Typical workplace violence
Posted by Richard on November 12, 2009
As far as dangerously inane commentary on Hasan's Ft. Hood jihad goes, I thought it would be hard to top "pre-traumatic stress disorder" and "it's not illegal to call up al Qaeda, is it?" — but I was wrong.
Naturally, the even more unbelievable expression of naivete, stupidity, willful ignorance, and cowering before the specter of Islamist rage comes from academics — specifically, a pair of criminologists from Northeastern University in Boston, James Alan Fox and Jack Levin, writing in USA Today. They assured us that what Hasan did was just your ordinary workplace murder, not terrorism. And then they warned us that calling it terrorism might cause other Muslims to behave similarly — and it would be our fault. Unbe-frickin-lievable (emphasis added):
Appearances can be perilously deceiving, especially if Americans do not look any further than Nidal Malik Hasan's Palestinian descent, his Muslim affiliation, his Middle Eastern-style clothing, and reports of his having shouted out "Allahu Akbar," an expression of praise to God, before allegedly gunning down dozens of soldiers. Superficially, the Fort Hood rampage looks like terrorism.
Hasan's murder spree appears, however, to be much more about seeking vengeance for personal mistreatment than spreading terror to advance a political agenda. In many respects the Fort Hood massacre stands as a textbook case of workplace murder … and Hasan a disgruntled worker attempting to avenge perceived unfair treatment on the job. His rampage was selective, not indiscriminate. He chose the location — his workplace — and then apparently singled out certain co-workers for death.
No, he didn't. Every report I've seen said Hasan shot at anyone he could, and his victims were soldiers being processed for deployment overseas, not co-workers who had mistreated him. They just made that last part up.
And how about that explanation of "Allahu Akbar" as an innocuous "expression of praise to God"? Let's flesh that definition out a bit: "An expression of praise to God traditionally shouted by jihadists as they commence slaughtering infidels." There, that's better.
In today's political climate, it is easy to understand why many observers would uncritically describe Hasan as a terrorist. …
But calling the Fort Hood ambush an act of terrorism would only compound the tragedy by reinforcing the kind of intolerance toward American Muslims that appears to have contributed to Hasan's despair. Unfortunately, according to FBI figures, there has been a precipitous increase in hate crimes against Arab Americans since the 9/11 attacks.
No, there hasn't. They just made that last part up (or compared only the numbers a few months before 9/11 and a few months after). Reports of anti-Muslim hate crimes have declined significantly since 9/11/01. The numbers are comparable to those for anti-Christian hate crimes and only a tenth of anti-Jewish hate crimes (many, if not most, of which are committed by Islamist Muslims). In an Oct. 20 fisking of an Eric Holder speech about hate crimes, Creeping Sharia provided these numbers:
| Bias motivation | Total victims | |
| Year | 2,006 | 2,007 |
| Religion (total): | 1,750 | 1,628 |
| Anti-Jewish | 1,144 | 1,127 |
| Anti-Other Religion | 147 | 148 |
| Anti-Islamic | 208 | 142 |
| Anti-Christian | 151 | 137 |
| Anti-Multiple Religions, Group | 92 | 66 |
| Anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc. | 8 | 8 |
*Source: FBI Uniform Crime Statistics
And on Nov. 4, he added this update (emphasis added):
Related:
http://homelandsecurityus.com/?p=3209
Investigation and research by this author into the documentation that comprises hate crime statistics for 2007 (the figures for 2008 will be available through the FBI on November 23, 2009) found that the parameters used for “hate crimes” against Muslims are exceptionally broad and artificially inflated as a result. These expanded parameters are, in many cases, the direct result of CAIR officials demanding certain dubious questionable events to be included in anti-Muslim hate crime statistics. Examples are plentiful, and include unverified reports of minimal, if not insignificant property damage at mosques and Islamic centers. A trampled flower bed at a mosque, as one example, was listed as an anti-Islamic “hate crime” statistic.
