Last Thursday, a soldier opened fire on his fellow troops at Fort Hood Army Base in Killeen, Texas, taking 12 lives before being injured and taken into custody.
Besides the sheer tragedy involved, what puts this story in the spotlight of national attention is the perpetrator's religion; the shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, is an American Muslim. However, the 39-year-old army psychiatrist was apparently not an al-Qaida operative or an undercover terrorist insurgent. He was simply an American soldier who snapped.
Unfortunately, for the time being, the focus on Hasan will remain on his religion, and questions about how it influenced him and how important it was to the shootings will continue to rise. In the national media, he will continue to be framed as a Muslim, perhaps more so than as an American soldier. In the course of all this, we will lose sight of the true story and the true problem.
The Fort Hood tragedy is a complex subject with an emotional sting. There are a number of facets to the story and concurrently a number of reasons it is relevant and important to understanding life in 21st century America.
Since 9/11, Islam has been cast in a decidedly negative light, leading to a rise in hate crimes against Muslims and a shift toward alarmist rhetoric. The two wars America is prosecuting abroad have been sometimes (understandably) confused with a war on Islam itself. Perhaps the religion will forever be associated with terrorism in this country. We would hope America is better than that.
But to cast the Fort Hood shootings in that mold is simply wrong. The matter here is not one of terrorism or Islamic extremism, as Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut claimed on Fox News Sunday. It is instead a matter of the mindset of the troops who fight, have fought or will fight in those two foreign wars. It is a matter of the respect we have for veterans, our bravest brothers and sisters. The mistreatment of veterans in our national hospitals speaks ill of our ability to care for those who deserve it most.
It's no secret the national media machine has trouble digesting multiple complex themes such as those present in this case. But it is an extra tragedy when issues cannot be framed outside of a Christian versus Muslim ideology that has existed since the Crusades and continues to be perpetuated to this day.
In short, the treatment of Muslims in this country in the past eight years has been shameful, as has been the treatment of American veterans. When a Muslim American soldier decides to turn on his own comrades, there is a larger story at work. Unfortunately, the shame continues.
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* If Senator Nelson votes to move the Democrats’ health care bill forward, he is voting to raise Nebraskans’ health care costs, taxes, and premiums, all while cutting Medicare for the 270,435 beneficiaries in the state.
* The taxpayers of Nebraska can see through these parliamentary procedure games. They don’t want a flip flopper.
* Nebraskans want someone to keep the government from coming between them and their doctor.
By Christopher Hitchens Posted Monday, Nov. 16, 2009, at 11:46 AM ETMaj. Nidal Malik HasanThe admonition not to rush to judgment or jump to conclusions might sound fair and prudent enough, perhaps even statesmanlike when uttered by the president, as long it's borne in mind that such advice is itself a judgment that is more than halfway to a conclusion. What it plainly implies in the present case is that the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan should not be assumed in any meaningful way to be related to his Muslim faith.
Perfect subjective knowledge of the major's possibly disordered mind is not available to me, but nor is it available to the host of damage-control commentators and FBI drones who have had things mostly their own way so far. In order to demonstrate the absence of a connection, however, the following facts would have to be regarded as relatively random or secondary:
1) Hasan had been in direct correspondence with a notorious preacher of violence, Anwar al-Awlaki, whose enthusiasm for the teachings and actions of al-Qaida has long been well-known to researchers and intelligence agencies.
2) He bought weapons for himself well in advance of a murderous assault on unarmed soldiers awaiting treatment at a clinic—people to whom, in addition to his responsibilities as a human being, he also owed, as a physician, a sworn duty of care.
3) As he unleashed his volleys, he yelled the universal cry of jihad, “Allahu akbar!” or "God is great!" (The eyewitnesses on this point, originally doubted, are especially convincing since some of them didn't understand the meaning of the words and only sought to reproduce them phonetically.) On his business card, he described himself as "SOA" or "slave," or possibly, "soldier of Allah." Neither would be especially reassuring in this context.
4) He had attracted considerable attention by repeatedly using his postgraduate classes at the Uniformed Service University in Bethesda, Md., for the purpose of Islamic proselytizing, for a version of Islam that, to say the least, did not overemphasize it as a "religion of peace."
5) He had, in spoken and written communications, demonstrated a fascination with the love of death and the concept of suicide martyrdom (better described as suicide murder) that is the central concept of Bin Ladenism.
6) Though he may have been upset by the harrowing stories of returned soldiers—as many, many of us have been, incidentally—his overwhelming and reiterated objection to the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and al-Qaida in Iraq, is that it is "a war on Islam." It might be worth noting that this means that the Taliban does represent Islam, whereas the current governments of Iraq and Afghanistan somehow do not—a core belief of the Islamic purists who use the dogma of takfir to excommunicate such Muslims and render them liable, along with many other kind of infidel, to holy slaughter.
