Ft. Hood

[Anonymous]

Maybe they were worried about affecting his self-esteem?

Or maybe they were just tiptoeing around his radicalized talk? Is there such thing as being 'overly-cautious' with the consequence 13 dead and 50 wounded? Our troops and civilian military workers --all of them, including Muslim-- deserve FAR better than that.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ihGepAkECGoDagETVBMpPb3w7Y3gD9BTKQ681

"The group saw no evidence that Hasan, 39, was violent or a threat. It was more that he repeatedly referred to his strong religious views in discussions with classmates, his superiors and even in his research work, the official said. His behavior, while at times perceived as intense and combative, was not unlike the zeal of others with strong religious views, and some doctors and staff were concerned that their unfamiliarity with the Muslim faith would lead them to unfairly single out Hasan's behavior, the official said."

[Anonymous]

I know several people who are "strange". I would be shocked if they did something violent, but after the fact I'm sure lots of folks would be scratching their heads and saying "Maybe we should have realized."

[Anonymous]

He was in the military justifying jihad; that goes beyond strange!!!!!

[Anonymous]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6526030/Fort-Hood-gunman-had-told-US-military-colleagues-that-infidels-should-have-their-throats-cut.html

[Anonymous]

Wow, thanks for the link, 22:38 poster! Enlightening. I think some of the people here are just plain naive and trying to be POC at any cost. At the cost of lost lives.

[Anonymous]

I'm a liberal and from a country with a mix of religions, including islam. I find Hasan's statements in the 22:38 link religiously fanatical in nature. How could they have been ignored, especially in the military? How can we pretend that religion had nothing to do with it? This guy was mentally unstable (red flag) and full of hatred fueled by his religious beliefs (red flag). I believe that this group of muslim extremists should be closely scrutinized, from everybody, including other muslims who are also suffering from such extremists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: The Bush administration has so horribly demonized Islam that I think it's become a knee-jerk reaction for some to blame Islam for everything.

Are you for real?

The same Bush who said "Islam means peace"????? The Bush administrations NEVER demonized Islam. To say that Hasan was a Muslim who shouted Alahu Akbar as he opened fire on over 50 representatives of the American military is not bigotry, it is simple observation. To inquire into all of those facts is not demonization of Muslims; it is just normal, full investigation. This PC'ness has gone to the point of utter, full blown ridiculousness.

I said the Bush ADMINISTRATION (i.e. Cheney), not Bush himself. Absolutely Islam was demonized by his administration. It put the fear of God in every Muslim for years. How do you know he shouted "allahu akbar" as he opened fire? Where are you getting this information from?

Yes, by all means, inquire further into what makes for a fanatical Muslim who has violent inclinations. It's going to keep all of us safer. Do your research. Establish panels to research this. Form coalitions with other governments. Improve your intelligence. Get those spies in the mosques and in the Muslim communities, especially among the men. But you better find a way to not make the rest of the peace loving Muslims feel victimized in the process because that violates our civil rights. That's where the PC'ness DOES come in.

Maybe every February 14th peace-lovers of all religions can march to recall the fatwa on the head of Salman Rushdie. (That's when he gets his yearly Valentine from Iran).

Where did you get the idea that the majority of Muslims were for this fatwa? Because you saw the streets of Iran flooded with fanatics on TV? So you assumed ALL Muslims, even here in the U.S., wanted his head too? Wrong, wrong, wrong. People living here do not care about Salman Rushdie. Do we like what he wrote. Heck no. Do we think something needs to be done about it? Heck no. So please, educate yourself on majority Muslim thinking before discussing this subject.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6526030/Fort-Hood-gunman-had-told-US-military-colleagues-that-infidels-should-have-their-throats-cut.html

Again, any press reports need to be taken with a huge grain of salt. Reporters such as Dana Priest have far better contacts at Walter Reed than the British reporter reporting from Texas, but hasn't reported this sort of thing. The meeting at which these remarks were allegedly made has been widely reported on, without mentioning this type of remark.

Many of you seem to think that any mention by Hasan of Islam is full proof that he is a Muslim terrorist. This ignores that fact that crazy people often believe they are doing the will of God, or that God was even talking to them, when they have launched violent acts. Your contributions to painting this guy as a rationally-acting religious extremist will simply create a Muslim martyr and an al-Qaida hero. The elevation of an obviously mentally-unbalanced individual to that role serves the purposes of our enemies much more than it serves our own.

