Os mesmos erros, os mesmos resultados

Andrew McCarthy analisa, no National Review Online, o comportamento das autoridades policiais americanas que, conhecedoras dos contactos de Nadil Hassan, o autor do antentado de Fort Hood, com Anwar al-Awlaki, imã radical, guia espiritual de dois dos terroristas do 11 de Setembro, não consideraram importante vigiar Hassan mais de perto.
A decisão de não investigar Hassan ter-se-á baseado numa suposta impossibilidade de processar alguém por incitamento à violência, o que McCarthy desmente; numa interpretação sui generis do Primeiro Aditamento à Constituição Americana, o qual protege a liberdade de expressão; e por se considerar que um religioso não pode ser acusado por um crime cujo incitamento tenha sido feito no exercício da liberdade religiosa.

«“September 10 America.” The phrase signifies a reprise of the “terrorism is just a crime” mindset that reigned in the years before the 9/11 attacks. Like other observers, I’ve groused in recent months that we are back to that self-destructive ethos. I was wrong. If the Fort Hood atrocity tells us anything, it is that things are much worse than they were before 9/11.

For one thing, 9/11 has happened. Before it did, perhaps we had an excuse. But we’ve experienced the wages of consciously avoiding Islamism. To have retreated into puerile fantasies about a religion of peace is, at this juncture, unfathomable.
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In 1995 (...) I led the team that convicted Omar Abdel Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh.” In essence, we prosecuted him for inciting terrorism­ (...). Specifically, the Blind Sheikh was convicted of (among other things) soliciting an attack against a U.S. military installation (like Hasan just committed) and soliciting the murder of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
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How was the Blind Sheikh convicted? By presenting to the jury his fiery sermons and private meetings with the faithful, often in mosques where he urged barbarous strikes against America, swaddled in accurate quotations of the Koran and other Muslim scripture. Of course, he claimed that such exhortations were protected speech.
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the Blind Sheikh contended that his incitements to terror were beyond prosecution because he was practicing his religion: Specifically, he claimed he had simply been performing the traditional role of an Islamic cleric called on to determine whether proposed courses of conduct (in this instance, mass-murder plots) were permissible under Islamic law. Fourteen years ago, that contention was properly seen as frivolous. In America, we are not under sharia law — not yet. There is no religious exception for violent acts, conspiracies, and incitements to violence that violate American law.

So what has happened? Why did we know these rudimentary, commonsense principles in the Nineties but not now? Because incitement explodes the government’s “religion of peace” narrative. The incitement to Islamist terror is Islamic scripture. The Blind Shiekh was not a hypnotist or a particularly compelling speaker. His authority over terrorist organizations was rooted exclusively in his acknowledged mastery of sharia. Islamic scripture was the source of his power over Muslims.

To concede this would be to concede the obvious but unspeakable fact that there is a nexus between Islam and terror. That would harpoon the lovey-dovey dream that Islam and Western democracy are perfectly compatible. It would upset Muslims — especially the well-organized, deep-pocketed Islamic grievance industry. Today’s hip, progressive FBI, like Gen. George Casey’s modern, slavishly “diverse” military, doesn’t want to upset Muslims. Besides souring State Department cocktail parties and drying up funding for presidential libraries, upsetting Muslims would put a damper on our government’s lavish “Islamic outreach” efforts. (...)
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[B]e prepared for more Fort Hoods. We’re not in September 10 America. We’ve managed to land in a much more dangerous place.»

A América a ceder ao relativismo cultural, ao multiculturalismo e à ideologia do politicamente correcto.
Na semana em que comemorámos o derrube do muro de Berlim, assistimos, no rescaldo do atentado de Fort Hood - concretamente, na cobertura noticiosa e na análise do ocorrido pelos media e pelos políticos progressistas norte-americanos -, ao triunfo da mais corrosiva forma de marxismo: o marxismo cultural, que destrói as fundações da cultura ocidental e que deixa o Ocidente vulnerável a qualquer ameaça consistente com que se depare.
Uma coisa que os progressistas ainda não perceberam é que o vazio de valores que se seguirá à destruição da cultura ocidental - porque os valores que têm para propor, como alternativa, são isso mesmo: vazio - será preenchido por outros valores, defendidos com convicção pelos islamistas.