letter in response to jonah goldberg article 11-13 on attack at fort hood

mr. goldberg,

i read your column today on the killings at ft. hood, and you make some very good points about our reluctance to point out the obvious (i.e. that major hasan was a muslim and was, if the reports are true, in fact, a radical, terrorist muslim at that.

that being said, you did make a statement, that puts you into somewhat of a radical category yourself: "there is a powerful case to made that islamic extremism is not some fringe phenomenon but part of the mainstream of islamic life around the world."

what exactly is that "powerful case?" you don't back up that inflammatory statement with any proof or facts. there is no evidence whatsoever that islamic extremism is part of the muslim mainstream. indeed, there is ample evidence that it is not. to wit: there are 1.1 BILLION muslims in the world, and if even 10% of those people (110 million) were extremists then there would be thousands upon thousands of terrorist attacks against western targets, if not monthly, then yearly, and there are not. according to the united nations charter, resistance to an occupying army is NOT terrorism but something that is EXPECTED of the population of the occupied country. whether or not we americans think we are occupying afghanistan or iraq, you can rest assured that the citizens of those two countries do. in the early '60's, the CIA overthrew the duly elected government of iran, installed the shah and continued to meddle in their affairs for years. were the iranians who protested and took americans hostage (but did not harm them) terrorists? radicals? or were they iranian patriots?

here in the united states, there are millions of muslims. where are all the attacks? where are the bombs in the shopping malls? at the sporting events? in the vegas casinos? all of those are what the military would call "soft targets" and yet none of those millions of american muslims have planted a bomb in any of those. where is your case? where is your proof? what statistics can you quote?

and fyi, i am not muslim nor am i from the middle east. i'm just a catholic boy from oklahoma who happens to believe in fair play; who would rather the world live in peace than in constant conflict and would wish that respected writers such as yourself refrain from making broad, inflammatory, accusations against millions of our fellow citizens.

i surmise that you are jewish, based upon your name and, if so, shame on you. surely you must be sensitive to broad, racist, statements, directed against the people of the jewish faith or nationality and surely you would not want to be lumped in with the bigots and monsters who made those broad un-provable statements by making broad un-provable statements against people of the muslim faith.

i look forward to your follow-up article where you retract that statement...knowing you to be a generally fair-minded, intelligent and thinking man.

ron shock
las vegas



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Ron Shock