As we struggle to come to terms with the Fort Hood massacre, the first thing to do — if we want to prevent such terrorism from becoming a regular event — is to understand why it happened and who or what is to blame for it. Despite the mainstream media’s efforts to present Fort Hood as an unfortunate episode of random violence — a crazed gunman just happened to shout “Allahu akbar!” — there was nothing random about it. Rather, it was the preordained, indeed inevitable, outcome of the cancerous growth of radical Islam in America. Nor is Major Hasan’s transformation into a jihadist willing to murder his fellow citizens an isolated case. In the last six months alone, at least 20 homegrown Muslim extremists were arrested by the FBI for planning terrorist attacks in Colorado, Detroit, New York City, Dallas, and Newburgh, N.Y. Like Major Hasan, who was radicalized in Islamist mosques in Falls Church, Va., and Silver Spring, Md., these American Muslims embraced terrorism upon being radicalized by American imams and mosques.
So we must begin by trying to understand what radical Islam is, what it’s not, and how it turns American-born Muslims into jihadist time bombs. The problem is not simply that in radical Islam this country faces a well-entrenched domestic enemy, but that the current administration, like the three that preceded it, has not shown any sign of understanding this reality, let alone a willingness to confront it.
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