In battles, we borrow from enemy - Opening shot Maj. Hasan redux

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/steinberg/1877235,CST-NWS-stein11.article

In battles, we borrow from enemy

Opening shot Maj. Hasan redux

November 11, 2009

BY NEIL STEINBERG Sun-Times Columnist

Whenever America fights a foe, it tends to become a little bit like that foe, for a while.

Thus we could not defeat fascism in Europe without setting up our own milder version of its concentration camps and putting our guiltless citizens of Japanese descent into them.

Confronting the Soviet Union in the 1950s, some here panicked, and created our own -- again, watered-down -- secret police, blacklists and guilt by smear and association.

For the last eight years, we've been battling a new threat, radical Islam. And again, there are those who think we should do so by adopting its methods -- seething hatred, clan loyalties and hooded suspects tortured in darkened rooms.

As before, it doesn't help. We cannot, this Veterans Day, honor our soldiers, past and present, while turning away from the ideals they fought for. Just as nobody served in World War II so that the Tanaka family could be put behind barbed wire in Idaho, so our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are not sacrificing their lives so we can surrender to our fears at home.

Typically I flit, butterfly-like, from topic to topic, lest I get stuck hammering away at one issue day after day, the way some writers do.

Sunday I wrote about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, and the massacre at Fort Hood. My point seemed simple and, frankly, unarguable -- that Hasan's crimes shouldn't reflect on other Muslims or on the faith itself.

This boggled people's minds, upsetting and confusing them so much I want to revisit the topic.

Some angrily clung to their right to view Islam as a terrorist faith.

"Moderate Islam does not exist," wrote Ben Margolis. "It is a political order that will use force to dominate everywhere if possible."

Some cited verses from the Quran -- mimicking, ironically, the terrorists themselves. Having read the Quran, cover to cover, I know these lines are in there, just as there are passages in the Bible about stoning your kids if they mouth off. The key, of course, is which parts you choose to act upon.