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General Casey says don't jump to conclusions: blaming Muslims for Nidal Hasan
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Maj Nidal Hasan (AP)
Don't jump to conclusions. That's what Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey is cautioning against in the wake of last week's shooting rampage in Fort Hood, TX.
Some of the fragmentary information being reported from a patchwork quilt of sources suggest that Maj. Nidal Hasan was driven by religious convictions --in this case, an extreme interpretation of Islam.
The military is clearly trying to prevent any kind of backlash against Muslims because of this attack. Military officials at Fort Hood stress that it's important for Muslim soldiers to know they're safe and part of the team, not just at the fort but through the armed forces.
General Casey told CNN on Sunday that the last thing he wanted to see result from this tragedy is anti-Muslim activity or the loss of diversity in military ranks.
President Obama delivered the same cautionary message last week
It's sad that we are at such an insufficient level of intellectual reason they something like this has to be said. It's sad that CAIR --the Council for American Islamic Relations-- instantly issued a statement of condemnation almost out of some reflexive survivalist mode to let everyone know that they found last week's events just as horrific and repugnant as nearly all other Americans --an observation that is patently obvious among all reasonable individuals.
But not all of us are reasonable. A percentage of Americans --how many is unknown but how loudly is readily evident-- believe that Major Hasan's behavior isn't extreme, that it's the norm. Indeed, the view among some is that this is what all Muslims believe, that the Koran instructs its minions to kill the infidel, and if you're not Muslim, you're an infidel.
When the story broke, the media engaged in it's usual orgy of rumors, speculation and falsehoods, only to find that much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. How many shooters, how many arrested, how many dead? Indeed, the media reported for nearly five hours that Hasan was dead only to reveal that he was alive and to then call the revelation shocking, as if to cover their own haste.
By then, of course, the "Islamic terrorism genie" was let out of the bottle and the usual suspects began their usual ignorant sniping, something easily observed by commenters posting around the internet:
ALERT to all military personal. WATCH YOUR BACK. Do you trust the Muslim next to you? - Examiner.comLike I said: another disciple of the peaceful religion...what is interesting is how the press is down playing the fact that he was a muslim terriorist and saying things like "he had PTSD" - when he never deployed and "He was stressed out about going" when he would not have been in any battle and he could have just resigned his commission. But for ABC, CBS and NBC it is "let not say it was because he was muslim". --drudge.com"Islamist Terror" is a redundancy. FreeRepublic.comA Muslim is a Muslim first and foremost. Their loyalty is to Islam--nationalism is haram, or forbidden. 2. Lying to infidels is acceptable and condoned if it is believed that the infidels are threatening or doing damage to Islam or Muslims. Don't look for too much allegiance to our flag with them. 3. Three little words: convert or die. So even if some Muslims start to soften on those ideas, millions--MILLIONS--still actively support numbers 1, 2 and 3. Their religion dictates what they wear, what they eat, when they pray, who they marry. It's not the "Sunday best" religion of many Christians. Even the most westernized Muslim sets his cell phone to ring for prayers and has his car windshield detailed with Koranic verse. It's a very different world from what most BEE readers enjoy. America better wake up. --Sacramento Bee
But then we have this view by a veteran commenting in an article from the Huffington Post:
I am glad I served back in the '70's rather than today. Whatever Casey says, it is increasingly apparent that the military--especially my beloved Air Force--are increasingly fundamentalist Christian. If you attend the Air Force Academy, you will be a fundamentalist if you're smart. Otherwise you will find other classmates and superiors ruining your career. Yes, General Casey. There is a bias against Muslims wherever fundamentalist Christianity thrives.
The comment reminds me of a very large Christian Church in my town whose advocates believe that if you're not a member of their particular brand of Christianity, you're not Christian. I'm told that by their own members. I imagine such a revelation would be troubling for Christians who attend other churches in the community (and there are many). Maybe, if they have a sense of humor, they might find it amusing; or perhaps sad if they have a sense of empathy.
In my community we have churches that performed gay weddings during the period when it was legal in California. We have others with pastors who are gay, pastors who are married and priests who are forbidden to marry. We have Christian sects which believe women should stay home, propagate and tend to the family. Still other churches offer sermons delivered by women.
And they all call themselves Christian. Which one is right?
