THE first thing a journalist - I mean a real journalist - would do is tell you what actually happened.
Like this: an American officer shot dead 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas on Friday.
Then the second thing a journalist - a real one - would do is to try to explain why. You know, to help you make sense of this, and to help stop such a terrible thing from happening again.
So this real journalist would be keen to pass on to you these following clues.
The Fort Hood killer, army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan, was a Muslim. He shouted "God is great" in Arabic as he opened fire.
What's more, fellow doctors and students had complained about his fiery preaching of Islam and "anti-American propaganda".
He'd praised the killing in June of another US soldier by a Muslim American.
Colonel Terry Lee also recalled Hasan telling him: "Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor." And these were all facts known to journalists within hours.
Soon came collaborative details: Hasan had attended a radical mosque, and at the same time as did two September 11 terrorists. He'd given away copies of the Koran on the morning of the shootings.
He'd also described himself as "Palestinian" on a mosque's register, despite having been born in Virginia. He'd said Muslims should mount suicide attacks in Times Square, and two years ago told fellow student Dr Val Finnell that the "war on terror" was actually a "war against Islam".
He'd been disciplined for preaching Islam at his patients.
Now it's even reported that investigators suspected months ago that Hasan tried to contact al-Qaida.
Are you getting a picture here? Or do you need me to scream "Allahu Akbar" in your ear, too?
But whether or not you find these details conclusive in establishing a motive - in answering that why? - here's the astonishing thing: most of our Left-leaning media outlets resisted even reporting them.
This information was kept from the public for fear, I assume, that you might get the "wrong" idea - just as SBS after the September 11 attacks destroyed tape it had of the then mufti of Australia praising suicide bombers in his mosque, telling me it feared you might reach an "unfair" conclusion about this hate-preaching jihadist.
And the "wrong" idea you might have got from Friday's slaughter was this: here was yet another American Muslim on a jihad against his own country.
In fact, journalist after journalist advanced every possible motive of the massacre bar the one that was screaming in their ears.
Oh, you think I'm exaggerating? Then let's review, just for a start, the ABC's coverage on Friday.
Its first substantial report, by correspondent Lisa Millar, failed in eight minutes to even note the killer was a Muslim, hinting only that Hasan may have suffered harassment because of his unspecified "family background".
And, yes, I'm sure you noticed: a Muslim accused of murdering 13 non-Muslims was once more to be portrayed as the real victim.
At midday, ABC correspondent John Shovelan filed another long report, which did fleetingly note that Hasan "had been a Muslim all his life", but only after painting him as one more suicidal soldier traumatised by American's war-mongering.
Hasan had "spent years dealing with troops suffering post-traumatic stress after returning from war zones", said Shovelan, and already 75 soldiers at Fort Hood had killed themselves.Small problem with this theory: Hasan had not actually committed suicide and had never been to war.
Yet this "war-is-hell" angle was too handy an excuse, leading reporter Kim Landers to next suggest on PM: "This attack raises new questions about the toll that continuous fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is taking on the US military and individual soldiers."
It did? Let me repeat, Kim: Hasan is a psychiatrist. He never fought anywhere, until the day he decided to fight America. "Allahu Akbar!"
But the desire to turn this massacre into another example of the evil of America's wars and meanness to Muslims was overwhelming.
SBS that night claimed that investigators were still searching for a motive for the massacres, only to have newsreader Lee Lin Chin then suggest the one SBS preferred: "And later in the program we'll be examining some of the problems faced by Muslim soldiers in the military."
The Sydney Morning Herald likewise reported only that Hasan had faced "harassment" from the army for being Muslim and merely opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan "after hearing the stories of returning servicemen".
CNN claimed that "treating trauma victims may cause its own trauma", and Canada's National Post agreed "it is
a cruel irony that the very mental disorder Major Hasan was trained to treat may have claimed himas a victim".
Ah, yes: Hasan was just a good man, maddened by his own good works. By American wars and racism.
The New York Times summed up this agreed lesson: "The shootings ... (were) shining a spotlight on the tensions Muslims feel inside the United States."
Pardon? The tensions Muslims feel in the US or inspire? I mean, who did the shooting here?
If the spotlight is on anything, it's surely on the fact that although just 3500 Muslims serve in America's 1.4 million-strong military, Hasanjoins a disturbingly long list of Muslim soldiers who declared war on their country.
Sgt Hasan Akbar, for instance, killed two of his officers and wounded 14 other soldiers when he rolled a grenade into their tent during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which he said was anti-Muslim.
Sgt Ali Mohamed became Osama bin Laden's driver and admitted he helped al-Qaida bomb US embassies in Africa, killing more than 200 people.
Navy signalman Massan Abujihaad, Army specialist Ryan Anderson and Army reservist Semi Osman were each convicted for helping al-Qaida, and Marine Abdul Raheem al Arshad Ali trained at a suspected al-Qaida camp.
Then there was Army sniper John Muhammad, who murdered 10 civilians in 2002 in what his accomplice described as a "jihad".
Or consider the terrorism attacks planned by Muslim American civilians on US troops, such as the plot by five men in 2007 to kill soldiers at Fort Dix, or the gunning down of two soldiers in Arkansas by a convert five months ago.
I N September two more Muslims were charged with plotting attacks on a Dallas skyscraper and a federal building in Illinois, and last month a Boston Muslim was arrested for allegedly planning attacks on shopping malls.
There is a pattern here as unmistakable as Hasan's cry of "Allahu Akbar!" A minority of American Muslims - but not such a tiny one - choose their faith over their allegiance to their country, their ethnicity over their nationality, and are prey to a violent ideology that Islam seems to license.
Even the day after the Fort Hood shootings, a BBC reporter recorded a worshipper at Hasan's mosque saying he was the killer's "brother in the end" and "I will never condemn him", because his victims were just "going ... to kill Muslims" so "I honestly have not pity for them".
Here, then, are the real questions raised by the Fort Hood massacre.
How much of a threat is Islam to a secular, multi-ethnic society like America's - and ours?
How sure can we be of the loyalty of Muslim troops in a war against a Muslim country?
Have we become so fearful of asking such questions that even a Hasan, with his record for hate-preaching, is not just allowed to serve in the US military, but is promoted to the rank of major by people apparently too scared to seem racist to object?
And can you trust journalists to even tell you the facts you need to reach the right answers?
Cameron Parry "My Soul" Loving
- 15 years, 14 days ago
