Major Hasan's Alienation

"Maj. Hasan, raised a Muslim, had wanted to go into the military against his parent's wishes, but he was taunted by others after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, his cousin said.

A former Fort Hood colleague of the shooter said Hasan would frequently make "outlandish" comments.

"He said maybe Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor," retired Col. Terry Lee told Fox News. "At first we thought he meant help the armed forces, but apparently that wasn't the case. Other times he would make comments we shouldn't be in the war in the first place."

Hasan had been optimistic that President Obama would start pulling troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, Lee said, but when that didn't happen as quickly as he hoped, Hasan became angry.

"He was sort of a loner and kept to himself," Lee told Fox News. "He didn't socialize a lot with officers off duty or on duty."" Fox News

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It is sadly amusing how much people do not want this to be about the man's religion or his Palestinian ancestry. 

His relatives understandably want other Americans to believe that he was traumatized by listening to soldiers' stories about the wars.  They certainly don't want people to think that there was anything about the atmosphere in his father's house that caused this man to reject the land of his birth and the obligations of his oath.

The media flacks have now been conditioned into political correctness to such an extent that they can't bring themselves to suggest that his Islam or his sense of grievance about American wars in the Islamic World had anything to do with what he did.

Subject to revision as more becomes known. This is how it looks to me:

- Hasan was born in Arlington, VA and raised in Roanoke, VA 200 odd miles SW of Washington.  He is a native born American and a Washington Redskins fan.

- He graduated from high school in Roanoke.  Then he went to Virginia Tech.

- After graduation (1997) he was sent by the Army to the Defense Department's own medical school in Washington.  He paid no fees and received an officer's pay and allowances.  Following graduation as an MD and commissioning as a captain in the Medical Corps, he continued his education at Army expense and was an intern and then a resident in psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.  This process took 6 years. 

- He then practised at Walter Reed specializing in treating PTSD victims and the like.  Other Army doctors tried not to send him patients because they did not like his attitude.  Inevitably, he received a poor effectiveness report.  Ironically, the Army had invested so much in him that this probably would not have affected retention decisions about him.

- He avoided other officers socially and professionally to the extent he could manage.  He avoided women colleagues.  He would not be photographed with a woman.  He asked his prayer community to find him a wife.  They did not do so.  He had no visible sexual relationships.

- He was transferred to Hood to do what the Army had trained him to do.  Inevitably the Army decided that it was his "turn in the barrel" and sent him orders to deploy to one of combat areas to practise his medical specialty.

- He told people that he did not want to participate in wars against Muslims in a non-Muslim army.  He tried to get out of the Army.  Not surprisingly, the Army would not hear of that.   Security camera video in a convenience store in Killeen, Texas outside the gate of the post shows him wandering around wearing strange garb apparently intended to set him apart in that town full of soldiers, present and past.

- He is reported to have uttered "Allahu Akbar" before he opened fire on what he seems to have seen as God's enemies.

Alienation.  Alienation.  Alienation.  He was taunted by people over being a Muslim?  Have we not all been taunted about some unfortunate thing?

It must be in the water at Virginia Tech.  pl

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

PL! Is there any open source material on how MUSLIMS have been treated, promoted, utilized by the Armed Services since 9/11? Are there military IMAMs? Showing my ignorance of course but I had heard since the 80's that BLACK MUSLIMS were a huge problem in US military and that in fact was one reason the US Armed Forces were becoming less open to black enlistments generally. Have no information myself but wondering if these rumors have any basis? It does appear, unlike the killed in action in RVN, the WAPO and other newspaper posts of dead servicemen and women indicates that the preponderance of dead are not black.

[matter]

It is sadly amusing how much people do not want this to be about Israel. The man is of Palestinian origin. The media will try to ignore it, but the Iraq war for Israel was surely a motivating factor.

[Patrick Lang]

WRC

There are Muslim chaplains in the military. One of them got in trouble at Gitmo for siding with the prisoners.

My impression is that the outreach efforts of the military have sought Muslim recruits for a long time. I taught Muslim American cadets at West Point in the '70s. Afghans, Palestinians, Turks, etc.

Since 9/11 that effort has increased. Does anyone really think that this officer was harassed over his religion?

I think that you are a decade or two off in talking about Black Muslims of the Nation of Islam. That was a problem when there was a draft. This force is so professionalized that the issue does not arise.

In VN the typical KIA was a white 23 year old high school graduate from a small town. Blacks were killed in numbers proportionate to their representation in the general US population. I can provide documentation.

Don't perpetuate the propaganda of the Left. pl

[Patrick Lang]

matter

For Palestinian Muslims the recovery of their land is a religious duty. pl

[Andy]

Alienation. Exactly right. Thanks for providing what the media seems unable to provide in their pursuit of convenient narratives.

