Those worried that they were too young to experience the joys of the Cold War can now wrap themselves in the excitement of the contemporary equivalent of Cold War ‘red scares’: fears that communists were infiltrating the American government and other institutions.
Today’s version is the “green scare”; fears that radical religious extremists of the Islamic persuasion are forming ‘sleeper cells’ or otherwise infiltrating the United States and its government. Such fears are getting powerful reinforcement from stories like this ABC News story on Major Nidal Hasan, the apparently deranged Army psychiatrist who (I suppose I should say ‘allegedly’) went on a killing spree in Fort Hood last week.
According to the story, not only did Major Hasan attempt to contact Al-Qaeda, American officials knew this was happening. It’s not clear what they did about that knowledge; ‘not enough’ is this uniformed layman’s initial response.
Now I don’t know much about Major Hasan or the evolution of his religious and political views, much less the role his views rather than his emotional instability played in whatever drove him to murder and mutilate dozens of innocent people last week. But I know something about the ability of American society to drive itself crazy over issues like the ones his case raises, and it’s worth warning the Obama administration that it needs to get on top of this issue now.
Most Americans are actually able to understand just how complicated the situation really is. Our interests as a nation and our values as a people demand that we be more than tolerant of Islam internationally and Muslims at home. We need to be welcoming, accepting, and working hard to ensure that nothing that we say or do exacerbates an already difficult cultural and political situation. On the other hand, it is clear that a small minority of people professing the Islamic religion believe that their faith demands (or at least justifies) acts of war against the United States, not excluding acts of terrorism against the American people at large.
Most Islamic religious authorities denounce these views as heretical, citing longstanding Islamic prohibitions against making civilians the target of military actions. Patriotic American Muslims have served bravely and honorably in our armed forces, and have made and continue to render unique and irreplaceable services to American diplomacy, intelligence and military work at home and abroad. Most Americans understand and appreciate these facts.
Still, we have cases like that of Major Hasan. The Obama administration needs to walk a fine line here. On the one hand, it must respect Islamic religious and cultural sensitivities, to say nothing of Major Hasan’s constitutional rights. On the other, it must assure American public opinion that all reasonable steps are being taken to protect the public safety, and that the effort to satisfy the sensitivities of some isn’t undermining the security of all.
The costs of failure on either side are high. Failing to assure American and foreign Muslims and their friends could deepen the polarization that helps nourish the terror threat in the first place. Failing to assure public opinion at large that the administration is being appropriately vigilant and that political correctness isn’t compromising national security will not only erode the administration’s political support. It will politicize the security issue, ensuring that floods of destructive rhetoric and controversy will inflame Islamic sensibilities worldwide as demagogues exploit an irresistible political opening.
The green scare doesn’t have the same potential the red scare once did to become the central issue in American politics. During the 1930s and 1940s communism was much more influential among bright young Americans than radical Islam is today. There is no real equivalent to the network of ‘popular front’ and other organizations through which a disciplined communist minority once sought to infiltrate American civil society. We are very unlikely to find the modern day equivalent of Alger Hiss. Still, the Obama administration needs to get on top of this issue and fast. The politicization of national security won’t help anybody.