7) He seems to have been especially obsessed with the Quranic injunction that forbids devout Muslims to make alliances with Christians and Jews.
The above list is not exhaustive, but I would submit that five of the seven items (the first and the last four) would have been grounds to have had him either put under close surveillance or dismissed from the service. Proselytizing in uniform, for example, is already banned by a general order. To be "inclusive," the United States armed forces must exclude or discipline those who oppose inclusion. This, of course, goes for zealots of all faiths, and it won't do to point out that it isn't always universally applied. The Hasan atrocity makes such an application more urgent, not less.
What about the emphasis on Hasan's supposedly knife-edge mental state? Well, even supposing it to have been precarious, it can hardly have been improved by immersion in the rantings of Anwar al-Awlaki. I do not say that all practitioners of woman-hating, anti-Semitic, sadomasochistic suicide immolations are themselves insane, but I do say that the teaching itself is demented. In the same way, I do not say that all Muslims are terrorists, but I have noticed that an alarmingly high proportion of terrorists are Muslim. A paranoid or depressive person—of whom we have many millions in our midst—does not have to end up screaming religious slogans while butchering his fellow creatures. But a paranoid or depressive person who is in regular touch with a jihadist "spiritual leader" is presented with a ready-made script that offers him paradise in exchange for homicide.
I was kidding about the apology thing. Hence the smiley. However, I'd much appreciate an admission that you are wrong if/when you are. Quite honestly, it doesn't look good for your beliefs.Check out the article on Slate titled "Seven salient facts about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan." It could be an enlightening experience for you.
Hassan is the first terrorist in history to give an academic lecture explaining why he was about to attack. Yet that still isn't enough for too many people-including the president of the United States--to understand that the murderous assault at Fort Hood was a Jihad attack.
It was reported that the audience was shocked and frightened by his lecture. He was supposed to speak on some medical topic yet instead talked on the topic: "The Koranic World View as it Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military." All you have to do is look at the 50 Power Point slides and they tell you everything you need to know.
It is quite a good talk. He's logical and presents his evidence. This is clearly not the work of a mad man or a fool, though there's still a note of ambiguity in it. He's still working out what to do in his own mind and is trying to figure out if he has a way out other than in effect deserting the U.S. army and becoming a Jihad warrior. Ultimately, he concluded that he could not be a proper Muslim without killing American soldiers. Obviously, other Muslims could reach different conclusions but Hassan strongly grounds himself in Islamic texts.
In a sense, Hassan's lecture was a cry for help: Can anyone show me another way out? Can anyone refute my interpretation of Islam? One Muslim in the audience reportedly tried to do so. But unless these issues are openly discussed and debated--rather than swept under the rug--more people will die.
In fact, I'd recommend that teachers use this lecture in teaching classes on both Islam and Islamist politics. .
Follow along with me and you'll understand everything.
Hassan deals with three topics: What Islam teaches Muslims, how Muslims view the wars in Afghanistan and Iran, how this might affect Muslims in the U.S. military. [Slide 2] Hassan defines Jihad, showing how silly are the claims that it only means a personal struggle to behave better. It also signifies holy war, of course. [Slide 5].
Now here's Hassan's central theme. Muslims cannot fight in an infidel army against other Muslims. And Hassan himself says that it's getting hard for Muslims in the U.S. military to justify doing so. [Slide 11] Obviously, Hassan was deciding that he couldn't do so.
He then quotes the Koran extensively to prove the point. Allah will punish anyone who kills a Muslim [Slide 12]. Hassan then gives four examples of Muslim soldiers who broke under the strain. One who killed fellow American soldiers (which Hassan would himself do), one accused of espionage (but was acquitted), one who deserted, and one who refused deployment to Iraq. [Slide 13]
Finally, he gets into the heavy stuff. Hassan introduces the concept of "defensive Jihad" which is a core element in radical Islamist thinking and has especially been promoted by Usama bin Ladin and al-Qaida. [Slides 37-39]. If others attack and oppress Muslims, then it is the duty of all Muslims to fight them. September 11 was justified by its perpetrators by saying that the United States had attacked Muslims and therefore it was mandatory to kill Americans in return.
And here is the crux of the matter: Verse 60:08, "Allah forbids you...from dealing kindly and justly" with those who fight Muslims." [Slide 40]
If Nidal Hassan believed this and would follow it, he must-to be a proper Muslim in his eyes-pick up a gun and join the Jihad, Muslim side. He was not shooting Americans because he caught battle fatigue from American soldiers he treated. Think about it. To have done so, Hassan would have had to sympathize with them, thinking about what it would be like for him if he'd been fighting...Muslims in Iraq or Afghanistan. But that was precisely his problem. He sympathized with the other side.
Being ordered to ship out to one of these countries, Hassan now had to decide: which side are you on? Would he choose the side of Allah and the Muslims, to be rewarded in Heaven? Or would he join with the infidels, to be punished with Hell and to betray his religion? He made his decision.