The easy conclusion
But for some opinionators, the suggestion was all too easy. Muslim = bad, as proffered by Ralph Peters of the NY Post:
On Thursday afternoon, a radicalized Muslim US Army officer shouting, "Allahu akbar!" ("God is great!") committed the worst act of terror on American soil since 9/11. And no one wants to call it an act of terror or associate it with Islam.What cowards we are. Political correctness killed those patriotic Americans at Fort Hood as surely as the Islamist gunman did. And the media treat it like a case of nondenominational shoplifting.This was a terrorist act. When an extremist plans and executes a murderous plot against our unarmed soldiers to protest our efforts to counter Islamist fanatics, it's an act of terror. Period.
I'm not sure how blind you have to be to decide, without evidence, that this was a terrorist act carried out by an extremist with a plan anymore than anyone shooting up an office might be a terrorist.
In a previous column considering the possibility that Hasan may have been someone who simply snapped, I asked whether you, the reader, worried whether you had a co-worker wound a little too tightly who might "snap at work, go nuts and shoot up the place."
The very next morning, a gunman opened fire at an Orlando high-rise office building, killing one person and injured five in what turned out to be a disgruntled former employee at the end of his rope.
The man once worked for a construction engineering firm in the building. The shooting was confined to the offices of his former employer; all victims were current employees there. "Why did you do it?" a television reporter asked the suspect outside the police station. "Because they left me to rot," he responded.
The shooter, Jason Rodriguez --NOT Muslim-- was fired from the firm in 2007, 2½ years earlier and none of his former co-workers had heard from him in the interim. It turns out he was "going through a rough time," having recently told a judge that he was $90,000 in debt while making $30,000 a year at Subway. He couldn't afford to go see his son, who lived half an hour away. When he surrendered to police at his mother's house, Rodriguez said, "I'm just going through a tough time right now. I'm sorry."
Is that any excuse to shoot up a place and take innocent lives? No more so than the one used by an isolated college student who took 32 lives at Virginia Tech.
Would Mr. Peters considering either of these cases to be the act of a terrorist or a mentally unstable person? Or does it only matter when you're a Muslim?
From 1994-2003, there were 164 workplace shootings in America, with 290 people killed and 161 wounded.
In 2006, there were a total of 5,840 workplace fatalities due to violent acts. In 2007, 5,488.
According to the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the third leading cause of workplace fatality is homicide.
Are they terrorists?
The shooting in Orlando is "the second time this year that one highly-publicized mass shooting was followed the next day by another. In March, a shooting spree in Samson, Alabama that left 10 dead was followed just hours later by a rampage in the small German town of Winnenden, where a 17-year-old killed 15 people before taking his own life."
Are they terrorists?
Using common sense
This isn't about political correctness, as Mr. Peters would lead you to believe; this is 
George Casey with moderator David Gregory appear on Meet the Press (AP) about using common sense.
George Casey with moderator David Gregory appear on Meet the Press (AP)
Just from a criminal standpoint alone, it would make sense to wait for investigators --both FBI and military-- to gather the evidence that enables them to assemble a portrait of exactly who we are dealing with and why he did what he did.
And in the end, even if Hasan was motivated by extremist religious convictions, that has nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with his interpretation of Islam.
And if it turns out that the major was psychotic, does it really make any difference whether or not he shouted "Allahu Akbar"? (And there are conflicting reports, incidentally, about whether he did or didn't).
Yet every story, whether in the American press or British, all have one thing in common: It's what Hasan did, not what Muslims did. It wasn't about what other Muslim American soldiers did, or what they're doing; only Hasan shot up Fort Hood.
You will find far too many stories trying to make a subtle connection --and far too many individuals -- making blanket generalizations, that we have to beware of all Muslims because none of them can be trusted, because their first allegiance is to the Koran, not the Constitution.
Was the Fort Hood shooting a terrorist attack? What does that mean? Does that mean there was a wide infiltration plot perpetrated by some central operation giving orders from a cave in Bora Bora? Are all of the world's Muslims in on it?
Where do people come up with these conclusions other than to draw them from their own pathetic ignorance and rancid hatred?
There is no evidence to suggest that the tragedy at Fort Hood was part of a scheme perpetrated by a network of terrorists as part of some grand plot. At the end of the day, even those suggesting such a preposterous idea have no other recourse but to admit that everything leading up to what happened at Fort Hood was the result of one man making his own decisions.
So why are we blaming a religion or any of its adherents?
