Mass Murder at Fort Hood

[JumpMarine]

Originally Posted by Mattt

The reason muslims blow themselves up is because they don't have cruise missles and fighter jets... it's not because they are cowards. The reason they attack civlian targets is because they aren't capable of successfully attacking military targets due to technological and financial limitations.

Strapping a bomb to yourself and being willing to die for the advancement of your cause is no more 'wacko' that valiantly charging from WW1 trenches or over a WW2 beach knowing that you will almost certainly be shot dead.

Good info Mattt and all very true. But I do have to disagree with your idea of what isn't a cowardly act. IMHO, for anyone to attack non combatants because they don't think that they can go one on one with the military is the definition of a coward.....no matter what side of the war one is on.

[JohnJohn]

Originally Posted by Mattt

Indeed, but there are also many examples of white christians who flip out and their religion is not blamed.

It seems to me though, that in EVERY example of a Muslim flipping out, their religion is mentioned.

Mostly because it's become a hot button topic over the past few years.
About 20 years ago not a lot was known about it on a large scale in the west so it wasn't considered something provacative to create headlines.

In the 50's it was communists,then rock and roll,next it was one side blaming unpatriotic people and the other side blaming warmongers.
Next it was motor cycle gangs,rock and roll(again),Dungeons and Dragons and the devil.
Then we started hearing about a break down in the family unit,cults and the occult.
Then inner city problems,gangs,rap music,recession,video games ,too many guns, Marilyn Mason,violent movies and television.

I honestly think if someone did something awful like this because of chocolate bars there would be a herd of people out to burn down every Hershey factory they could find.

Whatever is misunderstood en masse becomes a target every time one looney goes off and tries using __________ (insert misunderstood item of choice here) as an excuse for their actions.
And that is exactly what it is,an excuse to justifies one own actions.

We live in a culture where so long as you can fabricate an excuse you're not to blame.
And then we have people standing fast on smug emotionally based points that they use one or two small details as claim to support their whole argument.
Usually one or two lines of open ended statement with phrases such as 'just saying','such and such source said this','it's a fact' blah blah blah.
No construction of point,no research,no sources just an acidic one or two line statement that when challenged becomes an all out battle because they can't handle their view being challenged.

At what point do we look past the excuses and emotional arguments and say 'This person was wrong and should be held accountable for their actions'?

[Mattt]

Jumpmarine...

It isn't that they 'don't think they can go one on one'. It's that going 'one on one' is just not possible in their case. I'm sure if they had fighter jets they would go 'one on one' with our fighter jets... but they don't.

They are technologically inferior, financially inferior, organisationally inferior, they have less numbers. It would be absurd to go 'one on one'.

The problem here is that we have glamourised 'courage' and turned it into an acolade to award our friends... but being called brave is no comfort to the dead. In our efforts to use bravery as a reason to serve our political goals, we degrade the bravery of our enemies. This had occured numerous times historically... from the Sparta and Samurai ideas of honour, to the present day where attending a pointless war against an outmatched opponent makes you a 'hero' even if you spend the whole time sitting around not fighting.

It is not just blind faith that makes people blow themselves up. Religion is often used to mask genuine political aims by both opponents of a group and the groups themselves. I'm confident that many of these men genuinely believe that the west oppresses them and that they must fight back, they know they cannot win or make any dent upon unreasonably armed military targets with conventional tactics and so they use unconventional tactics they we call 'terrorism'. Like i said, Americans did it in the war of independence, and many europeans did it during the world wars.

But my earlier point remains, it really depends on who is fighting who. My grandfather was in WW2, and he once spoke of a man he worked with who ran at a German machine gun position with a bomb in his hand... he got shot dead but managed to get close enough to blow up the position. Terrorism or heroism?

[JohnJohn]

Originally Posted by JumpMarine

IMHO, for anyone to attack non combatants because they don't think that they can go one on one with the military is the definition of a coward.....no matter what side of the war one is on.

I have to agree with JM 100%

No matter where,who or what you are attcking non-combats in a sudden and extreme manner is cowardly.

[JumpMarine]

So let me get this right: If one group of combatants is inferior in equipment, tactics, and numbers it is ok to attack non combatants just because they are an easy target? I again would consider that a cowardly act.

