As I wrote yesterday, it's important to be cautious when
commenting about the massacre at Ft. Hood, because early media
reports often turn out to be wrong. With that said, we now have
several details that portray shooting suspect Nidal Malik Hasan
as a devout Muslim who was adamantly opposed to the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan and was conflicted about being in a position
where he would have to fight fellow Muslims.
Fox News
reports:
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."
Yesterday, the Associated Press
reported that the authorities had monitored web postings that
may have been written by Hasan, in which the author portrays
suicide bombers in a heroic light. The AP also reported that
soldiers who witnessed the shooting say Hasan
shouted "Allahu Akbar" before opening fire.
Last night, CNN showed surveillance footage taken
yesterday morning of Hasan at a convenience store near the base
dressed in traditional Muslim garb. According to a CNN producer
who spoke with the store owner, Hasan was a regular, and about a
week ago, told the owner that he was stressed about his imminent
deployment to Iraq. "[Hasan] expressed that he had a problem, I
guess one would judge it as a religious conflict, but as a fellow
Muslim, and someone of faith, he had a problem with having
perhaps the opportunity in the future to have to shoot or kill or
injure or fight fellow Muslims," the CNN producer recounted. "And
that was something that was weighing heavily on him."
I agree with the sentiment that this incident shouldn't be used
as a blanket indictment of all Muslims serving in the military.
But there should be some sort of middle ground between putting
every Muslim in the U.S. armed forces under suspicion, and
letting political correctness put the lives of our soldiers in
danger. If further evidence confirms the emerging narrative, this
is an instance in which it seems that there were a lot of warning
signs and red flags. And to be clear, when I refer to "political
correctness" I'm not blaming yesterday's tragedy on political
correctness, because that would be irresponsible based on what we
know now. What I mean is that going forward, it would be
troubling if political correctness prohibited us from discussing
ways to prevent an officer with Hasan's views from being in a
position to kill U.S. soldiers on a military post. This is not an
matter of Muslims in the military, it's about how to make sure
that we don't have people in our military whose loyalty to our
enemies puts our own men and women in danger.
