Our country is run by allies of our jihadist enemies

The American policy vis a vis Islamic jihadism is to conceal the fact that our Muslim enemies are our enemies. As Bill Gertz makes clear in the Washington Times, even the mass murder at Fort Hood by the outspoken jihadist Nidal Hasan has made no difference in that policy. High ranking officials charged with uncovering why the massacre was allowed to occur are still engaged in the same cover-up of Islam—and the same cover-up of the cover-up of Islam—that allowed the massacre to occur.

I’ve bolded the parts of Gertz’s article where a former Army Secretary and a former Chief of Naval Operations responsible for writing the report on the failure of the Army and FBI to stop Nidal Hasan before he committed mass murder, not only refuse to address the question whether political correctness and sensitivity toward Islam had anything to do with that failure, but, replicating the Army’s denial of Islamic reality that made it possible for Hasan to remain in the Army and carry out the attack, deny that Islam had anything to with the attack.

Gertz writes:

Senior Pentagon officials last week sought to play down or sidestep questions about why Army supervisors and FBI counterterrorism officials missed warning signs or failed to take action against Army Maj. Nidal Hasan before the Nov. 5 attack, which killed 13 people—all but one them soldiers.

Rep. Ike Skelton, Missouri Democrat and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a C-SPAN interview Sunday that committee hearings set for Wednesday will examine the two “disconnects” related to Army personnel reports: that Maj. Hasan was promoted despite signs that he had become radicalized, and that intelligence reports indicating the major had terrorism links apparently were ignored.

Patrick S. Poole, a counterterrorism consultant to government and law enforcement, said the Pentagon report did not address the problem of political correctness in the military “that allowed for Maj. Hasan’s continued rise despite his poor performance.” Mr. Poole said an “atmosphere of intimidation” exists in the military regarding Islamist threats that “prevented any substantive complaints to [Maj. Hasan’s] increasingly extremist statements.”

“Everyone along the way was content to give him a pass,” Mr. Poole said.

Former Army Secretary Togo D. West Jr., who co-led a Pentagon review of the shooting, dismissed concerns that Maj. Hasan’s religion was a factor in performance reviews during his career as an Army medical counselor.

When asked whether the immediate problem at Fort Hood, Texas, was Islamist radicalization, Mr. West declined to single out Islamists. “Our concern is not with the religion,” he told reporters at the Pentagon. “It is with the potential effect on our soldiers’ ability to do their job.”

Mr. West said “radicalization of any sort” is the issue and that “our concern is with actions and effects, not necessarily with motivations.”

Adm. Vernon E. Clark, a former chief of naval operations and the investigation’s other co-leader, declined to answer when asked whether political correctness led to the Army security failures. He suggested that the matter is addressed in a secret annex to the report that he and Mr. West helped produce.

A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on whether political correctness contributed to the security lapse.

[end of Washington Times article]

To sum up: the ruling principle of liberalism is non-discrimination toward minorities and outgroups, particularly nonwhites and non-Westerners. Such non-discrimination requires the avoidance of the expression of negative truths about nonwhites and non-Westerners, no matter how important or even life-threatening such truths may be. Indeed, the more negative and threatening the truth about a non-Western or nonwhite group, the more the truth must be avoided, both by voluntary self-censorship, and by social and professional sanctions against those who fail to perform the required self-censorship. This complex of voluntary avoidance and coercive suppression, central to the rule of liberalism, is called political correctness. However, in order for the regime of political correctness to maintain itself in power, it must not only cover up and suppress negative truths about nonwhite and non-Western groups; it must cover up the fact of its own existence. Thus Togo West’s and Vernon Clark’s refusal to answer the question whether political correctness had anything to do with Army’s failure to stop Hasan.

- end of initial entry -

Ferg writes:

From the article:

Adm. Vernon E. Clark, a former chief of naval operations and the investigation’s other co-leader, declined to answer when asked whether political correctness led to the Army security failures. He suggested that the matter is addressed in a secret annex to the report that he and Mr. West helped produce.

Why secret? What is secret about it? Is it a national defense secret? Or is the government unable to admit to the people what its policies are and how they affect our safety? If they can not admit how their policies affect our safety, then it must be the case that our safety is not their main objective and something else is. What is this other objective? Why does it outrank our safety? Who has decided that this is the policy the government will pursue? These are the questions that any inquiry should be addressing.

LA replies:

Look at it this way. A national secret is information that, if publicized, would be so damaging to the government or its ruling ideology that it must be concealed. The fact that our government as a matter of policy refuse to defend us from our declared enemies, the fact that the government and the military as a matter of policy drop all normal standards—of competence, loyalty, and law-abidingness—when it comes to Muslims and other minorities, the fact that the Army as a matter of policy values “diversity” over the lives of soldiers, would be so damaging to the liberal regime that it must not be revealed to the public. The pervasive rule of PC is a genuine national defense secret.

Ferg replies:

You wrote:

“The pervasive rule of PC is a genuine national defense secret.”

So, the genuine national defense secret is that we do not have a genuine national defense?

LA replies:

The function and purpose of liberalism are to hollow out a nation until there’s nothing left. But if this purpose is to succeed, it must be kept secret, or rather it must not be too openly admitted.

Rick U. writes:

From the Article:

Adm. Vernon E. Clark, a former chief of naval operations and the investigation’s other co-leader, declined to answer when asked whether political correctness led to the Army security failures. He suggested that the matter is addressed in a secret annex to the report that he and Mr. West helped produce.

Of course, this proves the denials of political correctness in the report are mere spin. When the facts don’t agree with the PC narrative you call it a “state secret”.

We should also note, like the 9-11 Commission, all of these study groups now have “co-leaders” which is just a way to rig the system so that critical analysis is squelched as a functional matter. In that way, only a politically correct outcome is possible.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 18, 2010 08:31 AM | Send