boats).

It means remembering the legacy of racism, anti-semitiem, sexism, and religious bias that forms the backdrop of this issue in the military services.

And it means rooting out the Christer Complex so prevalent in the Army and the Air Force.

Until the playing field gets level, it isn't level and some artificial tilt needs be applied if we are to honor the promise of all created equal.

Your point is taken, but — witness the birther movement and the signs at Tea Bagger gatherings — we're a long way from the healthy society that has perfect equipoise on such matters.

"... from expelling violent extremists from the ranks of the military ..."

Out of context, that's a pretty interesting suggestion.

I'm imagining a review board:

"Um, General LeMay, thanks for coming. Did you really say we should 'bomb them back to the stone-age'?"

"I did."

"'Bomb.' That's pretty violent. And 'stone-age'? Isn't that a little extreme?"

I'm going to have to share that with some of my pacifist friends!

Tom,

One of the things I really like about you and your writing is that you’re willing to reconsider something that you’ve written in light of further information that is brought to your attention.

One minor point, though: personally, I’d prefer to see violent extremists of all stripes behind bars, not just expelled from the military. I suspect that’s what you meant.

Where I come from, when people say they want to be politically incorrect, it usually just means they want to be incorrect.

That's the case here. As Spencer Ackerman noted in a recent post, Japanese-American Sen. Daniel Inouye won the Medal of Honor in World War II, enlisting in 1943-- when the kind of guys who just wanted "to expel violent extremists from the military" dropped their ban on Japanese-Americans. Ackerman also notes the Times story more recently on H.B. Le, the first Vietnamese-American to command a Navy destroyer, and his inspiring return to the country he fled as a boy. Do we really want to foreclose the option of an Iraqi-American or Afghan-American someday doing something similar?

Finally, Ackerman points out that the Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood actually AGREES with your apparent view that Muslims shouldn't serve in the military.

With friends like these, right?

(URL for that Ackerman post: http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/11/10/so-we-should-purge-the-next-commander-le/ )

Eikenberry and Leah Farrall are the new king and queen of afg strategy. Afg may be the perfect example of a conflict where we can win by drawing back and drawing down. It is worth every ounce of effort we can muster to try and exploit the Taliban/al Quaeda divide.

Yes, but you were right, and at some point, it will dawn on people that eloquence is useless in the face of mounting casualties and aimless policies.

Some of our best Presidents couldn't give a speech worth a damn, but when they had to act, they acted and they made tough decisions. The President should have gone to Fort Hood and told people what he was doing to make sure something like this didn't happen again.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but has anyone lost their job? Is anyone going to lose their job? If so, why not? If this President can fire the guy who scared some New Yorkers with a low flying plane, then why can't he fire the people who let Major Hasan get promoted and report to Fort Hood Texas after showing his extremist views and after having contacted known extremists.

Oh well. I guess there are other people with courage out there to follow.

I couldn’t agree with you more in matching your desire for Obama to address these issues of political correctness, tolerance and diversity sooner rather than later. And like you I agree that affirmative action even while imperfectly applied has been without question a net plus for our society. Other American institutions would be well served if they studied the U. S. Armed Forces as an example of the benefits of inclusion.

However, the key to making sure that diversity works is a consistent and rigorous application of competency standards so that one and all realize that they are being measured by the same yardstick. This is the essence of meritocracy and lends credibility and honor to all who seek to measure up to the exacting standards of our armed forces.

I am not familiar with Army practice but I am with Naval Special Warfare (SEAL’s) and in their case religion, skin color, ethic background, cultural tradition are all incidental irrelevancies when it comes to Development Command's 'Basic Underwater Demolition' (BUD's). In that unforgiving forge of human iron the only thing that counts is focused determination and physical stamina. All (the very few) who emerge are brothers.

I am glad you came to your senses. I agree with your thoughts on PC but Obama's speech was not the time for that.

I completely agree "that we should not shy away from expelling violent extremists from the ranks of the military." But the tougher question is what standard of proof should we apply in deciding who is a violent extremist?

Don't get me wrong, maybe this guy would have been found to be a violent extremest under any standard we would apply. But too many people are saying what you said on today's episode of Public Radio's Here and Now, that since there was evidence that he was an extremest he should have been expelled.

We cannot expel someone from the service, or school, or a government job or take any other official action against someone because there is some evidence of a fact. Certainly "beyond a reasonable doubt" would be too high a standard. Maybe we should use the standard for ordinary civil litigation -- "preponderance of the evidence." Or one could say even a lower standard of proof, e.g. "probable cause," should be used. But whatever level of proof we require before taking this kind of action against someone, no one should be expelled just because there is some evidence of any fact. What standard would you use?