I don't think that we are on the same sheet of music here at all on what constitutes cowardly acts of terrorism or heroism. Your analogy of your grandfather's ww2 story would, to me, be an act of heroism based on one combatant attacking another combatant in order to save his sides members from additional casualties. Not to prove a point, change an ideology, enact revenge or fulfill a warped teaching of religion.

[Mattt]

But what about the instances where we have intentionally bombed targets where the risk of civlian casualties has ranged from 'certain' to 'almost certain'?

What about RAF Bomber Command's campaign of psychological warfare during WW2?

How about Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

What about all the other non-military targets of economic importance employing non-military personel (factories, power plants, transport network, etc) that we attack?

There are plenty of instances of westerners attacking civlian targets. We justify it by correctly stating that there is no other way to win.

We cannot credibly justify labelling rebel forces as cowards when the people who commit the same acts for us are called brave heroes.

[Zerberus]

Originally Posted by Mattt

I don't know of any official statistics that support my statement. My statement is based solely on a moderate knowledge of world history.

For example, the number of terrorist acts committed by Christians against Great Britain during 'The troubles' outweigh the number of domestic attacks by Muslims in the USA alone.

Then you have white-American terrorists. You have the serious ones like Timothy McVeigh... but you could also argue that Theodore Kaczynski, Charles Whitman, and others like them are easily on par with Maj. Hasan.

Even a quick search of wikipedia will present to you the Canadian Svobodniki, Romanian Iron Guard and Lăncieri, Russia's RNU, America's very own Ku Klux Klan, Army of God, Lambs of Christ and Concerned Christians.

Let's not forget the crusades, or that Adolf Hitler was raised a Roman Catholic.

This is also not to mention all the terrorist acts commited by white people who are not christian (because, after all, this is not just about 'muslims' but 'people who look like they might be muslim' too).

What? No love for Stalin, Mao, Che, the Black Panthers and KISS?

[JohnJohn]

Originally Posted by Zerberus

What? No love for Stalin, Mao, Che, the Black Panthers and KISS?

Why are the Black Panthers in that list?

[Zerberus]

Originally Posted by JohnJohn

Why are the Black Panthers in that list?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panthers#Violence

But I could have just as well chosen the Hell`s Angels, El Diablos, La Familia, Dethklok ... doesn´t really make a difference in this context

Originally Posted by Foghorn Leghorn

It was a Joke, son! A JOKE!

[Mattt]

I was focusing on christian groups. But indeed, there are many terrorist individuals/groups from the west who attack the west.

[Funkfingers]

Originally Posted by Mattt

I was focusing on christian groups.

Ho, ho. Plenty of potential for bad taste humour in this quotation.

[Jonny R]

Originally Posted by Mattt

My statement is based solely on a moderate knowledge of world history

For example, the number of terrorist acts committed by Christians against Great Britain during 'The troubles' outweigh the number of domestic attacks by Muslims in the USA alone.

Then you have white-American terrorists...

Ahhh, Christianity, the white, western religion. kidding...

The blurring of the issues around race, culture and religion is quite tricky, on both sides (as you have pointed out).

Originally Posted by Mattt

The reason muslims blow themselves up is because they don't have cruise missles and fighter jets... it's not because they are cowards. The reason they attack civlian targets is because they aren't capable of successfully attacking military targets due to technological and financial limitations.

Oddly enough, targeting of civilians doesn't necessarily seem to be limited to where this is the case.

It leads me to think there has been a gradual process of normalising attacks on civilians, to the point where they may often be done in conjunction with soldier-on-solider armed conflict. It's a bit hard to definitively say that attacks on civilians only occur when the forces lack the ability to attack military targets, especially with the actions of some forces against their own civilian compatriots.

My own experience of Muslim conflict culture has been two-fold. I had a colleague in development work who was a Muslim princess who as a child ran food supplies behind enemy lines to her father and uncles engaged in armed conflict with government troops. She's a fantastic person who works tirelessly for the betterment of the poor in her region of the country.

We worked together in former conflict-ridden predominantly Muslim parts of the Philippines building peace through reconciliation and cooperative work to uplift the poor (Catholic and Muslim - of which I am neither - building together for the poor Muslim people in the area). My princess friend burst into tears of joy at a handover ceremony of houses for the poor over what she described as "the first time I've heard a Muslim leader asking Allah to bless his Christian brothers and sisters". At the same ceremony was a Catholic bishop.