[charlottemom]

The alienation narrative for shooter is quite compellling for this tragedy.

I am withholding comment until the media/military get the story straight. I am queazy with all the back and forth info being reported:

He was killed...then not killed

He did it with automated weapons...no 2 pistols

Multiple shooters...not multiple shooters (they were released)

Multiple deployments...no first deployment

Post traumatic shock..no but somehow "infected" with Post traumatic shock after treating so many soldiers with it

Too much post traumatic empathy...no "picked on" by other soldiers

long service record and commendable service (promotions within the military)..no terrible job reports

So right now we have an alienated officer shrink with terrible job reports single-handedly managing 40 casualties with two hand pistol on a military base. Did I get that right?

This story has traveled a great distance and zigzagged so much that I'm waiting to see where it ends...here? Still waiting for ANY info on exactly who was targeted? OR was it totally random? Officers, enlisteds, civilans? Who took him down and how? Absolutely nothing on describing how crime took place, timeline, etc.

And why did the officer at the presser say the shooter was killed on site? So much weirdness. And I agree, the Vtech connection is the icing on the weird cake.

[Matthew]

Col: Why did he just leave the Army after 9/11. Clearly, its focus would be the Muslim World.

[Patrick Lang]

Matthew

I gather that he accepted the Army's offer of a medical degree. That obligated him to six years service.

He graduated from VA Tech in 1997. The Army paid for that as well. So, he was obligated to a lot of time on active duty. pl

[WILL]

Sirhan Sirhan Redux.

The following is not a condonation but to try to explain the pressures he was under. Obviously a very weak person that had no business being in the medical arts, or maybe he just "cracked." Was that the explanation that Clinton Vir gave to Al Gore for his lapse?

His immigrant family is identified as Jordanian in news accounts. this is because their village, an East Jerusalem suburb, was in Jordanian West Bank administration at the time.

I believe it was WRC who commented here that as long as the US gov't supported ethnic cleansing in the West Bank then its forces would be seen as occupiers in Muslim lands.

Other sources reported that Malek Nidal Hasan had offered to repay his educational costs for "early out" even retaining counsel.

And as far as recovery of their land, Xtian or even Atheist Filistin desire that and have been willing to die for it. Islam merely provides a coloring. The grief of the wretched and miserable may be sublimated in some but in others it bubbles up. Imagine being of Jerusalemite (Quds) anscetry living in the US and being subjected to the constant media assault with every fact turned on its head. He faced an upward battle with the middle name he chose to use: Nidal=Stuggle. He would have been better off with his first name Malek=King or Angel

Dr. George Habash, founer of the PFLP was Christian.

[Phil Giraldi]

Actually, given all the apparent red flags in his behavior (you didn't mention his bein investigated for alleged posting on a jihadi style website), the army should damn well have gotten rid of him with a general discharge befor he went completely crazy.

[Watcher]

Sir

One quick note on Hasan's career run down. One of my classmates is a military doctor at Walter Reed, and he shed some light on Hasan's situation, but did not know or serve with him. Hasan, like all doctors, would have to rotate through different specialties at Walter Reed to further his overall medical knowledge. Psychologists and psychiatrists have a tendency to have a rough go of it in some of these tours, its the nature of the system and specialty. So what the media is portraying as a poor efficiency report, may in fact be a reflection of an academic difficulty in one medical field he had to pass through, and not actual overall deficient performance as one might expect to see on the traditional Officer Evaluation Report. While this is in no way a defense of Hasan, I think that a day later, the situation is still very confused and some surprises still lie in wait for us.

Respectfully

W

[Clifford Kiracofe]

"people do not want this to be about the man's religion or his Palestinian ancestry"

Well...

The President in his remarks indicated that in addition to the FBI the broader intelligence community was tasked to investigate the incident.

This interested me as naturally one wonders about any linkages to domestic or foreign extremist/terrorist networks. Logically these would fall into the category of Islamic extremist orgs.

It does appear from initial reports that he imbibed some political Islam and also that he was focused on his Palestinian background although his parents were reportedly holding Jordanian citizenship and he was born in the US. Doesn't seem to have "assimilated" one might conclude.

Why is he wearing some white outfit with a head covering at the convenience store prior to switching to uniform prior to the attack? What is with this white thing...some ritualistic idea on his part about purity and being shaheed...?

Trying to reconstruct the crime scene: So 12 dead and 31 reported wounded. Thus roughly a minimum of 43 rounds. Two handguns reported. So say he has a Glock or whatever with large capacity 18 round clips. We are at two clips plus at least one changed. Reports say he shot some people twice or multiple times. Reports say the female officer responded within 3 minutes. Shooter is reported to have been sitting down in a room then stands up and commences fire. A lot of damage even for a good shot under pressure and tension which raises questions for me about the reported scenario. Although perhaps the seemingly point blank range in the room had an effect still I am not sure how this adds up to the damage done.

Some reports from VA Tech say they do not find a record of him in the ROTC program there (???).

[Hypatia]

pl wrote:Does anyone really think that this officer was harassed over his religion?

To write "I don't think this officer was harassed over his religion" is one thing. Your choice to phrase it as "Only a moron would think..." is quite different.

[Jose]

Why didn't the Army take into account his religious and ethnic background?

There so many places they could have sent him other than to wage war against the ummah.

After nearly nine years of GWOT someone should have know better by now, remember Cuban-Americans are not allowed in GITMO under any circumstances.

Does anybody wonder why?

[Patrick Lang]

Jose

The Army can not assign OFFICERS based on their ethnicity or religion. To do so would be to divide the officer corps in such a way that there would be "classes" of officers. That would be incompatible with the effort to create a unified force. What are we, "Lebanon?" pl

[Patrick Lang]

WILL

Acrually, you ARE condoning what he did and his disloyalty to the United States. I find that unacceptable. pl

[Patrick Lang]

Hypatia

You have it right. Only a moron would think that this officer was harassed over his religion. If his relatives say that he was, let them prove it. pl

[David J.]

This incident reminds me of US Army sergeant Hasan Karim Akbar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasan_Akbar_case

[Patrick Lang]

Phil

Apparently the posting on jihadi website thing was incorrect.

I wonder how much money they would have charged him for the cost of ten years education? (4 years undergraduate + six years of med school and residency)

In any case the Army can not allow officers (or anyone else) to buy their way out in wartime. pl

[Walter]

Most/all of the teenage shooters of the past two decades in America have been "bullied", picked on, outcasted by their peers....alienated....Abraham Maslow of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs identified the social/affiliative need as second only to the need to stay alive (food, shelter, self-preservation). It is a very powerful need that, when it goes unmet, causes all kinds of problems. I believe this is a very important piece of this puzzle as you pointed out, pl.

[Patrick Lang]

All

Either I have some new trolls here or some of you lurkers are remarkably dense.

Let's see if I can explain this to you:

- Palestinians have various motivating factors in their unhappiness with the Israeli state.

- Plain old nationalism accounts for a lot of their feeling.

- Islam demands a restoration of the lands stolen from the 'Ummah. If you think that is not true go talk to Hamas.

- Palestinians foolishly think that the world is going to come to its senses some day and see that it would be fair for them to be given back Palestine. Their belief in this possibility is a measure of their unworldliness. They refer to this belief as a desire for "justice," a commodity that has rarely ever existed in THIS world.

- Israeli occupation and military action towards them is so cruel and relentlessly indifferent to their dignity as human beings that revenge is a dish that the Palestinians would like to taste.

The Israelis are lucky that I am not a Palestinian. pl

[Patrick Lang]

All

Oh, yes, I don't think that religion has much relevance to Palestinian Christians. They have plenty of other reasons to hate the Israelis. pl

[otiwa ogede]

Are there muslims in the Secret Service? Obama has been afraid of some "hillbilly with a gun" taking a shot at him.
In Nigeria Igbo soldiers comprised a significant number of the professional officer corps until the civil war, even those that remained loyal to the state were either sidelined or lost their commission. 40 years later and the legacy of this lives on in the country with the underrepresentation of the third largest ethnic group in the armed forces.
Obviously this situation is not the same but how could this sad event affect the retainment, and promotion of muslims in the US armed forces, and intelligence services? I can understand why the media would want to underplay his religion at this time, unlike the Colonel i don't attribute this to political correctness, the finger pointing and islamophobia disguised informed commentary will come in time. Right now responsible people will try to limit the cultural damage.

[somebody]

what got my attention - assuming what is written is correct, which is very uncertain - was that he was trying to get out of the army and could not. I suppose you do not usually get assigned to Iraq if you treat post trauma - that is long term, you cannot do that in between duty - so was the army vindictive sending him there? You do not try to get out of the army, if you plan to be a suicide killer, you try to get close to the general
how much threat and force has the US army to use to send people to Iraq and Afghanistan?
And - treating post trauma, what do you think soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan were telling him for five long years?

[Patrick Lang]

somebody

He could not get out of the army because he had agreed to stay in the army for a long period of time in return for ten years of university education. Get it now?

Your assumption about where PTSD is treated is completely incorrect. It is treated both in the field and in the US upon return.

His assignment to a war zone was a completely normal personnel action with regard to a Medical Corps officer.

The army doesn't threaten anyone to send them to the wars. They merely receive orders.

You don't go nuts from listening to war stories.

Which Islamic country are you from? pl