One more thought, if anyone in a position of responsibility was too busy avoiding criticism (being politically correct) to do his or her job faithfully, that person should be ridden out of the army on a rail. I am sure there will be an investigation and if there is such a finding, heads will role, after an appropriate finding of wrongdoing.

"For example, I think affirmative action did this country a lot of good, and that diversity and tolerance are great strengths to be cultivated-but that we should not shy away from expelling violent extremists from the ranks of the military."

So supporting affirmative action is an example of good political correctness? I don't see what affirmative action has to do with political correctness at all. It's becoming apparent that several folks along the line who should've rung alarm bells re: Major Hassan didn't; it seems like the proper solution isn't to whine about PC run amok but to instruct the chain of command to do its job and not take the path of least resistance.

Saying "we shouldn't shy away from expelling violent extremists" is a pretty incredible strawman; certainly people should've been more cautious w/ this guy, but I don't think anyone looked the other way knowing he was a violent extremist.

As far as affirmative action goes, it's doing this country a lot of good. Specifically, it's doing a lot of good in the American military.

diversity and tolerance are great strengths to be cultivated-but that we should not shy away from expelling violent extremists from the ranks of the military.

You're right, we shouldn't shy away from that. But the two conditions you lay down: that one be violent, and also an extremist, are problematic.

For starters, Hasan wasn't violent until the morning of November 5th.

And as for extremism, what's the litmus test? Who has the authority to decide which ideas are extreme and which are tolerable? We're opening up a whole crap-bag of problems when we start prosecuting and destroying people's careers over what some Americans might find as 'unsavory' and 'dangerous' ideas.

Prior to his flipping out, to date, there don't seem to be any VERIFIABLE accounts of Hasan unequivocally saying that he felt it was an individual religious obligation for him to murder as many non-Muslims as possible, regardless of the setting. There's an unverified story floating around out there that someone remotely recalls him saying in, what can only be described as the world's most awkward power point presentation, that non-Muslims should be killed for not converting. Another more sound piece of evidence comes from a conversation he had a few weeks ago with a Muslim colleague of his where he said he found it heresy to be cooperating with Jews and Christians against Muslims in war.

That guy should have said something, but it may already have been too late. Who knows?

Bottom line, the military would be asking for a world of pain if it starts asking religiously invasive questions about personal faith in their psych evaluations. And let's face it, it's only gonna be the Arabs and Muslims that get that 'special treatment.'

Maybe I'm getting old, but can some officers comment on the Army's dress code. At a huge funeral on national television with the POTUS present, everyone was wearing field cammie uniforms, including the honor guard and General Casey!

Has the Army abolished its service uniforms? Is it too much trouble to get dressed for an important event?

is that our information borders are open to an extremist behavioral technology, allowing the mad mullah's web presence, a virus trolling for vulnerable maladjusted wackos. In both Hasan and the 6/07 Little Rock cases, there appears to have been 2-way contact. But it's not necessary, and may be counselled against in Lone Wolf 3.0.

9/11 used hardware, psychology, and gravity against a known fixed target. Lone wolf jihad is now shown to recruit via software and psychology against targets of opportunity. The vulnerability is there, in an integrated interdependant society. Applied psychology that works is a behavioral technology.

Like it or not, the suicide jihad argument became more compelling to a larger target audience, when we went to war over there with tanks, occupation, bombs, 'enhanced interrogation'.

150 years ago, some Kansans were willing to burn other citizens in their homes, if they held opposing views about slavery. Christians go crazy too; it's happened before, and will happen again.

How do we defend the 1st Ammendment, freedom of religion, defend our society from being strangled by our own Bill of Rights? I don't think you can make that easy for us, Tom.

Stratfor has some useful thoughts on lone wolf.
http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/442059/b612960556/1641504879/5fe34e8fbb/
http://www.stratfor.com/memberships/26665/challenge_lone_wolf?utm_source=SWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=091111&utm_content=related1

Leaks in today's nytimes & washingtonpost strongly suggest that the president has not been announcing any decision -- or, indeed, reaching one -- on prudent and responsible grounds, acting on clear advice from the ambassador to Kabul that sending more troops too soon would directly clash with American interests.

Could it just possibly be the president knows more about what's happening in Afghanistan than the quick to judgment media pundits? And that what General McChrystal wants might not necessarily be in the best interests of the United States to grant?