Pure and simple, Nidal Hasan is a terrorist. At what point he decided to become one is secondary, but it's time to call it what it is and get on with ensuring we don't have a repeat performance if there are others out there with similar tendencies. Instead, we seem to be poking our collective heads into the sand hoping to find some reason he would commit such a heinous act rather than address the idea that it is a free-lance terrorist hit.
Liberalism has caused us to become too civilized. Instead of acknowledging that there is evil in this world, we are forced to look for other causes to justify the evil that men (and women) do as if there was some underlying mental illness.
Obviously, I'm not a trained psychologist or a psychiatrist. That said, I do understand that there is mental illness and it sometimes does cause people to do bad things - even kill people. Those people are the ones who truly don't understand the magnitude of their crime. We also have a tendency to think that everyone values human life like we do. Like it or not, our cultual understanding of the sanctity of life comes from our Judeo-Christian history and culture. Life is holy and precious to us. Not everyone in the world sees it that same way. As Hasan put it:
"We love death more then [sic] you love life!"
To us, that is crazy. To the Islamist, it makes sense. This life is nothing and if you can advance your god's reach by killing yourself while killing others, your reward will be that much greater.
Radical Islam is not about peaceful coexistence. It is not about allowing you to believe differently. Some morons (and that is what they are) try to equate conservative Christianity with the likes of the Taliban or other Islamic Radicals in order to somehow put all believers into the same jar. They point to the odd violent nutbot who kills an abortion provider and try to make Christians out to be some sort of western jihadist. It's doesn't work and almost the whole of Christianity condemns such actions unlike the whole of Islam. There are some who denounce the actions of the Jihadists, but most sit in in silence.
Hasan did not act out of some vicarious PTSD. To say that is an insult to those good soldiers that actually suffer from PTSD. Hasan acted with all due malice and forethought. I suspect that he expected to die in the process, but fortunately, that did not happen. It just came across the wire that he will face 13 counts of premeditated murder.
I'd like to see him charged with domestic terrorism as well. Certainly, if he is convicted on the 13 counts of murder, he will most likely receive the death penalty and the terrorism charge won't add to that. What it will do is officially label him as a terrorist. If nothing else, that will negate the PTSD crap.
VW








Next to a college campus, a military instillation is probably the biggest "gun free" zone in America. Except for military police, nobody on military instillation's is armed. Hasan knew he would have a killing field until MP's showed up.
Posted by: BobF | Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 17:01
He wouldn't have tried it, say in Kandahar or any other installation in Afghanistan. Every single soldier there has a weapon and at least one full magazine at all times. Hasan most likely knew that and chose to strike at the processing center at Fort Hood rather than waiting until after he arrived in Afghanistan where his terrorist attack would be less effective. He also knew that he would have been identified and singled out very quickly as an obvious imminent threat over there.
As you said, Bob, all military posts here in CONUS have very strict rules on bearing arms. Even a soldier who has a permit to carry a concealed deadly weapon issued by a state government can not legally do so on a military post. Deadly weapons are, contrary to what many uninformed and ununiformed people tend to sometimes think, more tightly regulated and controlled on military posts than in most, if not all, civilian communities.
Posted by: John Hampton | Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 17:59
Islam is the only "religion" that i know of that doesn't condone killing un-believers. their koran even tells them too. but ask a muslim today and they will say "oh no that was added later we're a peaceful religion" yada-yada-yada. YHWH says to beware the sword. and islam uses a sword as a symbol of the tyrant,violent,and hateful beliefs. and before som ppl yell at me i know that their main symbol is a cresent moon of their pagan god.
Posted by: Dale | Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 18:01
13 counts of premeditated murder, domestic terrorism, numerous counts of assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful possession of deadly weapons on government property, giving aid and comfort to the enemy, treason...
Posted by: John Hampton | Saturday, November 14, 2009 at 11:42