On Veteran's Day, it seems fitting to discuss the murder of 13 members of the Army, and the wounding of another 31, at Fort Hood last week.  To start with the obvious, the Fort Hood murders were despicable and the circumstances - a radical Muslim shooter who yelled ""Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire - were another reminder how fundamentalist Islam can be used as motivation for atrocities.  There have been reports that Nidal Malik Hasan attended the same Mosque as two 9/11 hijackers, vocally had advocated suicide bombing, and had attempted to contact al-Qaeda.  For now, it seems that he acted without informing any organized terror groups of his plan; though clearly the attack itself was planned and not rash or spur of the moment.  For those who believe that radical Islam poses an existential threat to Western civilization, the temptation to view this attack as proof that their calls for greater vigilance have been under-appreciated must be alluring.  To succumb to that temptation and make general the specific is wrong-headed and frankly dangerous.  

For one thing, two Muslims in the military have committed deplorable acts (the other is Hasan Akbar who killed two officers in a grenade attack)- but many more have died in the line of duty for this country.  To tarnish their sacrifice because of the actions of unrelated psychopaths is disgraceful.  Those on the far right who are advocating a ban on Muslim military service miss that the target of this attack, for all of its symbolic weight, is incidental.  There was nothing about this attack that had to happen to soldiers.  Some have questioned why authorities did not detain Hasan or remove him from the military, since he was under in investigation for terrorist sympathies.  Rather than suspect federal incompetence or political correctness remember that Hasan was an American citizen guilty of nothing more than having unpopular opinions until he opened fire.  The weapons he used were purchased privately and the main feature of the soldiers attacked was that they were congregated in one place.  A similarly unhinged gunman could find many other places to attack a large number of people, perhaps those killed wouldn't be members of the military, but they might be just as dead.  Kicking Muslims out of the military might make some people feel like they did something, but it wouldn't make the country more safe. 

If Michelle Malkin and like-minded individuals were serious about ending the threat of Muslim extremism then they would advocate kicking every single Muslim out of the country (a la Lou Dobbs's plan for illegal immigrants), sealing the borders tightly, tightly restricting gun sales with strict background checks and closing the gun show loophole, restricting internet access to extremist sites, banning the Koran and founding a new cabinet level post, "The Department of Homeland Religious Security."  Short of that dystopian solution, we're just going to have to deal with the fact that we don't live in a perfectly safe world.  Those that try to "fix" that problem inevitably make our society worse- if not actually making us less safe.  

Attacks like Hasan's - and 9/11 for that matter - are "blowback" for American policy abroad.  That isn't an excuse for their evil or a condemnation of American foreign policy, it is just a fact.  American actions abroad cause many people to dislike America, it inspires some people to passionate dissent in their countries, it drives a few to support extreme violent measures and a very few to actual violence.  That is the reaction to our actions.  Bin Laden was enraged by the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia.  Hasan was upset about the U.S "war on Muslims."  They are murderers who are out of step with the modern world and perhaps they would have found inspiration for violence anyway, but it turns out they didn't have to look very far.  An over-reaction to this tragedy will only inspire new violent reprisals.

This what asymmetrical warfare is.  The West spends trillions of dollars and thousands of lives killing terrorists in the furthest corners of the globe only to open new vulnerabilities up at home.  We can never fight our way to harmonious unanimity or bottle our society up tight enough to be safe.  Live fully and freely and hope for a better tomorrow, but do not be dragged down into the depths because of men like Nidal Malik Hasan.  That's an American solution.