Young Americans for Liberty – Ole Miss Chapter

The killings at Fort Hood have received an understood amount of media attention, but one thing that Shepard Smith of Fox News stated yesterday bugged me until I had to sit down and articulate it. In opening an interview with a retired coworker of Major Hassan, Smith stated that Hassan had made “outlandish” comments about America’s foreign policy. As the interview continued, the coworker explained that Hassan had expressed that the United States should not be “over there”–should not be engaged in military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that the native people should rise up against the aggressors.

I’m in no way advocating the actions of the Major at Fort Hood, but I want a moment to examine what his peers knew of his beliefs, and the way that Fox’s Shepard Smith framed the news segment. Is it outlandish to believe that we should not be involved in pointless wars overseas? They cost American lives, and stretch the printing press of the Fed to new levels, destroying our money even further, and for what? To protect us from a people that don’t have navies, air forces, or a unified standing army? How does having a large occupying force in several nations in the Middle East protect us from a random act of terrorism that would be perpetrated thousands of miles away, here at home? As for the “aggressors” comment, let’s propose a hypothetical. If the Chinese had a standing army on our soil, with the goal of making us change our way of life, would it be “outlandish” for us to resist and attempt to overthrow our aggressors? We overthrew the British empire, after all. Is this not an American ideal?

Hassan was said to have felt promise upon the election of President Obama, that our overseas occupations would end, but was extremely disappointed when he did not deliver. I think that’s a very common feeling among those that drank the President’s anti-war campaign Kool-Aid but were left thirsty and wanting. He has escalated these wars, and shows no sign of changing our foreign policy to something more sensible.

We must see past the propaganda machine of the mainstream media and note that these particular beliefs and frustrations perhaps weren’t so “outlandish” after all.