Defense Science Board looks at “violent behavior” in the ranks
In the wake of the Fort Hood murders in 2009, which has been called “workplace violence” by this administration, the Defense Science Board generated a study to help the military recognize violent behavior and the potential risks for another event, like Major Nidal Hasan’s. The Board has a keen eye for the obvious, well sometimes. From an Army Times link sent to us by Chief Tango;
The Defense Science Board report urges military officials not to ignore signs of religious radicalism that may be politically sensitive, and sought to debunk the notion that Islam is the only religion that fuels extremism.
“Covering over or ignoring radical religious belief as a potential factor will greatly handicap efforts to discover and divert individuals who are on a trajectory toward engaging in targeted violence,” the report said.
“While a number of cases involved radical Islam, there were examples involving Christianity, and the potential exists for radicalization to occur in the context of other religions as well.”
Yeah, so which other religions have blasted away at a room full of unarmed people while chanting that “God is great”? The Amish? Buddists? What the report actually says about the subject is;
The Task Force reviewed case studies which indicated radical religious doctrines have played an important role in several high profile cases of targeted violence both within and outside the military. Violent actors were sometimes radicalized by association with other religious radicals and sometimes “self-radicalized.” While a number of cases involved radical Islam, there were examples involving Christianity, and the potential exists for radicalization to occur in the context of other religions as well.
There it ends. You’d think a study would have a footnote to an example or more fully explain this point, but it doesn’t. There is no more mention of the word Christianity in the entire document. You just have to take their word for it that a gang of Mormons are going to ride up on their 3-speed bicycles wearing those white Oxford shirts, take off their little helmets and wipe out a bunch of soldiers.
The Army Times sums up;
The study found “no silver bullet” to address the threat of workplace violence, and said predicting it is extremely difficult. Current scientific methods for predicting workplace violence, such as psychological or physiological testing, are unreliable, the study found.
Thanks, Defense Science Board, for all you do. this report is nothing more than a distraction. Apparently, the whole point of the DSB’s study was to prove that they’re willing to throw themselves on the radical Islam grenade for the Pentagon.
We know psychological testing wouldn’t have worked in the case of Hasan, since he was a psychiatrist. A silver bullet in that case would have been the Army getting over itself in regards to political correctness and putting Hasan out of the Army instead of carrying him along while he exuded Islamic radicalism. And, yes, I think they should throw out every radical Christian they come across, too.
Category: Big Army, Terror War
Further you go up, the less ties to reality you have.
The only “radical Christian” that I ever remember was some evangelical type who stormed into the local wargaming store during a D&D demonstration and started hollering “I repudiate you all in the name of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” while holding his New Testament aloft in his right hand and extending his left in a sort of Hitler salute.
He kept this up until the cops showed up and literally dragged him out the door, still screaming the same stuff over and over again.
Must have gotten up on the wrong side of the altar that morning or something. 🙂
I can’t say anything that doesn’t echo #1…do they breathe oxygen way up in that fairy-tale land?
Whoa! Check out the last line in the second box. The Board refers, on the one hand, to “radical Islam” but, on the other, to “Christianity.” There is no adjective preceding Christianity. Amazing stuff.
All right, I admit to it: I am a reformed Druid. Orthodox Druids worship oak trees. Reformed Druids worship bushes.
So just put that in your pipe and smoke, unbelievers.
AW1 Tim–maybe he should run for State Senate up in Maine. And yeah, I think the Maine GOP making an issue out of the Dem candidate playing WoW is a friggin stupid one.
If I were CinC, I would make Jonn SecDef … simply because of the paragraph about the Mormons and their 3 speed bicycles. F’n hilarious. And RIGHT ON.
Agree totally that the Army needed to dump the PC bull and ID Hasan as an Islamic radical, but just throwing him out of the army wouldn’t have changed anything but his target. It might have prevented Ft Hood, but the guy would’ve shot up or bombed a federal building, or the Pentagon, or something, unless he went to jail.
