However, a review of the past three decades, since Islamism became a significant political force, finds that violence alone rarely works. Survivors of terrorism rarely capitulate to radical Islam - not after the assassination of Anwar el-Sadat in Egypt in 1981, nor the 9/11 attacks, the Bali bombings of 2002, the Madrid bombing of 2004, the Amman bombing of 2005, or the terrorist campaigns in Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country.

Second, they noted "the incidence of divorce remains high." Further, many are viewing marriage as a "private matter, an individualistic project not related to the common good."

Finally, the bishops want to oppose "all attempts to redefine marriage so that it would no longer be exclusively the union of a man and a woman as God established and blessed it."

Many aspects of this case demonstrate an unwillingness by government and the news media to face the basic fact that Hassan was a Muslim extremist.

The New York Times' first report on Maj. Hassan never mentioned the words Muslim or Islam. ABC's Martha Raddatz' only comment was, "as one officer's wife told me, 'I wish his name was Smith.'"