Steven Emerson: Blame Tolerance for the Fort Hood Attacks

American Family Radio host Sandy Rios spoke yesterday with Islamic extremism “expert” Steve Emerson about the ongoing trial of Nidal Hasan, the army major accused of killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 in a killing spree at Fort Hood back in 2009.

Rios and Emerson agreed that the killing was a result of the “deterrent effects” of tolerance and that if it weren’t for fear of being called a “racist,” and “Islamaphobe,” Hasan would have been reported to the FBI long ago.

Emerson took it one step further, saying that those who fight Islamophobia are “as much culpable as those pulling the trigger.”

Emerson: And there’s also going to be playing, maybe later today or tomorrow, a videotape of Hasan giving a presentation at Walter Reed where he openly and unambiguously calls for the killing of infidels. And not one person in that 200 person room listening ever reported him to the FBI.

Rios: That’s shocking.

Emerson: It is shocking. And you know what Sandy? It’s because of the fear that they would be called Islamaphobes. This is where this whole notion of the radical Islamic groups calling anybody who criticizes radical Islam as a racist has had a deterrent effect in reporting potential terrorist attacks and they are as much culpable as the people pulling the trigger.

Rios: Absolutely. And I want to say that this is across the board with our intelligence agencies. Their hands have been so restricted, their training manuals stripped of what’s really true. And they really are afraid to report even suspicious behavior. And that’s why we are probably, no doubt, more at risk now than we ever were before 9/11.