There are 1.57 billion Muslims in the world. How can the actions of one be an indictment of all? Have you even pondered the lunacy of that logic? If all 1.57 billion Muslims believed like this guy did --IF in fact, that's what this man believed-- do you honestly think that wouldn't be self-evident? And do you honestly think fighting off a billion-and-a-half people would be a quiet affair with casualties in the millions and property damage in the billions?
Yet we seem to have people in this country who believe that, and people of influence in the land of pithy pundits who manipulate the angry and small-minded by pounding the table that Islam is a dangerous and evil religion, or demanding that all Muslims be deported or imprisoned, or some such other nonsense. I'm not sure these pundits believe that but they profit such notions on the airwaves because they know there are enough stupid listeners who believe that to give them ratings. So not only is such a belief the product of the unthinking myopic, the very voices those people admire don't even know they're being manipulated by propagandists whose only interest is in generating more ratings and more revenue for them. They don't give a damn about you.
Here we have Michelle Malkin questioning the wisdom of multiculturalism, tolerance and diversity --Michelle Malkin, an Asian American. Perhaps we need to start rounding up all Asian Americans and locking them up in internment camps because, ya know, the Chinese aren't exactly trustworthy and holy Moses, did you know they're communists? Ergo, if over a billion Chinese live under communist rule, how can we trust anyone of Asian extraction? Lock 'em up because multiculturalism, tolerance and diversity --hallmarks of American society-- ain't all that grand after all, are they?
Better lock up all the Americans, too, since we have the highest murder rate in the western world. Ergo, all Americans must be murderers.
Nidal Hasan was under surveillance by the FBI for over six months. If there were evidence of an extensive conspiracy or ties to shadowy figures in various caves and basements, don't you think they'd have uncovered that and taken appropriate action?
A disturbed individual
Unless there is evidence to the contrary, our concern should not be that Hasan is Muslim; our concern should be how an unstable and possibly mentally ill person could have progressed so far up in the ranks of the Army, let alone be in a position to evaluate and treat other people's mental health issues.
This goes back to something else referred to in a previous column: Counseling the counselors is an area that gets little notice.
It is immutable fact psychiatrists do "go crazy" at higher rates than the general population. Doctors in general have such difficulties. Studies have shown that the suicide rate among male doctors is 40 percent higher than among men overall and that female doctors take their own lives at 130 percent the rate of women in general. No one knows why, exactly, but doctors have abnormally high rates of depression as well as access to drugs that may exacerbate symptoms. Yet few studies have analyzed suicide rates by type of physician, so it's hard to tell whether psychiatrists in particular have higher rates of mental illness than other doctors. One study of female psychiatrists in 2001 did find that 42 percent of the subjects had a family history of depression, as opposed to 28 percent for female physicians in general. Meanwhile, 35 percent of the female shrinks had experienced depression, compared with 18 percent of their physician counterparts.
The Fort Hood tragedy appears to be a clear case of a mentally ill individual who lost control and a person about whom no one in his chain of command did anything beforehand. For whatever reason they didn't act, that needs to be resolved, no matter how many feathers it ruffles. It may be for the very same reasons you don't report someone at your own place of work who you worry may one day snap and turn violent.
This has nothing to do with Islam. That has to do with one person's interpretation of the Koran. The argument should be familiar: Guns don't kill people; people kill people. The problem isn't the religion; it's the religionists. Religion doesn't kill people; people kill people, and sometimes they use religion as an excuse to do it.
But that's not the fault of scripture; it's how different people interpret the scripture. How many versions of the Bible do we have? We have an Anglicans tearing each other apart over homosexuality. Roman Catholics regularly practice birth control while the Pope condemns the Pill. Christians suggesting that other Christians aren't "Christian enough."
This is about one individual who couldn't handle the pressure of life and for his own selfish reasons committed this atrocious act. It could well be that Major Hasan's faith drove him to shoot up Fort Hood, tragically ending the lives of 13 people and injuring 30 others. But that has nothing to do with Islam. That has to do with an interpretation of Islam by a single disturbed and deeply religious person.
Life is full of people like Hasan, be they religious extremists who hide behind the Koran, the Bible or some other scripture, or racists who hide behind white sheets in the name of ethnic purity or American patriotism. We should be on guard for both; both are enemy of the State.
Those who make racist comments about Muslims should be ashamed. You shame yourself, you shame the Army, and most of all you shame the United States.
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