Tragedy at Fort Hood: A Catalyst for Change?

This is the stuff of tragedy and death, and if America does not alter the way it does its business in the world, what we have experienced at Ft. Hood may well be only a portent and not an isolated event.

Fort Hood photo courtesy: Intifada-Palestine.com

(JACKSON, Miss.) - The incident at Ft. Hood was a genuine tragedy. I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner, there or somewhere else. It is going to take time for the details to be sorted out.

Generalizing from a single incident is always dangerous, no matter how compelling it seems. Sometimes an isolated tragedy is just that, an outpouring of individual dementia rather than a wide-ranging political statement.

But that generalization is already happening, with people across the political spectrum musing about assorted conspiracies. There is the instant and renewed Ziobabble demeaning Muslims generally and Arabs in particular, all false but popular in America today. And there are dire warnings about Mossad “false flag” operations, no matter how unlikely a candidate the shooter was for such a role.

Precedents

So let’s look at this issue from a broader perspective while assorted conspiracy theorists have another day in the sun. This is certainly the first incident involving an American Muslim (I am discounting the so-called “Black Muslim” sect), but in the 1960s and 1970s the US generally faced eruptions of black violence, with cities burning in the “long hot summers” and troops deployed to combat it.

Nor was the US military immune. Many units in combat in Vietnam encountered extensive racial divisions and violence, almost all of it initiated by “black power” militants. Several warships had mutinies from the same sources. US bases around the world were littered with similar racially motivated tensions and incidents for years. There were many specific reasons, but generally it was because many black Americans felt the government they served was not serving them.

To their great credit, that simply has not been the experience of American Muslims in US society or in the US armed forces. Certainly, few American Muslims in or out of uniform give even a small fraction of the political allegiance to their countries of origin, that so many American Jews give to Israel as dual Israeli-US citizens or under the false and hypocritical rubric of “dual loyalty.” The allegiance of the American Muslim community has been steadfast.

But their frustration with events must be great. They have been the victims of widespread and carefully contrived anti-Muslim sentiment before and after the events of 9/11, whatever their origin. And they have been tested severely by the actions of a US Government in thrall to Israel, in whose interest it has killed, wounded or dispossessed literally millions of people to date in Iraq and Afghanistan, with comparable plans for Iran in play from the same people who brought us those wars and 9/11 besides.

At some point and in some place, someone was going to lash out. At Ft. Hood, whether alone or not, incited or not, affected by an impending deployment or interviews with returning veterans (or both), someone did.

Portents

It must be terribly difficult for American Muslims, especially those of Palestinian heritage, to serve a US Government that is an indictable accessory of Israel, a country whose abuses, war crimes, and crimes against humanity are well known and copiously documented everywhere except in the US.

In their place, I could not do so, despite a decade of service in the US Marines and a lifelong commitment to supporting the US on campuses and in public forums when it was not popular at all to do so.

But my country is more important than my government, and the American people are more important to me than a relative handful of elected and appointed officials whose words and actions violate both the letter and the spirit of their oaths.

A US Government hostage to a lobby serving the interests of a foreign country has lost all legitimacy. It is in violation not only of the Constitution, but also of the tenets of the Declaration of Independence, which is the distillation of the spirit of the land, and specifies the ends for which government is instituted.

This is the stuff of tragedy and death, and if America does not alter the way it does its business in the world, what we have experienced at Ft. Hood may well be only a portent and not an isolated event. No one likes or tolerates indefinitely a government indifferent to the fate of their families overseas, and manipulated by a foreign country that is the agent of their misery.

None of this excuses Hasan’s act. Over 50 people are dead or wounded because of him, and I do not and would never condone that. I also do not and would never condone 60,000 Americans killed or wounded so far because of the 9/11 tragedy and our ongoing wars fabricated by the Zionists in Israel’s interest. What Hasan did was murder, pure and simple. What the neo-cons and their allies have done and are doing is treason, pure and simple. Both are crimes, and both should be punished.

Sometimes tragedy can be a catalyst for change. What happened at Ft. Hood may open a long overdue debate that will be such a catalyst for American policy in the Middle East, transforming Obama’s excellent words at Cairo into equally admirable actions that have so far been woefully absent.

Let us make it so.

Special thanks to Intifada-Palestine.com

=======================================================

Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D., University of Michigan) is a writer and consultant specializing in national and international security affairs. In December 1988, he received the Superior Civilian Service Award after more than five years of service at the U.S. Army War College as Director of Studies, Strategic Studies Institute, and holder of the General of the Army Douglas MacArthur Chair of Research. He is listed in WHO'S WHO IN THE EAST (23rd ed.). A Marine Corps Vietnam veteran and a 1986 graduate of the U.S. Army War College, Dr. Sabrosky's teaching and research appointments have included the United States Military Academy, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Middlebury College and Catholic University; while in government service, he held concurrent adjunct professorships at Georgetown University and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Dr. Sabrosky has lectured widely on defense and foreign affairs in the United States and abroad. You can email Dr. Alan Sabrosky at: docbrosk@comcast.net