In the wake of the terrorist strike on our soldiers at Fort Hood, one individual’s still missing in action: Our commander in chief. The massacre’s 51 casualties, including 13 dead, were insufficient to drag President Obama away from the White House Happy Hour.
We just saw the worst terror attack on America since 9/11. And Obama couldn’t adjust his schedule to support our grieving troops.
Instead, we got his subtle defense of the perp: Unwilling to use the word “terror,” let alone the phrase “Islamist terror,” Obama warned us not to “rush to judgment.”
A Muslim fanatic, known to the FBI as a fan of suicide bombers and to colleagues as an opponent of our government, coolly buys weapons, heads to a military facilityhe knows will be packed with unsuspecting soldiers, waits for the crowd to thicken, then shouts, “Allah is great!” and guns down 51 patriots, calmly reloading among the dead and dying.
But don’t rush to judgment.
Imagine if, instead of Fort Hood, the massacre had gone down at a mosque in Detroit — carried out by a maddened Christian or Jew. Obama would’ve been aboard Air Force One before the pilots had time to file a flight plan and he would’ve been on site before the gun smoke cleared, hugging and boo-hooing and dispensing stirring rhetoric for the evening news.
But go out of his way to rally our butchered troops? Not a chance. It’s not like they’re real human beings with Ivy League degrees. When Obama got word of the attack, he didn’t even lose his fabled cool.
Obama may be shamed into visiting Ft. Hood at some point, but his priority since Thursday has remained socializing American medicine. What happens in Texas, stays in Texas.
Move on? Yes we can!
Of course, this act of Islamist terrorism has been an inconvenience to a president whose administration insists there’s no such thing. Those dead and wounded soldiers are such an embarrassment. If only a Baptist or Lutheran had been the shooter, things would’ve been so much tidier.
What’s next? The White House is going to bring heavy pressure on the FBI, through Attorney General Eric Holder, to play down investigative results confirming that Maj. Nidal Hasan was motivated by his Muslim beliefs.
Instead, we’ll hear even more about the “harassment” Hasan suffered as the media toe the line laid down by the vile lead editorial in Saturday’s New York Times and how this calculating terrorist contracted PTSD from his patients.
Let me kill the harassment myth right now: Political correctness rules in today’s Army. We even protect our enemies these days. Had any soldier harassed Hasan because of his Islamist nuttiness, that soldier would’ve disappeared faster than a Franklin on a Times Square sidewalk.
Any snarky remarks directed toward Hasan — if there were any — would’ve come in reaction to his railing against our government, our military’s mission and the monstrous injustice that, after grabbing an education in psychiatry worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from our military, he might have had to do his duty.
Far from being harassed himself, this creep was allowed to harass the soldiers he treated for stress disorders. According to colleagues, Hasan not only argued with his patients about our wars, but preached Islam to those under his care. (Just what troubled vets needed, no doubt.)
Prejudice? You bet. In this terrorist’s favor. Nobody in Hasan’s chain of command had the sense of duty to weed this pervert out. Why? Hasan would’ve accused them of discrimination. And the officer who brought charges against Hasan would’ve been the one whose career suffered.
Since writing on this travesty in the Post and speaking out on Fox News, I’ve been deluged with supportive messages — many from soldiers outraged at the politically correct treatment of this terrorist by the media, by senior military leaders — and by the president.
How many more Americans have to die, at home and in war, before our president admits that there is, indeed, such a thing as Islamist terror? Will he ever admit that it played a role in the tragedy at Fort Hood?
Not a chance. Islam’s a religion of peace. America’s the problem. And don’t you forget it.
Ralph Peters’ latest book is “The War After Armageddon.”