The Major Who Ran Amok

Why would Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hassan shoot more than forty fellow soldiers at Fort Hood? Two explanations have surfaced in the media since the crime:
(a) He went "amok" (1) (aka "went postal") in response to orders to serve in Afghanistan.
(b) He committed an act of jihad (holy war).

Americans have become accustomed to incidents in which a man (usually described as a deranged loner) would suddenly shoot as many people as possible before being shot himself. The scene may be a college campus, a suburban high school, a church, a school, or even a commuter train. Except for calls for tougher gun control, these incidents have little political impact. In a few days, they tend to fade from public consciousness. If Major Hassan ever recovers from his wounds sufficiently to stand trial, he may say why he acted as he did. Meanwhile, theory (a) is most appealing to those who want to ignore the Islamic aspect of the case and those who seek to exonerate the Army from blame for failure to act on several signs that Hassan might become dangerous.

The case for theory (b) includes the following:
1. Before shooting, he shouted "Allahu Akhbar!" (Arabic for "Allah is the greatest!")
2. Although born in Virginia, both of Nidal Hassan's parents were Palestinians.
3. Hassan attended a mosque in 2001 led by Imam Anwar al-Aulaqi, who supported Al Qaeda. (2)
4. Hassan said that suicide bombers were like soldiers who threw themselves on grenades to save the lives of others.
5. He was reported to have made many statements to colleagues that they considered "anti-American propaganda" (3)

By many accounts, Nidal Hassan was increasingly unhappy about serving in the US Army for several years, and had sought a discharge, but was refused. Although both Presidents Bush and Obama have insisted that the United States was never at war with Islam, the only enemies our forces have faced on the battlefield in two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) and numerous terrorist attacks since 2000 have been Muslims. In a remarkably similar incident, a Muslim American Army sergeant threw grenades into a military tent in Kuwait in 2003, killing one officer and wounding 15 others. In 1996 Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa (Islamic "psak" or religious ruling) that declared all Americans enemies of Islam, whom all Muslims should attack. A significant portion of the world's Muslims accept his viewpoint, including many in Europe and even some in the United States. In this clash between America and radical Islam, some Muslim soldiers in the US military find themselves conflicted between their uniform and their religious affiliation.

Apparently, Nidal Hassan was among those emotionally and religiously drawn to jihadist cause. As long as he was stationed in the United States, he could paper-over the conflict between his military service and his beliefs, but the order to serve in Afghanistan made the tension between the two intolerable. If so, his choice to strike out against his fellow soldiers (with the reasonable expectation that he would be killed quickly) is not attributable to mental illness, any more than Japanese kamikaze pilots or Palestinian suicide/homicide bombers were all "deranged."

With 20/20 hindsight, it is easy to conclude that Nidal Hassan should have been discharged from the Army years ago. No military organization can function if every unhappy soldier can quit at any time, all of our armed forces have ways of discharging people who are useless, or worse. (4) One of these ways should have been found to get rid of Hassan. But how can the services guard against future "Hassans" without violating our laws against religious discrimination? Israel openly practices "ethnic profiling" in choosing who shall serve in the I D F (5), but the US is prohibited by the Constitution from following its example.

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(1) A Maylaysian term for sudden, deadly violence.

(2) Washington Post, November 8, 2009.

(3) Associated Press, November 8, 2009.

(4) Had Hassan been (or falsely claimed to be) homosexual, he would have been discharged long ago.

(5) Israeli Arabs are exempt from the draft, but Druze Arabs are accepted as volunteers. Some other Arabs have also been accepted to serve in non-combatant roles.