It is interesting that no Muslim debate has developed over a very simple issue: What if two groups of Muslims are fighting, cannot one side with one group, even if it has non-Muslim allies? After all, Americans are not going to Iraq or Afghanistan simply to "kill Muslims" but to defend Muslims from being killed. The Saudis, Kuwaitis, and Egyptians had no problem with using Western troops to save them from Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 1991, for example. The Iraqi and Afghan governments, made up of pious Muslims, do the same thing.
Arab nationalists who are Muslims can take this position more easily. But for Islamists the problem is not some abstraction but knowledge that they are fighting a battle to seize control of all Muslim-majority states and indeed perhaps of the entire world.
The true problem, then, is not that some Muslims help infidels kill Muslims, but that some Muslims help infidels kill Islamists. But Hassan never considered this point, which could be quite persuasive to other Muslims in Western militaries.
So, in his thinking, how might Hassan have escaped from that stark choice? Hassan answers that question. Quoting the Koran, he indicated that if the Americans ended the wars, then that would be okay and no killing would be necessary. [Slide 42]
Another alternative is if the Americans accepted Islam or agreed to become subservient to Muslim rulers (dhimmis) and paid a special tax [Slide 43-44].
A digression is appropriate here. Hassan, although a Palestinian, has never been quoted as attacking Israel or the Jews. This is one more reminder that this struggle isn't all just about Israel. But it also tells something important about Hassan which also applies to many Muslim radicals in Europe. Hassan is an American. As such he has no other nationality, neither Palestinian nor Arab. He doesn't support Hamas or Fatah. But he has a religion that directs his thinking. That's why he is an Islamist and why he supports a generalized Islamist revolutionary movement, al-Qaida.
As one moderate Muslim from Canada pointed out, the clothes he wore the day before committing his Jihad attack was not (as some sources put it in a silly manner) some martyr or even Arab garb but the clothing of Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is an al-Qaida Jihadi, having changed sides in the War on Terror.
Hassan was no fool or blind fanatic. Indeed, he presents a sophisticated view. For example, he quotes contradictory Quranic verses, one suggesting that all religions can enter Heaven; another that all non-Muslims will go to Hell [Slide 47].
His conclusion takes on tremendous significance in light of what would happen at Fort Hood. He writes:
"If Muslim groups can convince Muslims that they are fighting for God against injustices of the 'infidels'; i.e., the enemies of Islam, then Muslims can become a potent adversary ie: suicide bombing, etc."
And of course, these groups did so convince Hassan. [Slide 48]
Why? Hassan tells us:
"God expects full loyalty. Promises heaven and threatens with Hell. Muslims may seem moderate (compromising) but God is not." [Slide 49]
And at the very end, he proposes what might have been his own escape route:
"Recommendation: Department of Defense should allow Muslim soldiers the option of being released as 'Conscientious objectors' to increase troop morale and decrease adverse events." [Slide 50]
If that had existed for Hassan, I think, he would not have killed people. This proposal is worth debating, though it has negative implications too, of course. But then he had other options. He could have resigned his commission, deserted, or refused deployment as a conscientious objector and gone to prison. In fact, Hassan himself cited individuals who had done the last two.
Hassan was too pious and consistent to take this way out. The answer to his personal behavior must be found in a mix of psychological factors and political-religious beliefs. The fact is, however, that he clearly did see himself as a Jihad warrior in the end. The existence of psycological factors in no way negates the importance of religious considerations.
All terrorists have some psychological forces working to make them follow such a path. Yet if not for ideological--and in the case of Islamists, religious--beliefs they never would have become terrorists. In contrast, criminals have psychological factors plus material goals, while mentally ill people who commit crimes are compelled by purely psychogical factors. Hassan does not fit either of those two categories.
Equally, his action cannot be attributed to a "misreading" or "heretical" interpretation of Islam. To read this lecture is to understand how carefully and self-critically he approached the issues. Anything so obviously false or deviant from mainstream Islam would simply not appeal to so many Muslims. Hassan was looking for a way out in the texts and listed the "loopholes" he did find: either the United States must not fight anyone who was a Muslim or it must let him out of the military.
What Hassan neglected was an explanation that lay outside what his strict reading of the Muslim texts would allow him to say: the United States must fight, in general, because the Islamists have been the aggressors. And the United States is actually fighting as allies with one group of (more moderate) Muslims against another (of radical Islamists). Yet the texts always deal with the Muslim community as a united whole (the umma), an interpretation that just doesn't correspond with reality. Indeed and ironically, this view enables Islamists to themselves kill thousands of Muslims all over the world!
The fact that Hassan's lecture has not been the centerpiece of the whole post-massacre debate is a true example of how impoverished are the "experts," journalists, and politicians at dealing with these issues. Of course, without exploring the Islamic factor, they're wasting everyone's time. They're also going to be wasting quite a few lives.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan).