"Clarion Call" has a Major Malfunction, Indeed

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"Clarion Call" has a Major Malfunction, Indeed
by J. Edward Tremlett, Columnist

November 11, 2009

"Down On the rANT Farm"

J. Edward Tremlett Timothy Rollins, old friend, why do you now hate America?

I ask this only because I am totally shocked at what you have written concerning the Fort Hood massacre. The articles "Clarion Call" and "Major Malfunction" are a far cry from the carefully-considered and thoughtful pieces you used to write back when I was a staff member of the American Partisan. Even in the wake of 9/11 your solutions on how to deal with the terrorist threat, while not always something I agreed with, were at least rational.

In "The Need for Prudence," published on 9/28/01, you wisely wrote:

"One of the cautions that needs to be taken here is to ensure that individual rights are respected and that the presumption of innocence remains in place, for that is usually the first casualty of war - that, and freedom of both speech and the press. While certain people and policies are justifiably subject to increased scrutiny from time to time and especially in light of what happened on September 11th, it is extremely important that we keep government (our servant) from appointing itself Government our Master."

So how do we go from that to the discharge of all Muslims from America's armed forces, their purging from all security posts and governmental positions, as well as universities and anywhere that "food, water, and other essential services" would be at risk, and their placement in internment camps, as you suggest in "Clarion Call?"

What has happened between 9/11 and Fort Hood that has made the respecting of individual rights and the presumption of innocence go by the wayside? Is the death of a relative handful of Americans in a military installation by what appears to be a lone assassin, without any backing, somehow worse than the thousands killed on 9/11 by a plot of Al-Qaeda? Is the integration of a possibly-unhinged Muslim into the high ranks of the American armed forces more frightening than the unseen specter of a dozen or so hijackers who remained invisible until the last minute? Is it now worth turning the servant into the master?

Please tell us what has changed, Timothy, because your sudden rush from sane prudence to shared punishment is both puzzling and disturbing.

I'm only slightly more shocked to hear you speak of their potential internment in the same light as what was done to the Japanese Americans during WWII: for "their own safety, well-being and protection." Any serious student of history knows that the now-rightfully-infamous internment was done only partly out of fear for the safety of non-Japanese Americans. The majority of the rationale was from since-disproven theories about Japanese intelligence networks, as well as racist and nativist sentiments that lurked in the minds of Californian businessmen and politicians. And while two-bit hucksters like Michelle Malkin may have made some gravy out of resurrecting those old canards, and trying to rehabilitate them for FOX News viewers, you should know better.

You, of all people, HAVE to know better.

You speak of the "silence" of American Muslims in the wake of these events. You say they are "unable or unwilling to rise up en masse to those within their community who, by their violent actions, blaspheme the very faith they possess."

Did you ever stop to consider that, given that these attacks on American soil have been so few and far between - contrary to early fear-mongering by the Islamophobic right in the wake of 9/11 - that they ARE rising up? Maybe not in the numbers you'd hope, or in the ways you expect, but there has to be a reason why the more hardcore adherents of militant Islam within America aren't declaring Jihad and blowing themselves up at every turn.

If the temptation of 72 virgins and instant admission to Paradise isn't strong enough to get them on the war wagon, then what do you suppose it is? Are they waiting for the right moment? Scared of being caught? Do they like breathing too much to let go and let God?

Or maybe they're not there in the numbers you suspect, after all. And maybe those that might be leaning in that direction are being influenced back the other way by the responsible community leaders of American Islam, who know what to look for. Maybe the FBI is quietly dealing with them, one tip at a time.

Maybe we will never know how many friends and allies we really have within American Islam until long after this is all a moot point, much in the same way we never knew how deeply involved Pope John Paul was in the end of the Cold War until sometime after his death.

Yes, it is obvious that knowing what to look for has failed in the case of Major Hasan. For this we can blame a number of things: political correctness and the Army's inability to recognize and/or deal with warning signs come immediately to mind. Perhaps we should also wonder who is watching the watchers: Major Hasan was a psychiatrist, but who was HIS psychiatrist? How did he slip through the cracks and not get tagged as a risk to himself and others?

But while counting the cost and deciphering the clues, let's not forget that one disaster does not spell out an epidemic, any more than one cough indicates swine flu. Yes, we have a collective responsibility to lessen the chances of 9/11-style attacks, but they must not come at the cost of what we are truly protecting from those attacks in the first place.

The American way of life, itself.

The terrorists do not win by knocking down towers or crashing planes out of the sky. They do not win by poisoning food and water, sniping at citizens, or planting IEDs in public places. They don't even win by converting Bert from Sesame Street to radical Islam. These are merely a means to an end.

Terrorists win by making a people abandon their principles. They win by erasing the societal and cultural bonds that exist between a people. They win when a people are too afraid to go to work, too afraid to go out for coffee or pizza, and too afraid to trust one another.

They win when we decide a whole category of people need to be segregated behind the walls of an internment camp for "their own safety."

They win when we turn our back on what makes this nation great, thus ignoring Benjamin Franklin's timeless warning: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Timothy, old friend, when you write things like "Clarion Call" and "Major Malfunction," you are letting the terrorists win. Please reconsider this hasty, fearful, and angry rhetoric, and remember the time when you were a voice of calm, if righteous vengeance in the sea of stupid, ill-informed anger that made up far too many of the voices heard in 9/11's wake*. The only thing that has truly changed between the awful days then, and the awful wake of now, is your perception of what's to be done about it.

Please make some good decisions in that regard. Your readers are counting on you. ***

* I fondly remember your graceful refereeing between myself and Lewis J. Goldberg of The Patriotist on this very matter. The fact that The Patriotist is now a webroot-blocked gateway for virus-laden pornography is, in my eyes at least, sign of the universe's constant drift towards ironic revelation. ***

J. Edward Tremlett is a published author, political thinker and self-described "mean-spirited crank." He lived with his wife and two cats in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, before returning to the Midwest.

Angry? Confused? Hooked? Be sure to get more hot, rANT action at J's blog! - http://rant-farm.blogspot.com/

Photo of J. Edward Tremlett courtesy of staff files