Friday, November 6, 2009

Major Nidal Malik Hasan: More Questions Than Answers



Yesterday’s shooting at For Hood that left 12 dead and 31 wounded has left so many questions in its wake.  The one hope we have for understanding this insanity is that the shooter Major. Nidal Malik Hasan was not killed in the attack.  Hopefully we will be able to get answers from him.

For me everything about the shooting and Hasan leaves me with questions. How does one man with two handguns shoot 43 people on a military base?  Even with a semi-automatic it still seems like an awful lot of people to take out with only two handguns.

Hansan’s family released this statement
"We are shocked and saddened by the terrible events at Fort Hood today. We send the families of the victims our most heartfelt sympathies," the statement read. "Nidal was an American citizen. He was Born in Arlington, Virginia and raised here in America...Our family loves America. We are proud of our country, and saddened by today's tragedy." 
They claim that Nidal was subjected to taunts because of his Muslim faith and that he was extremely fearful of being deployed to Iraq this month.  However, since Nidal was a psychiatrist none of this adds up. As a psychiatrist shouldn’t Nidal have had the tools to deal with taunts? Furthermore as a psychiatrist, why was he so fearful of deployment?  It wasn’t like he would have been in actual combat. Plus I am having a hard time believing that someone who was a afraid to deploy would all of a sudden summon up enough guts to gun down so many fellow soldiers. Such an act would mean almost certain death for the shooter.

It is also said by Hasan’s fellow soldiers that Hasan seemed to have great sympathies for the extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan.  If we take Hasan’s family at their word that he was a proud and loyal American, then where did his views come from.  Was he somehow exposed to radical Islamic ideologies? If so from where, how? Is it possible our soldiers are bringing these ideologies back from war or are such ideologies being imported to our military bases? Are we screening for such activities?

As this story unfolds over the next days, weeks, months I am sure a completely different picture will emerge than the one we have today. At lease this time, we have the actual shooter to get the answers from.

Via: ABC News

2 comments:

El Cerdo Ignatius said...

I think the tripper is in this line:

If we take Hasan’s family at their word that he was a proud and loyal American,

They doth protest too much. The legal citizenship held by Hasan is a red herring.

I'm with you, I hope Hasan recovers and explains himself. Then he can be hanged.

Clifton B said...

El Cerdo Ignatius:

To bad we did away with enhanced interrogations, we might actually learn something from Hasan.

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