His editorial centered upon the recent massacre on Fort Hood Army Base. The perpetrator, Major Nidal Malik Hasan was Muslim. As he shot and killed 13 people and wounded 29 others he is alleged to have yelled Allahu Akbar—Allah is Great. It is also reported he often dressed in Muslim clothing and recently sought advice from a radical Muslim cleric.

Whether or not Major Hasan was merely deranged or was a true terrorist remains to be decided. What is clear is that what he did could happen again and probably will. It has happened often throughout the United States.

We, in the United States are quite vulnerable to the attacks of mad or radically motivated gunmen. This has been proven time and time again and mostly in our high schools and institutions of higher education. One need only recall the shootings at Virginia Tech where on 16 August 2007 Seung-Hui Cho, a student, killed 32 people and wounded several more. Then there was the rampage at Columbine High School, in Littleton Colorado, where on 20 April 1999, students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 people and wounded 23 before taking their own lives. There was the massacre on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota where on 21 March 2005 a student killed 9 students and then himself. And there were the killings of 5 Amish schoolgirls, in a Lancaster County, Pennsylvania school, on 2 October 2006. The gunman then killed himself.

The incidents just cited are a partial listing. Such tragedies occur almost yearly and have been happening as far back as 1 August 1966 when Charles Whitman, a student, shot and killed 14 people and wounded another 32 on the University of Texas campus at Austin.

Perhaps we Americans—we as humans—need to fear our children—ourselves—as much as radical Islamists. Perhaps we need to discover and tame the rage inside all of us. Could it be we have overwhelmed ourselves with our own intelligence and cleverness? We who have made atomic weapons and nerve gas and mowed down millions of our fellow beings in service of politics, ideology and greed, have yet to understand our emotions. No other animal kills for the word, idea or money. Just us.

We are children playing with fire—as we continue to seek more powerful lighters and strike more matches. We turn to whatever preacher, professor, guru, scripture, cult or diversion that promises us relief from having to think for ourselves and take responsibility for our actions.

So yes Mr. Thomas, we do need to wage war on radical Islamists, but not with bullets and missiles. You can kill a man or a billion men but not an idea. Only a better idea can kill a bad one. Compassion and love are the only hope. If in the end they fail, humans deserve extinction.

© Michael M. Smith 2009