Islam and the Fort Hood Murders

Update (11-9-09) - Nidal Hasan was apparently a “Task Force Event Participant” at Obama’s transitional events concerning Homeland Security. The George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute released a report about their findings and recommendations during these events. On page 32, in Appendix C, “Nidal Hasan, Uniformed Services University School of Medicine” is listed as one of the participants. [End update]

On Thursday, we learned about more murders perpetrated by a Muslim on American soil. A lone gunman carried out a reprehensible attack on an army base in the name of his Islamic god. Granted, this was not your typical Islamic jihadist using his body as a medium for exploding a homemade bomb or taking over a commercial airliner and using it as a missile, but it certainly appeared to have the same intent – to kill as many “infidels” as possible.

The next morning, Mr. Barack Hussein Obama cautioned us not to “jump to conclusions” on this matter. I am going to take the opportunity to do exactly that. I think a conclusion that is based on what we have learned so far is adequate enough. Considering the released details of the attack and the information gathered about the murderer, this conclusion is not premature.

The shooter, Major Nadil Malik Hasan, is a psychiatrist in the United States Army. He is a devout Muslim. It has been reported that he did not want to be deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan and that he expressed this openly. It has also been reported that he did not want to go to either of those places as a soldier in the United States Army because he did not want to fight on the side of those killing other Muslims, since he is one himself. He has allegedly stated in the past that the War on Terror is actually a war against Islam.

Instead of being deployed, he decided to murder thirteen people and injure another 30. He took two handguns, drove into Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, and gunned down over 40 people. There are reports that some witnesses claimed he was shouting the Islamic Takbir (“God is great”) while on his rampage. It is also reported that he gave away some of his furniture, along with copies of the Koran, earlier on Thursday morning.

I suppose this is merely a desperate act committed by a war-torn soldier trying to reach out for help. At least that’s how some people in the media are trying to spin this, or will try to do so. The only problem is, Hasan apparently has never been to either Iraq or Afghanistan. He was also a psychiatrist, so he most likely would not have seen any actual combat. In light of these facts, we can pretty much rule out Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as the culprit in this case.

If associates of Hasan are saying that he was adamantly against our two wars due to his Muslim faith; if it is known that a former classmate has stated that Hasan considered himself “a Muslim first and an American second”; if it is known that he was handing out copies of the Koran the very same morning of the attack; and if witnesses at the scene of his attack are claiming that he was shouting, “Allahu akbar,” then I think it can be safely assumed that this was probably religiously motivated. If not actually motivated by his religious beliefs, then they were at least a prominent factor.

I’m not saying that Hasan is a terrorist, but he apparently fits the profile of one. We’ll see what further investigation turns up and whether or not he was associated with any radical organizations.

These murders ought to give us a good reason to reflect on how we are treating the problem of Islamic radicalism within our borders.

Should we allow devout Muslims to serve in the military while we are engaged in two wars where Islam is the predominant religion of the nations in which we fight? If members of our Armed Forces are so open in their opposition to our wars – and even consider them to be wars against the very religion that they practice – shouldn’t it be the duty of our military commanders to discharge these people from service?

Should we consider criminal profiling as “bad policy”? How many Muslim male extremists, mostly between the ages of 17 and 40, need to murder Westerners before we start keeping a closer eye on them? Why do we pretend that the problems we are facing are not with followers of the Islamic religion? We are constantly told, “We are not at war with Islam.” That message has even been hand-delivered to the Muslim world. Yet, for some reason, many people in that Muslim world believe that they are in fact at war with us because they are Muslims. 

Perhaps it’s time for us to actually acknowledge those sentiments – and finally do something about it. 

I have not seen Jews, Wiccans, or Buddhists murdering Westerners and declaring war on the United States. However, there is an overabundance of terrorist acts perpetrated by Muslims on all different cultures and faiths – including their own. And still, we claim that it’s wrong to engage in profiling in order to protect the innocent from these barbarians.

It’s time for the nations of the world, and particularly our own, to get treatment for our Irrational Disbelief Syndrome. Islam is at war with us. It may not be every Muslim in the world that wants to kill us, but it certainly is the Islamic religion that either foments or tolerates such hatred toward “infidels” around the globe. We don’t need to round up all the Muslims and intern them, but we at least need to recognize that it is their religious beliefs that have lead and are leading to the acts they commit. Whether or not those beliefs accurately portray the true ideals of Islam is irrelevant. Terrorism is being committed in the name of that religion by the followers of it.

How many more acts of terrorism will it take before we stop ignoring the real problem? How many more murdered Americans will we tolerate? Will we awake from our politically correct coma and deal with this problem, or will we simply allow ourselves to be butchered in our sleep?

Copyright © 2009 by RationalLiberty.com

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means without written permission by the author. 

_______________________________________________________________________________________