Fort Hood Investigations: Underlying Attitudes Deserve Examining

By Michael B. Kraft

The U.S. government’s investigation into Major Nidal M. Hassan’s shooting spree at Fort Hood apparently is a week or so away from submitting a report to the White House, the Washington Post reported today. The investigation is reviewing problems in sharing information between various government agencies, and rightly so.

From the numerous leaks and press reports, it appears that the various pieces of information on Hasan’s activities and behavior –such as proselytizing behavior at Walter Reed Hospital and email conversations with a radical cleric that were intercepted by the intelligence community, were looked at separately by different agencies. They did not seem to rise to the level of concern that someone would decide “we should pass this on just in case.” The stovepiping of information meant that, in effect, groups of people in different rooms saw bits of bones but did not recognize that they might be part of an elephant.

A major question is whether the FBI and the military should have passed along information about Major Hasan, no matter how innocent it may have seemed when viewed separately. This is more key than the widely trumpeted assertions, apparently based on one or two persons speculating to the press that there was reluctance at Walter Reed Army Hospital to boot out Hasan because of “political correctness.”

A great deal has been written and said about the shootings in which Major Hasan walked into a building at Fort Hood and killed 13 persons on his own Army base and wounded three dozen others. But the most recent statements that “take the cake” were reported on the blog earlier today in the posting More Jihadi Endorsements for Ft. Hood Shooter Maj. Malik Hasan By Evan Kohlmann. The item reported a statement on a Muslim fundamentalist website that congratulated Hasan for his “brave and heroic deed.”
The statement was carried by the Ansar al-Mujahideen online jihad forum, which has been endorsed by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Taliban) as one of their officially approved web venues.

It is not uncommon for radical Islamists websites and speakers to praise suicide bombers for carrying out “brave deeds.” What is heroic about walking into a crowded room, wearing a uniform to blend in, and using a semi- automatic and multiple clips to spray bullets at unsuspecting unarmed persons? What is heroic about setting off a bomb in a market place crowded with women and children? This is a perverse interpretation of heroism.

The statement by the Asnar al-Mujahideen web site echoed another common theme among Islamists, that: "It is not permissible for Muslims to aid the infidels in any way in war against the Muslims, whether physically, morally, financially, or strategically.” Similar arguments have been made against Muslims serving in the British Army.

Major Hasan, a psychiatrist, reportedly was concerned about going to Afghanistan and fighting other Muslims. Yet, it is not a doctor’s role to fight; it is to save people, and there are many cases in which US military doctors in Iraq, for example, treated Iraqi Muslims.

Muslims have been slaughtering and torturing each other by the tens of thousands in the centuries old dispute between Shia and Shiite Muslims over the rightful successor to Mohamed. The brutality was particularly marked in Iraq, where torture included the use of drills. Far more Muslims have been killed by each other than deliberately killed by Western forces.

Yet too many people, perhaps even Major Hasan by some accounts, have bought the theory that the West is out to “attack” Islam, The West, especially the United States, by and large may have been indifferent or ignored Islam but was not out to attack Muslims. Indeed, the U.S. has sought to protect Muslims, in Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, and in Pakistan and Indonesia after earthquakes and tidal waves and tried to free Muslims from the murderous regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban.

Many editorial writers and speakers in the Arab world claim that the West engages in “double standards.” But they do not recognize their own hypocrisy.

As Tom Friedman wrote in a New York Times column this weekend, Muslims claim that Fort Hood and terrorist violence is not Islam, but then “why is it that a million Muslims will pour into the streets to protest Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, but not one will take to the streets to protest Muslim suicide bombers who blow up other Muslims?”

In short, there are basic questions about motivations for terrorism that the Muslim world should also consider, as well as the issues that the U.S. investigators are examining, including to what extent the U.S., like Europe, may be facing the threat of “home grown” terrorists. Unfortunately dealing with often twisted religious and psychological attitudes is more difficult than looking into American government internal procedures. But the challenge needs to be faced, and not only in Washington, but also Baghdad, Islamabad, Riyadh and other capitals.