On the other hand, some nearby parts of the country are regularly plagued by bombs targeted at civilians - and often Muslim civilians too. There appears to have been some sort of inculculation regarding such bombings, that they're a legitimate tactic or such like. An issue in the past in these regions has been Saudi activists coming in and funding and indoctrinating some of these groups. It's almost as if some of the local Muslim population are working cooperatively with Catholics to build peace, whilst others are being indoctrinated and funded by Saudi operatives.

It's this sort of blurring or religion, culture and other influences that muddy the water a lot.

I visited one city where Muslims the like of my colleague are not the majority, and I probably can't really include here what things are like there, suffice to say the culture is brutal and incredibly different to norms we're used to...

[Lucid_Lunatic]

Originally Posted by Mattt

How about Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Dolphin and Whale!!!!!!!

[phil_104]

Originally Posted by Lucid_Lunatic

Dolphin and Whale!!!!!!!

I know it's out of context, but that was a good episode.

[Fusion1]

Read this today posted anonymously at Free Republic:

1st hand account from Ft. Hood
KFYI | 11/9/09 | Unknown

Posted on Tuesday, November 10, 2009 11:04:13 AM by leapfrog0202

Warning from me: This is pretty graphic and is touching at the same time. You may need tissues handy...

This was read on the air by J.D. Hayworth, talk show host at KFYI in Phoenix. He received it from an officer that was just about to enter the building at Ft. Hood where the shooting happened. He wanted an accurate account out there since so far there's a lot of different accounts and they've yet to come together into 1 complete version.

Here's what he sent to KFYI:

First-Hand Account from Ft. Hood Monday 11-09-2009 2:57pm MT

Since I don't know when I'll sleep (it's 4 am now) I'll write what happened (the abbreviated version.....the long one is already part of the investigation with more to come). I'll not write about any part of the investigation that I've learned about since (as a witness I know more than I should since inevitably my JAG brothers and sisters are deeply involved in the investigation). Don't assume that most of the current media accounts are very accurate. They're not. They'll improve with time. Only those of us who were there really know what went down. But as they collate our statements they'll get it right.

I did my SRP last week (Soldier Readiness Processing) but you're supposed to come back a week later to have them look at the smallpox vaccination site (it's this big itchy growth on your shoulder). I am probably alive because I pulled a ---------- and entered the wrong building first (the main SRP building). The Medical SRP building is off to the side.

Realizing my mistake I left the main building and walked down the sidewalk to the medical SRP building. As I'm walking up to it the gunshots start. Slow and methodical. But continuous. Two ambulatory wounded came out. Then two soldiers dragging a third who was covered in blood. Hearing the shots but not seeing the shooter, along with a couple other soldiers I stood in the street and yelled at everyone who came running that it was clear but to "RUN!". I kept motioning people fast. about 6-10 minutes later (the shooting continuous), two cops ran up. one male, one female. we pointed in the direction of the shots. they headed that way (the medical SRP building was about 50 meters away). then a lot more gunfire. a couple minutes later a balding man in ACU's came around the building carrying a pistol and holding it tactically. He started shooting at us and we all dived back to the cars behind us. I don't think he hit the couple other guys who were there. I did see the bullet holes later in the cars. First I went behind a tire and then looked under the body of the car. I've been trained how to respond to gunfire...but with my own weapon. To have no weapon I don't know how to explain what that felt like. I hadn't run away and stayed because I had thought about the consequences or anything like that. I wasn't thinking anything through. Please understand, there was no intention. I was just staying there because I didn't think about running. It never occurred to me that he might shoot me.