[Anonymous]

I think that the relationship between Islam and the killings is there, but it is more complicated than we are giving credit for.
One way to look at this is through what we know about another Muslim soldier who killed U.S. troops, Hasan Akbar. You might recall that he was an army soldier in Kuwait in 2003, and he killed a number of troops there in a grenade attack.

Who was Responsible in the Hasan Akbar case?: First, let me say that he was, and he has been convicted and sentenced to death for his actions. I do not mean for anything below to absolve him of responsibility for murder.

Why did he do it?

I’ll pull some quotes from the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasan_Akbar_case

His diary gives some pretty big clues as to what he did. One quote reads: “I suppose they want to punk me or just humiliate me. Perhaps they feel that I will not do anything about that. They are right about that. I am not going to do anything about it as long as I stay here. But as soon as I am in Iraq, I am going to try and kill as many of them as possible.”
I don’t have the full diary, but it’s a safe bet that he is referring to being ridiculed for being a Muslim. So the role of Islam does not appear to be an exhortation to Jihad. Instead, his religion made him a target for ridicule.

The next quote is also revealing: "I may not have killed any Muslims, but being in the Army is the same thing. I may have to make a choice very soon on who to kill."
This quote suggests that, rather than being eager to kill anyone, he is conflicted about killing Muslims and that this moral dilemma forced a choice in his mind on who to kill. So the role of Islam is not to incite violence as much as it is a cause for divided loyalty. This statement also seems eerily familiar in The Fort Hood case, where the doctor strongly urged giving Conscientious Objector status to Muslims to allow them to avoid the moral dilemma of the war.

My take on how Islam influenced these cases

Once again, none of this is meant to condone either set of actions. But it does say a lot about the role of Islam. It looks to me that Islam in these cases is not primarily a motivator to Jihad. Instead, non-Muslim soldiers view the Muslim faith with suspicion which causes a rift between Muslim troops and their peers. And secondly, it creates a moral dilemma on participation in the war.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
My take on how Islam influenced these cases

Once again, none of this is meant to condone either set of actions. But it does say a lot about the role of Islam. It looks to me that Islam in these cases is not primarily a motivator to Jihad. Instead, non-Muslim soldiers view the Muslim faith with suspicion which causes a rift between Muslim troops and their peers. And secondly, it creates a moral dilemma on participation in the war.

Just to continue this line of discussion, Forbes is currently running a post titled "Going Muslim" in which the author compares Hasan's actions to the stereotypical postal worker going on a rampage (leading to the coining of the term "Going Postal").

http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/08/fort-hood-nidal-malik-hasan-muslims-opinions-columnists-tunku-varadarajan.html

The author, correctly in my view, compares the work-related stresses that led to both the postal rampages and Hasan's attack. But, then, he inexplicably veers to this statement:

"The difference between 'going postal,' in the conventional sense, and 'going Muslim,' in the sense that I suggest, is that there would not necessarily be a psychological 'snapping' point in the case of the imminently violent Muslim; instead, there could be a calculated discarding of camouflage--the camouflage of integration--in an act of revelatory catharsis."

I think there are many in this thread that would agree with this statement.

However, this is an example of where I see prejudice trumping reason. The "snapping" of a postal worker, or indeed just about any non-Muslim person, is an accepted part of our reality in the US. However, a Muslim is presumed to have made a rational decision and the possibility of a similar "snapping" is not even available for consideration.

Hasan is a loaner, a misfit on many levels. Unmarried (and apparently unhappily so) at the age of 39. Failing at his job which subjects him to constant exposure to the suffering of war. He hears daily of the trauma that has been visited upon his patients, and likely (and probably more importantly) hears of the violence delivered by those patients to others (others with whom he may well feel a bond). He apparently suffers harassment both on and off the job. A psychological "snapping" is very much believable and far more likely than the idea that Hasan suddenly made a religious/political decision.

If this had been a religious/political act, I would have expected some sort of last will and testament explaining his actions, or another form of a political statement. In the case above of Akbar, his diary fulfilled that purpose. Perhaps something similar will surface in the Hasan case, but so far it hasn't.

[Anonymous]

did the 9/11 killers have a snapping point? have the thousands of suicide bombers in Iraq or Afghanistan had snapping points? seriously, this is not a flame - do you think this is the case?

