Many media outlets mentioned Roeder’s “Christianity.” If one Googles “Roeder” + “Army of God,” one gets 5,500 hits. If one Googles “Scott Roeder” + “Christian” one gets 189,000 hits. “Roeder” + “Operation Rescue” gets 97,800 hits. But “Major Hasan” + “Muslim” gets 177,000 hits.

Never mind Koran chapter 9:29 which Maj. Hasan highlighted himself. Some would argue that it was the politically correct willful refusal to connect the dots that – led to the shooting. If they would have connected Hasan’s adverse actions and emails, web postings to his religion religious beliefs which he so clearly explained – in his 50 point slide show – the US Army could have singled him out long before a shot was fired – Allah Akbar yelled – and few would have noticed. The Ford Hood shooting showed how dangerous it is not to notice the signs of Islamic radicalization – indeed of any extremism.

Rather than sensationalizing stories surrounding radical Islam – some have pointed to the media for dumbing down stories and holding back information – which prove equally troubling.

Maybe Dawood Yasin should instead have been asked what the Muslim community could do to influence radical change within the Muslim community.

The name, “Islam”, for the umpteenth time, does NOT come fromthe Arabic word for peace. “Islam” means “submission”. If there is any connotation of “peace”, it is only the kind of internal peace that comes from total submission of one’s will to a supreme authority. This much like the peace which Winston felt on the very last page of Orwell’s “1984” when, his individual will totally broken, Winston loved Big Brother. You write: “It is true that Hasan’s words and actions seem to indicate that he was motivated by a radicalized version of Islam.” This is a false conception of Islam. Islam, as a belief system, has no “versions”, radical or otherwise. The ideology of Islam is based on the Koran and the sayings of Muhammad. There are no “versions” of these. What we call “radical” is merely the strict adherence to the Koran and the sayings of Muhammad. Moderate Moslems simply fail to follow Islamic doctrines in their daily lives. This is not splitting hairs. All of the terrorist groups quote the Koran and Muhammad, and no “interpretation” is necessary. Those sacred works are, unfortunately, all too clear in their meaning.

Who in the world is writing these comments? I hope that no Dartmouth student would post such ignorant attacks, not to mention in a public forum.

To the above posters, please make an effort to actually get to know real Muslims before making such narrow-minded judgments. Like each of the world’s major faiths, Islam as I understand it through the actions of my friends is a collections of guidelines to strive for the remarkable human potentials for humility, love, peace, and understanding.

As with each of these major faiths, there are some who mold and twist the religion and its texts for their own unrelated agendas.

The Koran is not the only holy book containing passages that seem outdated and even alarming when taken out of context. For example: in the Bible – 1 Samuel 15:3, the Lord appears to command a genocide: “Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child.” Everything that Jesus taught us demonstrates that nonviolence and love are the only way to combat injustice. Context is everything, and even the most celebrated Scriptures can sometimes be contradictory.

Please try to be more critically thorough when considering any belief system. Faith-driven tensions and conflicts can only begin to be addressed through thoughtful discourse and solidarity, not through divisive flash judgments.

Yikes. The bigots are out in full force, I see. I hope the proponents of the trite and narrow-minded view that there are no such things as radical minority sects or divisions within a broad and diverse faith would at least be consistent, and agree that Christianity is also a terribly violent and corrupt religion for all of Old Testament’s orders to treat women as virtual sex slaves and murder entire peoples at the whims of a hypocritical, vengeful, and merciless god. Of course, the point is not to bash Christianity, which is, like Islam, by and large a peaceful and honorable faith, but rather to make the point that any idiot deranged to take centuries-old texts at face value in a modern context is capable of coming to some depressingly violent conclusions. This is particularly so when said fool is part of a politically, economically, or socially marginalized group, those people being susceptible to radical political messages that promise them the otherwise fleeting power to redress their grievances, however odious the methods. It’s sad what’s happening to what we should remember is an extremely small minority of the Islamic community, but we should also recall that radical Islam is no more morally bankrupt than the right-wing terrorist Christian groups that populate parts of this country, or of right-wing groups in Israel that seem to think their past oppression entitles them to launch cruise missiles into apartment buildings full of housewives. Are people like Major Hassan to despised? Of course. But it’s imperative that we at least have the tolerance and decency to keep in mind that murderers are a radical minority in any group, and that we shouldn’t judge Islam by Hassan and Al Qaeda any more than we should judge Christianity by Scott Roeder, or Judaism by Yitzhak Rabin. Those who are too blind and choked with hatred to see that are to be pitied. It must be awfully difficult going through life that ignorant.

That was not Yitzhak Rabin’s style.

Yeah, you’re right. He preferred rounding up innocent people, torturing them, leaving them for dead in the countryside, and then blaming it on his subordinates when he got caught.

I’m not really sure to what you’re referring, Raza. Rabin was not a terrorist. There certainly are Jewish extremists, for example, Rabin’s killer Yigal Amir. But he wasn’t one of them.

I encourage you to read a book about Israeli conduct during the Second Intifada. You might find of particular interest everything relating to the Yehuda Muir scandal.

Alright, that was rather impolite of me. Let me articulate what I’m talking about. During the Second Intifada, when Rabin was Israel’s defense minister, or the equivalent title, there is substantial evidence that he ordered the Israeli army to conduct sweeps of Palestinian villages, round up any young men they found, torture them, and then dump them in nearby fields to inspire fear among the local population. When one of the young men ordered to commit these crimes, and they were crimes under Israeli law, expressed discomfort to his superiors, they confirmed that this was the official policy of the Israeli government. The story was eventually leaked to the newspapers, resulting in a national uproar and investigation. Eventually Yehuda Muir, who was I believe a lieutenant at the time, was scapegoated for the atrocities despite evidence that he was simply acting on orders. I don’t condone torture of any kind, which is why I lump Rabin in with the rest.

Make that the First Intifada, on second thought. Getting my dates mixed up.

It is comical to see what the response is to people who write rhe facts on any subject where they don’t comport with the politically correct, whichis almost always. They are immediately subjected to name calling and summary dismissal.

Ha, Ha, the arrogant know nothing, politically correct people say, "everyone knows that they are wrong, not to mention drolling knuckle draggers." But we must be tolerant and respectful of each other and our diversity, this is the most important thing that we can do. And those with whom we don't agree, well it is open season on them. Fire at will. The left uses name calling, gulit by association and outright fabrication to silence its critics across all of the issues across all the ages, it is their playbook and it is all they have. A sorry circumstance.