A new kind of "Don't ask, don't tell"
by George Jonas
National Post
November 14, 2009
News reports begin with whatever reporters regard as the key element of a story. "Barack Obama today joined calls from across America for calm amid fears of a backlash ..." starts a Nov. 6 report in London's The Guardian, followed by "... in the wake of the shooting spree by a Muslim soldier at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and 28 wounded."
Hmm. My instinct would be to render this in reverse: "In the wake of the shooting spree by a Muslim soldier at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and 28 wounded, Barack Obama today joined calls from across America for calm amid fears of a backlash."
To me, a shooting spree that happened would take precedence over a backlash that didn't, but I may be old-fashioned. The Guardian's emphasis is the opposite. Let's read on:
"Obama, speaking in the White House Rose Garden after being briefed by the FBI, sought to dampen tensions, as did politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties, the military, Muslim associations and the family of the alleged shooter, Major Nadil Malik Hasan.
"'I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we get all the facts,' Obama said. The risk of a witch hunt rose today when the commander at the Fort Hood base, Lieutenant-General Robert Cone, disclosed that wounded soldiers said Hasan had shouted 'Allahu Akbar' before opening fire on unarmed soldiers at the Texas base."
Perhaps because I predate the age of political correctness, this part of The Guardian's report also seems to go backward. Using the same words, this is how I'd file the story:
"U.S. Army Major Nadil Malik Hasan had shouted 'Allahu Akbar' before opening fire on unarmed soldiers at the Texas base of Fort Hood during a shooting spree that left 13 dead and 28 wounded, according to what survivors told Lieutenant-General Robert Cone, the commander at the Fort Hood base.
"The risk of a witch hunt rose today amid fears of a backlash, as Barack Obama joined in calls for calm politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties, the military, Muslim associations and the family of the alleged shooter. Speaking in the White House Rose Garden after being briefed by the FBI, the president sought to dampen tensions across America.
"'I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we get all the facts,' Obama said."
Look before you leap is good advice -- though perhaps shouting Allahu Akbar does offer "a little hint of the actual motive," as the Ottawa Citizen's David Warren put it. But journalists such as Warren who feel that a massacre in the hand is worth two witch hunts in the bush are rare birds. A favourite topic of the mainstream press these days is whether Maj. Hasan is a madman or a terrorist. Many in the media seem to believe the two are mutually exclusive.
If Obama cautions against "jumping to conclusions" about the motives of someone who shouts "Allahu Akbar" before killing a dozen people, it's no surprise. The Obama presidency crowns half a century of wimpification. Even bellicose George W. Bush saw fit to visit a mosque right after 9/11, as if extreme acts of Muslim militancy had put the onus on America to assure Muslim-Americans of the country's continuing loyalty to Islam. Can you picture Franklin Delano Roosevelt wagging his tail in a Shinto shrine a day after Pearl Harbor?
In Roosevelt's time, a president would have been considered barking mad for grovelling all over a mosque a day after Islamists incinerated 3,000 Americans in the heart of Manhattan. By 2001, it seemed a natural thing.
It seemed similarly natural for the U.S. military to shield a Muslim fanatic who, say what you will about him, wasn't hiding his light under a bushel. In an institution whose official policy is "don't ask, don't tell," the major told. He told loud and clear. If he had said "Guess what, I'm gay" he might have been thrown out, but since he said "Guess what, I'm a jihadist," his superiors said, oh, zip it up, Hasan. We don't talk about such things.
Okay. Can we talk about criminal negligence, about survivors suing the brass? It seems like a good topic to me.