Quote:
Originally Posted by desertgrandma
What exactly do you not understand about his attack?
That his particular brand of faith preaches this is what a good follower will do?
He COULD have walked away. Faced court-marshal. I guess that was too easy a solution.
I will agree with you on one point. The signs were there. Action should have been taken to remove this person from the service before it came to this.
Now I'll tell you why he wasn't. We have turned into a society so fearful of being called racist, we don't dare accuse a anyone of anything for fear of being sued.....and the sue-er winning.
Imagine the furor of his being released because of his opinion on the war. "Muslim kicked out of service for religious beliefs" Thats exactly what the headlines would have said.
So.......how do you combat that?
Now, this man's neighbors had nothing bad to say about him. Always friendly, generous and nice.
How do you balance that with what he did? You can't. Anymore than you can prevent something like this with happening again.
Thats why their called terrorists.
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We actually do agree on many points. You express the opinion that we will probably find out that we could not have anticipated what he did. And that there is no reasonable measure that would have prevented anything like this. As I said, in this case we must accept it as whatever we might think about it - you as a terrorist attack, me as the act of a guy who went crazy and therefore did commit something horrible, which looked like a terrorist attack. And we will have to go on with our lives, knowing that this kind of thing might happen again and again and again. Sad perspective, but maybe one that has to be accepted.
You also express the opinion that maybe the signs were there, and action could have been taken. In that case, the perspective would not be as bad as in above reasoning. In order to determine which was the case, research into what and how happened must take place - if not, we will have no clue how to reduce the probability of this kind of thing happening again.
I also agree with you concerning the headlines that might have emerged from his being kicked out of the army because of his beliefs. Which corresponds exactly to the problem the army does face with its opposing interests (and also society). You express the opinion that public opinion is biased in favor of his rights to let his religious feelings introduce a bias into his feelings towards the goodness of the army's deeds. That might well be the case, and also deserves public discussion.
As I say, it is a very complicated thing for the army if a soldier really starts to have feelings of hatred for the army's actions. And I think that this possibility deserves reflection about how to deal with it. Apart from just saying "it was a terrorist attack", without following up on any measures about future improvements to reduce the probability of a repetition of this kind of thing.