By Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis
Scripps Howard News Service

Is political correctness killing Americans? After the Fort Hood massacre, should American officials be worried about a ``Muslim backlash?" Or does political correctness hamstring efforts to deal forthrightly with jihadists in our midst?

News reports indicate Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, had long been vocal about his sympathies to radical Islam. But Army General George Casey has warned against overreaction, saying: ``As horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."

Is diversity a higher value than preserving lives? Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis, the RedBlueAmerica columnists, consider the matter.

Joel Mathis

As much as it pains liberals like me to admit it: Political correctness probably played a role in letting Maj. Nidal Hasan continue his career in the Army, even though evidence increasingly showed he believed in a dangerous ideology.

His colleagues at Walter Reed Army Medical Center heard Hasan defend ― even praise ― suicide bombers, and decided not to make a big deal about it. Those officers will have to bear the fatal weight of their decisions the rest of their lives.

If there is a danger in being so polite and committed to diversity that you can't recognize a genuine threat, however, there is also an opposite problem: Seeing every Muslim, or even every foreigner, as a probable threat.

There's already evidence that this backlash has begun: The American Family Association's Bryan Fischer has called for a ban on Muslims serving in the military, proclaiming ``as soon as Muslims give us a foolproof way to identify their jihadis from their moderates, we'll go back to allowing them to serve."

And in Florida, a Marine reservist beat a man he claimed was a terrorist shouting ``Allahu Akbar!" The only problem? The suspect was a Greek Orthodox priest, lost and asking for directions.

After the Fort Hood massacre, conservative writer Reihan Salam lamented for the victims, but added: ``Hasan's other victims are the millions of Muslim Americans who've fully embraced American life, and who feel a profound sense of dread whenever innocent people are murdered in the name of Islam."

That's right. We should be on guard against extremists of all stripes who threaten our security and safety. Whether we like it or not, though, America is a diverse country. For the sake of our safety and sanity, we should always strive to distinguish true threats from our worst, unfair fears.

Ben Boychuk

Backlash? What backlash? Some intemperate commentary from nominally conservative pro-family groups is not a backlash. And although street assaults fueled by religious hatred are deplorable, such crimes are also ― thankfully ― rare in this diverse country of 300 million people.

Fact is, one of the clear early lessons emerging from Nidal Hasan's killing spree at Fort Hood is, contrary to the opinion of some hand- wringing politicians and pundits, Americans are not lashing out en masse against the Muslims among us. Turns out, we're a pretty fair-minded people taken as a while.

The problem at this particular moment in time isn't the possibility of Americans overreacting to homegrown jihadists, but rather the likelihood of America's leaders downplaying the threat.

President Obama was surely right when he urged Americans shortly after the shootings not to ``jump to conclusions." After all, the early news reports said that there were as many as three shooters and that Hasan had been killed in the fray.

We'll no doubt learn a great deal more in the coming weeks and months about what exactly drove Hasan to gun down more than 40 of his comrades in arms.

But we shouldn't turn a blind eye to the truth, either. Hasan committed murder and quite likely treason. And he apparently did so in the name of Islam. Saying so does not mean that all Muslims are terrorists or all American Muslims should be treated as suspect.

But it does mean that Americans ― and especially American leaders ― need to think clearly and act decisively when real threats appear.

Hasan may have acted alone, but his ideology isn't unique and he isn't the first American to betray his country for his religion. We are obliged to confront those facts, not fret over phony fears.

Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis blog at http://www.infinitemonkeysblog.com and http://politics.pwblogs.com.