BLOG POSTS

I arrived in America on September 18th 2002. Two weeks later, on October 2nd, John Allen Muhammad – the Beltway Sniper, as he quickly became known – murdered his first Washington victim.

The following day, October 3rd, Muhammad’s killing spree peaked, with the shooting dead of five more innocent people. Over the next nineteen days seven more fell victim to this lethal psychopath, though three of them survived.

I remember wondering just what sort of country I had come to. For fifty years of life in Britain I’d never once paused to consider the possibility of being shot dead while filling up my car, walking the dog, or nipping down the road to pick up a newspaper. Suddenly, it seemed a real possibility, reinforced by weekly visits to a Walmart supermarket that openly displayed rifles and ammunition on sale.

Muhammad’s killing spree, along with his young accomplice, Malvo, continued until their arrest on October 24th. America breathed a sigh of relief it was all over. So far as I was concerned, it had only just begun.

Living in a country that allows anyone and everyone to own a firearm is disconcerting when one’s previous abode does not. There is probably a similar percentage of psychopathic maniacs in Britain as are at large in the United States, but virtually none of them have access to any weapon with the sheer killing power of the Bushmaster rifle chosen by John Allen Muhammad.

Today, seven years on, it’s John Allen Muhammad’s turn to be murdered. He is to be executed by the State of Virginia. I hope they’re proud to sink to his level.

As for me, I’ve lived through so many massacres and shootings since the days of the Beltway sniper, even documented some, and I still never fail to be horrified at how quickly Americans put it all behind them, and pretend it will never happen again.

Personally, I’d much rather John Allen Muhammad lived out his days in a prison cell, where he could mull over the heartache and mental agony he caused so many to suffer for the rest of their lives. It hardly seems right to deny him that.

Meanwhile, I no longer own a dog, or read newspapers, but I’ll still glance nervously over my shoulder every time I gas up the car.

Filed under: Sick people

Take one devout Muslim of first generation Palestinian descent, clad him in a U.S. soldier uniform, and pretend he’s a full-blooded American hero who’ll fight for his country against all comers. Subject him to harassment from his fellow soldiers because of his religion, then tell him he’s being sent to kill his relatives in the Middle East, and there’s nothing he can do about it. Appear aghast when he goes berserk and shoots people.

That’s the potted history of Nidal Malik Hasan, MD who this week killed thirteen and wounded thirty at Fort Hood in Texas.

Senator Joe Lieberman, on Fox News, said of the incident:^[1]

A couple of years ago, after a two-year investigation, my committee put out a report that said the new face of terrorism in America would not just be the attacks as 9/11, organized abroad and sending people in here. It would be people within this country, home- grown terrorists, self-radicalized, often over the Internet, going to jihadist Web sites.

And there’s concern from what we know now about Hasan that, in fact, that’s exactly what he was, a self-radicalized home-grown terrorist.

Lieberman, and probably most other US politicians, would be happy to turn this incident into a simple case of ‘home-grown’ terrorism. It’s a nice, convenient, solution. It exonerates the US military, the US ‘system’, of any blame whatever.

Sure, there’ll no doubt be some internal inquiries; knuckles will be rapped for not paying closer attention to the warning signs emanating from Major Hasan in the months prior to the massacre. But, a verdict of ‘terrorism’ will mean the matter can be pigeonholed, Hasan locked away for the rest of his life – or, put to death as a sop to the relatives – and everyone can breathe a sigh of relief and get on with their lives.

Senator Joseph Lieberman, as usual, was wrong. It was no act of terrorism. Rather it was the direct result of one man’s agony; ripped apart mentally in multiple directions by a cold, uncaring, system that expects every man to become a robot dedicated solely to the “Flag”; to put aside all other loyalties, no matter how important to the individual, and replace them with absolute devotion and obedience to the ‘Motherland’.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, MD was no terrorist. He was a man placed in an impossible situation and taunted constantly by his fellows. He was a sick man whose mind snapped.

He long ago ceased to believe in the righteousness of American military actions abroad.

In that, at least, he was certainly not alone.

^{[1] “Sen. Lieberman on ‘FNS'” Fox News Sunday, November 8th 2009}

Filed under: Taking the easy way out

It’s often not easy being what is colloquially known as an ‘ex-pat’. After seven years in America I’m no nearer being ‘an American’, but neither can I honestly say I’m still totally British. I occasionally joke with my lovely American wife that I belong somewhere round about the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean.

‘Twilight’ is another ex-pat Brit. She often comments on Sparrow Chat. Recently she celebrated five years living in the U.S. and wrote about it on her own blog, “Learning Curve On The Elliptic”.^[1]

What she had to say resonated with me and I began to compose a comment. It grew rather long, so I turned it into a post:

You can read on blogs a lot of stuff that resonates, but this post resonated with me more than most; probably because it’s at a very personal level. My seventh anniversary of emulating Columbus ocurred a month before your 5th, on September 18th.

In many ways I believe you’ve adjusted to U.S. life far better than I, even taking the plunge into citizenship – an act that earned my sincere admiration. After all, having been through the trauma of the US Customs and Immigration Dept, I knew exactly the hassles entailed.

I began to hate America very quickly, partly because it stood for so much I despised, but also as a prison from which I knew I could probably never again fully escape.

That hatred has now dissipated. Like you, I’ve grown accustomed to ‘upside-down’ light switches and driving on the passenger side. Dogged British stubbornness still prevents me calling the car boot a ‘trunk’, and a tap a ‘faucet’, though thankfully I stopped telling my schoolkids to ‘stay on the pavement till the bus arrives’, before any of them suffered a nasty accident.

Arriving plum in the middle of the American Heartlands, inside the Bible Belt, and on the edge of Tornado Alley, probably didn’t help me to settle. If the U.S. ever requires an enema I’m convinced it’s in this area they’ll insert the catheter.

Perhaps the circumstance creating my greatest unrest in those early years was the American reaction to 9/11/2001. It was exactly one year and one week after the attacks that I moved here. The plethora of flags, stickers, and vomit-inducing patriotism that greeted my arrival almost caused an about turn while still on the tarmac at O’Hare Airport.

Seven years later, it has subsided to a degree. Even America can’t keep its emotions fully charged indefinitely, despite the best political efforts to do so.

I’ve made five return visits to England. This summer was the first time I didn’t feel the need to go. Of course, I still have aging parents living there, and a daughter and grandson, but the British have never been quite so potty over family ties as their American cousins, and the telephone is a great substitute, given the inevitable upheaval and drama of Chicago’s O’Hare.

I no longer call Britain ‘home’, but something prevents a final surrender to ‘being American’. I still can’t bring myself to fill out the forms for citizenship. I never needed to pledge allegiance to the Union Flag to be British, and I’m damned if I’ll do it to be American. It’s that dogged British stubborness again.

In a comment on Sparrow Chat (October 23rd), you wrote:

“It’s so comforting for me to come here to read, and find that someone else, of similar background, sees things the way I do. We can’t both be wrong – can we?”

No, Twilight, we’re not both wrong. We’re able to see things about the U.S. that Americans are too close to focus on. They can only see the trees, we get a good view of the whole wood.

Finally, let me assure you the comfort is reciprocal. When the going gets especially tough, it’s usually “Learning Curve…” that helps me re-stabilize myself to American life; knowing I’m not the only Brit struggling to adapt to this strange and often disturbing land.

Here’s to the next………however many years?

^{[1] “Remembering A Life Change” Learning Curve On The Elliptic, October 25th 2009}

Filed under: Rolling stones