Until he started shooting in my direction and I realized I was unarmed. Then the female cop comes around the corner. He shoots her. (according to the news accounts she got a round into him. I believe it, I just didn't see it. he didn't go down.) She goes down. He starts reloading. He's fiddling with his mags. Weirdly he hasn't dropped the one that was in his weapon. He's holding the fresh one and the old one (you do that on the range when time is not of the essence but in combat you would just let the old mag go). I see the male cop around the left corner of the building. (I'm about 15-20 meters from the shooter.) I yell at the cop, "He's reloading, he's reloading. Shoot him! Shoot him!) You have to understand, everything was quiet at this point. The cop appears to hear me and comes around the corner and shoots the shooter. He goes down. The cop kicks his weapon further away. I sprint up to the downed female cop. Another captain (I think he was with me behind the cars) comes up as well. She's bleeding profusely out of her thigh. We take our belts off and tourniquet her just like we've been trained (I hope we did it right...we didn't have any CLS (combat lifesaver) bags with their awesome tourniquets on us, so we worked with what we had).



END OF PART I

[Fusion1]

PART II

Meanwhile, in the most bizarre moment of the day, a photographer was standing over us taking pictures. I suppose I'll be seeing those tomorrow. Then a soldier came up and identified himself as a medic. I then realized her weapon was lying there unsecured (and on "fire"). I stood over it and when I saw a cop yelled for him to come over and secure her weapon (I would have done so but I was worried someone would mistake me for a bad guy). I then went over to the shooter. He was unconscious. A Lt Colonel was there and had secured his primary weapon for the time being. He also had a revolver. I couldn't believe he was one of ours. I didn't want to believe it. Then I saw his name and rank and realized this wasn't just some specialist with mental issues. At this point there was a guy there from CID and I asked him if he knew he was the shooter and had him secured. He said he did.

I then went over the slaughter house. the medical SRP building. No human should ever have to see what that looked like. and I won't tell you. Just believe me. Please. there was nothing to be done there. Someone then said there was someone critically wounded around the corner. I ran around (while seeing this floor to ceiling window that someone had jumped through movie style) and saw a large African-American soldier lying on his back with two or three soldiers attending. I ran up and identified two entrance wounds on the right side of his stomach, one exit wound on the left side and one head wound. He was not bleeding externally from the stomach wounds (though almost certainly internally) but was bleeding from the head wound. A soldier was using a shirt to try and stop the head bleeding. He was conscious so I began talking to him to keep him so. He was 42, from North Carolina, he was named something Jr., his son was named something III and he had a daughter as well. His children lived with him. He was divorced. I told him the blubber on his stomach saved his life. He smiled. a young soldier in civvies showed up and identified himself as a combat medic. We debated whether to put him on the back of a pickup truck. A doctor (well, an audiologist) showed up and said you can't move him, he has a head wound. we finally sat tight. I went back to the slaughterhouse. they weren't letting anyone in there. not even medics. finally, after about 45 minutes had elapsed some cops showed up in tactical vests. someone said the TBI building was unsecured. They headed into there.

All of a sudden a couple more shots were fired. People shouted there was a second shooter. a half hour later the SWAT showed up. there was no second shooter. that had been an impetuous cop apparently. but that confused things for a while. meanwhile I went back to the shooter. the female cop had been taken away. a medic was pumping plasma into the shooter. I'm not proud of this but I went up to her and said "this is the shooter, is there anyone else who needs attention...do them first". she indicated everyone else living was attended to. I still hadn't seen any EMTs or ambulances. I had so much blood on me that people kept asking me if I was ok. but that was all other people's blood. eventually (an hour and a half to two hours after the shootings) they started landing choppers. they took out the big African American guy and the shooter. I guess the ambulatory wounded were all at the SRP building. Everyone else in my area was dead.

I suppose the emergency responders were told there were multiple shooters. I heard that was the delay with the choppers (they were all civilian helicopters). they needed a secure LZ. but other than the initial cops who did everything right, I didnt' see a lot of them for a while. I did see many a soldier rush out to help their fellows/sisters. there was one female soldier, I dont' know her name or rank but I would recognize her anywhere who was everywhere helping people. a couple people, mainly civilians, were hysterical, but only a couple. one civilian freaked out when I tried to comfort her when she saw my uniform. I guess she had seen the shooter up close. a lot of soldiers were rushing out to help even when we thought there was another gunman out there. this Army is not broken no matter what the pundits say. not the Army I saw.

and then they kept me for a long time to come. oh, and perhaps the most surreal thing, at 1500 (the end of the workday on Thursdays) when the bugle sounded we all came to attention and saluted the flag. in the middle of it all.

this is what I saw. it can't have been real. but this is my small corner of what happened