When it is in Arabic, apparently. For yes, the headline’s blare out:
“Fort Hood gunman shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ as he opened fire”

Right. How many Americans go into battle making the sign of the cross, or calling on God for blessings? Or shouting “God Bless America” or even “Geronimo!”

Why is it a suggestion of fanaticism or terrorism when a Muslim does it? Ask yourself, ok? Step outside your paradigm of phobic reactiveness to the “other” and consider how ordinary exclaimations of your own might sound TO that other. Would you want such a simple routine statement out of YOUR prayer life to define you as a kind of monster?

So, call me a fanatic and monster if you will….for saying may the Gods bless and aid Kim Munley (the female officer who shot Hasan) as she lies wounded, as well as the 30 others wounded in this madness. And I am happy to hail the courage of the wounded, like Amber Bahr who helped each other in this bloody time.

And someone else put it clearly, “In other news, 3,699 to 13,999 Muslims serving in the U. S. military didn’t go on a shooting spree yesterday.” Go, and read!

And let me point out that if anyone thinks religious profiling will stop mass shootings in America, it is not simply Islam that should be under the magnifying glass. That is simply the FASHION since 9-11. Most mass shootings in America have been committed by white Christian Americans. And that is without even considering the murders committed by fundies haunting abortion clinics. It is akin to racism to suggest that Moslems should be selectively profiled because this very disturbed and distraught murderer was a Moslem. Just a few examples,( and BARELY scratching the surface of data available) and these killers were NOT Moslems:

October 1991 Previously, the worst mass shooting had been when George Hennard drove his pickup to Luby’s cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, then shot dead 23 people and himself.

July 1984 Some 21 people were killed when a 41-year-old opened fire at a McDonald’s restaurant in San Diego. He was shot by police.

August 1966 A gunman holed up in a clocktower at the University of Texas campus in Austin killed 15 people before being shot by police. Prior to yesterday, this was the worst campus shooting in US history.

August 1986 A former postal worker entered a post office in Oklahoma, and shot 14 workers before killing himself.

February 1983 Three men shot dead 14 people in the Wah Mee club in Seattle’s Chinatown.

April 1999 The most notorious campus shooting of modern times: two students at Columbine high school in Littleton, Colorado, killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves.

March 2005 A student at Red Lake high school in Minnesota killed five students, a teacher, a security guard, and then himself. Before school he had shot dead his grandfather and grandfather’s companion.

July 1993 A businessman, 55, entered a law office in San Francisco and shot dead eight people, then himself.

February 1988 An ex-employee returned to his laboratory in Sunnyvale, California, and killed seven people, and injured three – including a woman he had been stalking.

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