Missing The Point

In all the commentary going on about the Ft. Hood attack, no one seems to be picking up on the obvious point of the thing. That Maj. Hasan was executing a terrorist attack on the U.S. is not really debatable. As they note at the military academies, strategy and tactics are for amateurs, professionals talk logistics.

So let's consider the logistics of the attack. To put a soldier in the field requires ten or more supporters off the field. Someone has to inspire the fellow, someone has to train him, to turn an otherwise ordinary Joe into a weapon in his own right, and supply him with anything he needs over and above what he brings to the game himself. Peripherally, we hear he attended the same Mosque as two of the 9/11 people, and was preached to by the same Imam. When the same institution spits out 3 terrorists in a row, it's time to give the place a really close look. Who's in there, what are they saying, and who is paying them to say it.

To stop the attacks, it is necessary to do more than kill the man in the field. You have to wipe out the base that trained him, and the political leadership who inspired him, otherwise you're just playing whack-a-mole. Monitoring the sermons of suspected radicals is quite within reason. Reviewing their immigration status wouldn't hurt either. Freedom of religion is a limited right, just like all the others, and human sacrifice is over the line.