June 13, 2009
What are the limited lessons learned so far from “the shooting of a security guard at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by an elderly anti-Semitic pamphleteer who published tirades against Jews?
Remember when the Department of Homeland Security, headed by Janet Napolitano, issued, back in April, a nine-page document titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment”? As potential security risks, the report also listed veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Everyone was up in arms about the slight this was to army men. But when it came to defending other patriots maligned therein”immigration restrictionists, Second Amendment defenders, limited government crusaders, and tax protesters”mum was the word.
As a member of the undefended faction, I confess to growing as sick-and-tired of the odes to the military in militarized America, as I have of the constant fretting over the toll stratospheric state debt will take on “our children.” (What about all us stiffed working stiffs?) About the country’s under-educated, over-indulged, hyper-sexed, super-confident kids I don”t care. (I”m confident the homeschooled among them will survive this road to serfdom.)
The military is certainly no more deserving than the rest of us”except of that extra bit of scrutiny, if we are to heed the government’s own warnings.
The attacker at the Holocaust Museum was, indeed, a former military man, although Napolitano was off by a few decades: James W. von Brunn was drafted to fight in World War II. On the wrong side, as he would no doubt argue.
Since the government has confused me so about army men, I”ve settled on this simple formula: I”ll salute the “Ramoses and Compeans of this great nation, who stand on this country’s soil and defend its borders. With Janet Napolitano’s blessing, I”ll remain suspicious of the soldiers who”ve been snookered into fighting phantoms in far-flung destinations, like Iraq and Afghanistan.
The more obvious moral of the von Brunn attack relates to media coverage. If you’re a white supremacist caught in the act, intrepid, mainstream journalism will not rest until it has dug-up, divulged and dissected everything about you.
Scarcely had the cowardly attack taken place than the mug of the hater was plastered on every TV station across the country. (I can”t tell you what the Jihadi du jour looks like.) Ditto details of von Brunn’s dysfunctional biography and ideology.
In no time the usually lackadaisical liberal media expertly knitted together von Brunn’s years in irons, unsavory associations, and the ins-and-outs of his holocaust-denying, anti-Semitic belief system. Still, the “parrot press” could not quite settle on whether this old, evil individual was a “lone wolf” or a mastermind of a conspiracy rivaling al Qaida.
Lengthy talking points accompanied the non-stop, hours-on-end, worldwide, breaking news-less reporting. Summoned to argue on CNN for laws prohibiting hate speech was playwright Janet Langhart Cohen, the wife of former defense secretary William Cohen. She had been staging a presumably kosher production at the Museum.
Langhart Cohen was not alone in calling for “the kind of laws they have in Europe.” We are too tolerant of hate speech, chimed Mark W. Smith, a conservative columnist and lawyer. As though outlawing offensive speech can void the human heart of hatred. (So much for the recrudescence of a worthwhile conservatism.)
Suffice it to say that no one will forget James W. von Brunn any time soon.
On the other hand, does anyone (besides Robert Spencer and “Pamela Geller) know who Wael W. Kalash is?
I didn”t think so. If you’re a swarthy supremacist, driven by devotion to a vampiric prophet and his deity, you can count on the “discretion” of those whose job description is vigilant indiscretion.
Thus, when Kalash”a repeat offender”would take up his regular post at the University Village bus stop, on Stinchcomb Drive near Buckeye Village, in Ohio, he did so with impunity and always off camera.
As was his wont, Kalash would then terrify female students by shouting and gesticulating, “F*** you American slut.”
When Kalash’s menacing, University Village vigils culminated in the stabbing of a young female student, CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC, ABC, and CBS were missing in action.
After all, this was but a “random event,” perpetrated by a “disturbed” individual, who, following his mission, just happened to, willy-nilly, escape into the Masjid Omar Ibn El Khattab mosque. That was the line the boys in blue were sticking to.
According to Robert Spencer of “Jihad Watch,” however, this very mosque was spiritual home to numerous “Muslims behaving badly.” And in particular, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, alias Carlos Bledsoe, of the hybrid identity (American Muslim). Earlier this month, Muhammad murdered an American soldier and injured another in an attack on a recruiting center in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Alas, you really have to dig to get at this stuff.