My take is the exact opposite. He didn't snap. Instead, he gradually became more and more militant and extreme until he felt it was his duty as a Muslim to take out as many infidels as he could. So he carefully planned an attack where he would have the most unarmed soldiers present as possible.

Not an indictment of Islam. An indictment of extreme violent Muslims.

[Anonymous]

I am fascinated by the logical reasoning of the posters here, by their idiotic POC and trying to be "clever" about this horrific thing that happened. This should have never
happened. There were abundant red flags. We are talking about the ARMY, the most powerful ARMY in the world, not some liberal intellectuals club. When people get too comfortable with their lives and then try to be "clever", that's when the empires start to decline. The army and the society owes big to the families of those killled. Will anybody be responsible?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:did the 9/11 killers have a snapping point? have the thousands of suicide bombers in Iraq or Afghanistan had snapping points? seriously, this is not a flame - do you think this is the case?

My take is the exact opposite. He didn't snap. Instead, he gradually became more and more militant and extreme until he felt it was his duty as a Muslim to take out as many infidels as he could. So he carefully planned an attack where he would have the most unarmed soldiers present as possible.

Not an indictment of Islam. An indictment of extreme violent Muslims.

I was writing about a single case. I am not sure why you think the specifics of that case are relevant to anything else.

I see the 9/11 attack as completely different than the Hasan case. The 9/11 perpetrators saw themselves as engaged in a struggle between civilizations. The were willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of that struggle. It was their belief that the attack would lead to a revolt among who they saw as the subjugated masses. To this extent, there was a logic to their actions. A despicable and failed logic, but a logic nonetheless. It is not that different than the kamikaze pilots of World War II.

As for the suicide bombers of Iraq and Afghanistan (or Palestine for that matter), there are a number of reasons and it is impossible to generalize their motivations. Certainly, there have been those who simply reached their breaking point and decided that their exit from this world would be their final protest. There are those who were motivated by religious fervor and were willing to give their lives, but may not have been planning to become bombers until they were placed in that role. There is a tremendous amount of coercion that goes on, and it is no surprise that most of the bombers are young and ignorant. They are easily taken advantage of by others and are the most likely to truly believe the religious aspects of their attacks. And, of course, there are true believers. But, I've always thought that if becoming a shaheed is a direct route to heaven, more of the leaders should be seeking martyrdom. For instance, why is bin Ladin suffering here on earth when he could so easily be enjoying the fruits of heaven? But, I again want to stress that Islam is not a precondition for suicide bombing. I don't know the current math, but I wouldn't be surprised if Hindu Tamils still hold the record for most suicide bombings. It's just that theirs get so little publicity.

Careful planning of an attack is not mutually exclusive with snapping. Remember, in the VA Tech attack, Cho chained the doors closed. That certainly required careful planning and forethought.

[Anonymous]

Is it a political/religious act? Probably not, at least from what we know till now. Still, his extremist religious beliefs and strange behaviour should have been examined and scrutinized. Violation of civil rights? I don't care, innocent lives were lost due to naivity. I agree, we are talking about the Army and people should be looked at carefully when they belong in it. This is true not just for America. Mentally unstable people, people with extremist and hateful religious views, and who are torn in their loyalties. Hasan meets all these criteria. And the signs were ignored. Shame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am fascinated by the logical reasoning of the posters here, by their idiotic POC and trying to be "clever" about this horrific thing that happened. This should have never
happened. There were abundant red flags. We are talking about the ARMY, the most powerful ARMY in the world, not some liberal intellectuals club. When people get too comfortable with their lives and then try to be "clever", that's when the empires start to decline. The army and the society owes big to the families of those killled. Will anybody be responsible?

No one is defending the Army's stupidity for not having addressed this doctor's situation.

The discussion is primarily bout whether Islam is the cause of the problem, and in what way. And it matters because if you are looking for jihadists and the real problem is lone muslims with mental health issues, then you are looking for the wrong threat.

As for "cleverness" being the root cause of the decline of civilization, A+ for overstatement. We'd all like problems to be simple and clear. But that does not make them so. That kind of logic may feel satisfying, but more likely than not it has you invading Russia in the winter or charging at Gettysburg when your "clever" generals tell you it's foolhardy.