The military benefits from diversity … Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.
12/15/2019
Adapted from the latest Radio Derb, available exclusively at VDARE.com
Here’s an anniversary that, even after the Pensacola (and Pearl Harbor) shootings, doesn’t seem to have been mentioned in the Main Stream Media: the Fort Hood massacre, which occurred just over ten years ago, on November 5th, 2009.
In that incident a crazy Muslim, Army Major Nidal Hasan, the son of Palestinian immigrant parents, murdered thirteen people at Fort Hood Army base in Texas. Subsequently, General George Casey, Chief of Staff of the United States Army, went on Meet the Press and told us — this is an actual quote —
The military benefits from diversity … Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.
I spun an entire angry 37-minute Radio Derb podcast out of that bit of lunacy (November 13, 2009). It was rather dark, I’m afraid. I'll just replay for you the signoff segment, which gives the general tone of the thing:
There you have it, listeners. Twilight in the American empire. But let’s look on the bright side: We have our toys, our cell phones, our twitters, and our flat-screen TVs.
And we still have our ideological purity. When that great glowing mushroom cloud rises over some American city to cries of "Allahu Akbar!" from the bombers, we shall be able to reflect that however many casualties there are — ten million, twenty million — at least diversity was not among them.
Yes, they can murder our soldiers, fly planes into our buildings, terrorize our capital with sniper shootings, but they can never call us racist! Reflect on that, citizens, and glow with pride … while waiting for the day when you'll be glowing with something different.
Still, let’s give thanks for small mercies: At least the killings last Friday, December 6th, at Pensacola Naval Air Station by a native Saudi airman did not prompt any comments from the Joint Chiefs as bone-crushingly stupid as General Casey’s remark ten years ago.
Possibly our Ruling Class learned from that occasion that it is politically unwise to state the articles of their ideological faith out loud on nationwide TV at certain times and places. Better to keep quiet about them right after they have been so obviously exposed as false.
Or possibly not. Whatever caution our rulers may have acquired about airing their ideological dogmas too publicly at inopportune moments, their faith in those dogmas remains unshakeable. Which is why they’ve sent the Fort Hood Massacre down the Memory Hole.
Thus, from the military.com website, sample quote from the story:
Members of the House Armed Services Committee’s personnel subcommittee told leaders from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps that they fall short when it comes to minorities serving in leadership positions, especially in the senior officer ranks.
"Despite the significant efforts made by the services, there are still areas for improvement, specifically the services must redouble their efforts to improve diversity among the officer corps," subcommittee ranking member Rep. Trent Kelly, R-Miss., said during the Dec. 10 hearing.
Congress Wants More Diversity In The Ranks Of Military Generals, by Matthew Cox, December 11, 2019
Executive summary: America needs more Major Nidal Hasans!
One more time (I’m going to keep repeating this in the hope that one day it will sink in): Large-scale diversity is not a strength or a blessing: It is a blight and a curse. Anyone whose eyes are properly set opposite the holes in his face can see that plainly.
A little diversity does no harm. It may actually improve things, like salt in your stew. If you dump a whole box of salt into your stew, though, you no longer have stew. You no longer have anything you'd want to eat.
Some countries, like ours, have been cursed with diversity from their founding. As civilized people, we must just do the best we can to accommodate that original diversity, while cleaving firmly to the Prime Directive not to make things worse.
This isn’t hard to see; it isn’t hard to understand…unless, for social or psychological reasons, you are resolutely determined not to see it and not to understand it.
The perp in last Friday’s Pensacola shooting was Royal Saudi Air Force 2nd Lt Mohammed Alshamrani. He opened fire in a pilot-training class, killing three classmates and injuring at least eight before being shot dead himself by sheriff’s deputies. The King of Saudi Arabia has expressed his sincere condolences to the bereaved.
There are a number of things to be said about all that.
The first thing, of course:
I have been remarking for years, e.g. March 2017, that
The most astonishing statistic of our age is that our country admitted more Muslims for settlement in the fifteen years after 2001 than we did in the fifteen years prior.
I didn’t state the half of it. We haven’t just been admitting them, we've been admitting them for pilot training!
That rumbling sound you hear under your feet is Satan and his daemons rolling around on the floor of Hell laughing uncontrollably at our stupidity.
The second thing to be said, although this one’s kind of personal:
Just to remind you, although I know that faithful readers of course need no reminding, absimilation is the opposite of assimilation. When the second and subsequent generation from immigrant stock learn to conform to the host society, that’s assimilation. When the second generation is even more crazy and alien than the first, that’s ab-similation.
Absimilation is awfully common, especially among Muslims. First-generation Pakistani Muslims in England did factory and clerical work, opened little stores, bought row houses in old working-class neighborhoods, and respected host society values. The jihadi cells and the suicide bombers are second- and third-generation. Absimilation.
Major Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood killer, is a case of absimilation. 2nd Lt. Alshamrani, the Pensacola shooter, is a Saudi native, so no absimilation here. That doesn’t stop me trying to float my word again.
The third to be said:
We all know the game the Saudis are playing. Show a smiley face to the American public; splash money around in Washington, DC, wining and dining our congresscritters; give those big fat contracts to our defense industries; and all the time very quietly pass money and information to the jihadists in the hope the crocodile will eat the Saudi Royal Family last.
Why don’t we just cut the Saudis off, chopping our relationship down to the most minimal of diplomatic relations?
Old friends from my Wall Street days tell me there could be dire economic consequences. Not oil — we've got that nicely covered for ourselves now — but second-order stuff to do with the Saudis being major players in the capital and currency markets.
Eh, maybe. How bad could it be, though? As bad as 2008? We weathered that all right.
Fiat justitia ruat caelum, I say: Let justice be done though the sky falls.
Let’s dump the Saudis. And get to work on absimilation.
John Derbyshire writes an incredible amount on all sorts of subjects for all kinds of outlets. (This no longer includes National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and fired him.) He is the author of We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism and several other books. He has had two books published by VDARE.com com: FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT (also available in Kindle) and FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT II: ESSAYS 2013.
For years he’s been podcasting at Radio Derb, now available at VDARE.com for no charge. His writings are archived at JohnDerbyshire.com.
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