I have studied and actually had to train folks on work place violence. I’ve found that there’s almost a 100% chance of it happening where there are workers who are un-armed…buy law, rules or location.
If you look at the past cases in just the last 10 years or so, there haven’t been any successful workplace violence cases using guns where fellow workers had a gun handy.
Why can’t the Army set up things like the “combat life saver” with a gun on Army post in the US and other places where the troops are not normally armed?
You mean that I should be worried about a band of radical Hindus bombing us, in spite of the fact of them never having uttered the slightest interest in doing so, instead of those crazy radical Muslims who are demonstrating the will to do it, have acquired the skills to do it, and are doing it to someone every day somewhere in the world? And how is that going to help any of us survive?
Doesn’t the Army teach something about knowing your enemy, doing threat assessments, developing situational awareness, and a few other silly things along those lines any more?
OWB, it’s more likely they’d assault you with really bad curry than anything else.
Christians radicalize over abortion, which tends to materialize on the civilian side of the equation so I am not certain which Christianity acts are being referenced in this report.
Worshipping invisible beings in the heavens is okay if it helps you treat your neighbors right and makes you think about feeding the poor….but it tends to get squirelly when it comes to killing all the folks who don’t worship the same invisible being….if your invisible being tells you to kill all the heathens/infidels/etc… start with yourself as a cleansing procedure, if your invisible being puts you back on earth well good for you, do what you must. If your invisible being doesn’t put you back here, good for the rest of us.
@12
I am a Christian, and I don’t radicalize over abortion.
Why not just call God the flying spagetti monster?
SFC, I don’t think he’s going “you Christians” per se, although the hot-button item with some of the more fundamentalist (and not-so-fundamentalist) Christian denominations is their treatment of abortion as a sin, but last time I checked, the number of fundamentalist Christians who waded into a Muslim (or any) market and did a “Group Kaboom” was pretty damned near zero.
And no, libtrolls, Tim McVeigh was NOT, repeat NOT, a Christian, nor did he ever claim to be. Quite the contrary, in fact.
I have re-read the second bullet in the above atrticle and I can only come up with, Duh ya think?!?
“Violent actors were sometimes radicalized by association with other religious radicals and sometimes “self-radicalized.”” Is like saying “I only drink on some ones birthday and days ending in “Y”.
“..which indicated radical religious doctrines have played an important role in several high profile cases,,,” DUH yeah since man could think! I would guess they included the Crusades to get the radical Christian example.
These folks actually got paid to come up with the obvious!
Outside of Islam, individuals of any faith or no faith can, and sometimes do, radicalize. Within Islam, whole groups do so. Finding the wayward Christian who kills an abortionist to stop abortions does not reflect on other Cgristians any more than finding a few peaceful Muslims means that Islam is a religion of peace.
SParky, you have to find the “event” in which a bunch of evangelical Christinas went to an Arab festival in Dearborn, Mi, with the sole intent of causing a ” group kaboom” with the Muslims, who got mad and threw things at them, including eggs and balloons full of urine. There’s a video of it.
Um,… non-specific jihadist Allah-citing religious extremism but it’s not necessarily muslim beacause some of those Bhuddists can be real nasty (or something like that) right?
@13 I should have written “some” Christians. You would be mistaken if you think I meant every Christian, my apologies for not being clearer.
Muslims seem to have cornered the market on wholesale slaughter in this century, but historically Christians have had their moments as well.
I think humans are like any other apex predator when in a group, meaning they will attempt to control their territory and if they feel they can take another groups territory they will do so. Al Qaeda thinks it can take over the western world’s weak minded fools, so far they have run into little opposition in Europe. They think they can outlast the US in Afghanistan, with the current administration they might well be correct. They think it’s because their little man in the sky is fighting for them and assisting them. That’s where they are wrong in my opinion. The history lesson isn’t that God fights for anyone, it’s that societies rise and fall based on the strength of its people and that strength is determined by the lifestyles of the people, and the determination in which they eradicate their enemies.