In 2007, crimes classified as having their motivation in anti-Muslim bias amounted to about 9 percent of all hate crimes. By contrast, crimes against Jews, or those having an anti-Semitic motive amounted to nearly 70% during that same period. Despite those figures and the obvious disparity, there has been a continual and vociferous demand for special considerations within law enforcement on behalf of Muslims due to the deceitful embellishment of post-9/11 anti-Islamic bias. Although the statistics for 2008 are not yet published, a review of available reports indicates that the anti-Islamic motivated crimes have dropped significantly. Nonetheless, claims of anti-Islamic bias have risen exponentially during that same period.
Meanwhile, statistics of crimes by Muslims against Muslims, specifically those involving domestic violence, from Sharia sanctioned spousal abuse to “honor killings” are not maintained. The omission of this statistical classification is not due to its rarity, but by deliberate omission. Although the raw statistics exist within the comprehensive CIUS report, they are not properly categorized within the UCR Program’s hate crime data collection. Therefore, they remain a statistic that does not officially exist, except for the victims of such crimes.
Gateway Pundit just yesterday posted even more extensive data refuting the myth that Muslims are especially subject to hate crimes.
Promoting the myth of Muslim victimhood and "despair," along with pressing relentlessly for special accommodations for Muslims and encouraging fear of "Muslim rage" in response to the slightest provocation — these are among the weapons that Islamists use to wage what's been called cultural or political jihad. It's been extremely successful in moving much of Europe toward dhimmitude. And in reaction to that, numerous neo-fascist groups are on the rise across the continent, exploiting the backlash and resentment among non-Muslims.
Fox and Levin are no doubt too stupid to realize that their vacuous blather benefits two dangerous forces — intransigent Islamists bent on imposing shari'a across the globe and anti-immigrant, anti-Arab neo-fascist nativists. Neither of those groups would treat pompous liberal college professors well, if given the chance.
David Bryant said
Another excellent post, Richard. You’ve been busy this week.
I did want to point out one thing about the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. The FBI simply compiles this report from summary data submitted by state and local law enforcement officers. Participation in the program is voluntary. Although participation is very high (the report covers most reported crime in the United States), there are no uniform standards for the classification of “hate crimes”. (Hate crimes — is that a pleonasm? Hmmm)
I haven’t heard about an analysis of these statistics by religion, but I did hear an interesting report on NPR last week about the breakdown of “hate crimes” by race. Somebody studied the incidence of racially motivated “hate crimes” by state. I’m not certain which two southern states were mentioned (sorry — it was on the radio, not in print), but I think they contrasted Georgia and Mississippi. Georgia reported something like 2,000 “hate crimes” (white on black and black on white, combined) and Mississippi reported zero. Nada. Zilch.
This result strains credulity. The only plausible explanation is that law enforcement officers in Mississippi do not recognize the existence of “hate crimes”. In other words, the statistics in the UCR are a very mixed bag. This doesn’t mean the statistics you’ve cited are wrong. It does mean they should be approached with caution.
rgcombs said
All statistics should be approached with caution — 63.7% of them are made up. 😉
But the failure of Mississippi to record ”anything” as a hate crime, whether the victim is black, white, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, gay, or straight, doesn’t suggest that the comparative numbers reported by the FBI are significantly off-base, regardless of how incomplete those numbers are. Nor does it cast doubt on the significant decline in reported anti-Islamic hate crime over the last eight years.
The ”proportions” would only be changed if Mississippi (and anyplace else that didn’t report hate crimes) had huge numbers of anti-Islamic crimes and very few of any other kind. And the ”decline” would only be an artifact of bad data if Mississippi (and other places) used to report anti-Islamic hate crimes aggressively, but have gradually ceased doing so. IMHO, neither is at all likely.
There is credible evidence that CAIR works aggressively to maximize the reporting of anti-Islam hate crimes. And there are instances of radical Muslims, practicing taqiyya, falsely reporting hate crimes against them. So it is much more likely that the FBI statistics overstate, at least proportionately, the rate of anti-Islamic hate crime.
And for what it’s worth, there’s anecdotal evidence: shortly after Dr. George Tiller was shot, someone gunned down an anti-abortion activist, and a number of fundamentalist Christian churches were vandalized. Have you seen any news reports of Muslims being shot and mosques being vandalized since Hasan’s attack?