As almost everyone now knows, Major Hasan killed twelve other soldiers and one civilian at Fort Hood, Texas. While he was shot by a police officer, he is currently in stable condition. Naturally, people are trying to figure out why this happened.
Not surprisingly, one possible explanation is that the attack was an act of terror. This, however, seems somewhat unlikely.
First, workplace violence, though not common, does occur. These cases are generally not acts of terror (in the technical sense) and hence this might also be true of this incident.
Second, it would be rather odd for a terrorist organization to “waste” such an inside agent on such an act. After all, if a terrorist group had a Major as an agent, it would be rather odd for them to tell him to shoot a few soldiers. Such an agent would be a vastly more valuable intelligence asset. Of course, it is not impossible that an agent would be used in this manner. Also, an agent might decide to act on his own.
Third, there seem to be adequate evidence that Hasan acted on his own and was motivated by personal reasons, rather than acting on behalf of a terrorist organization. After all, other soldiers have done similar things without being terrorists. Also, Fort Hood apparently has the highest number of suicides and it has been speculated that Hasan was attempting to commit suicide by cop. Of course, not all the evidence is yet available and things might change as new evidence is found.
However, there are some reasons to suspect that it might be a terror attack. First, Hasan is a Muslim. While officials are taking pains to say that this is not a reason that they are considering this possibility, obviously it is a factor that is being taken into account. Second, the incident took place on a military base.
While the event was horrible because people were murdered, the incident will also create additional damage. First, since Hasan is a Muslim, this incident will no doubt add to concerns about Muslims-especially those in the military. Second, this clearly adds to worries about the problems within the military in regards to soldier on soldier violence and the suicides that have been occurring in increasing numbers. Third, since Hasan was not just a soldier, but a psychiatrist and officer, this raises worries about the problems that the military is facing in regards to psychological issues.
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I’d like to address a few issues here.
Let me say, that I’m not an unabashed appologist for all things military. There are some things that go on in the service that I find distasteful. Most of these things are cultural–the Army has its own culture and it takes some getting used to. The bad stuff seems to com from the fact that the military is a gigantic beurocracy the likes of which I’ve never encountered. The mount of paperwork, hoops and red tape to get some of the most mundane actions accomplished can cause tons of stress. I do not think that th Army will solve its suicide issues until it admits its part of the problem. So far, they want to blame the war and the soldiers; they keep telling the soldiers how to handle stress instead of addressing the issues that cause the stress in the firs place (other than war). I realy believe that garrison life may be more stressful than being deployed and I’ve heard this from people who have been there. When a soldierget deployed, the Army magically forgets about all of the stupid stuff and just goes to work. And things don’t fall aprt like so many bored Sergeant Majors in garrison seem to think it will.
Secondly: All it takes is one disaster to prove to many that there’s a pattern, even when there is no pattern. Some may remember the New York Times’ gaff, in which they published a very long article about soldiers returning from war and killing people. The artile indicated that soldiers became crazy killers and had an increased chance of going on rampages. The article was fodder for MSNBC and the like. There was only one problem: Statistically, soldiers comitted far fewer violent crimes than the average populace in the same age group.
As far as the Major’s intelligence value– I would say it was next to nil. And terrorism’s purpose is to do exactly what this incident hs done: Make us question ourselves. For one thing, it is unlikely an Army psychiatrist had a clearance level that would allow him access to any information that would be ofmuch use to al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups. The clearnce system is set up (Basically) like this: There’s no clearance, SECRET clearance, and TOP SECRET clearance. Under TOP SECRET you have what are call, caveats–SI, TK, G, HCS, and a few others. SI: Signals Intel, TK: TALENT KEYHOLE–sattelite intel, G: GAMMA, highly sensitive info whose release could endanger lives and HCS: Human Intel. All of these are based on need to know.
Furthermore, if al-Qaeda did manage to gain sensitive info, they lack the technical proficiency to exploit it. A country like Russia or China would find it highly useful to gain access to America’s signal frequecies, but fundementalist organizations could do little with them. The only thing that would be of use would be the names of informants and undercvr Amercan operatives. The Major would not have access to those unless he illegally accessed them. Point being: He still could have been a terror recruit.
Really it is a moot point as to if he was recruited. He was on a terror mission and he accomplished his mission.
I think it would be naive to say that the Major’s religion hdnthing to do with his crime. It’s like saying tht the religion of the 9/11 perpetrators had nothing to do with their crime.
From what I can see of thiis: The crime was committed by a person who had ideological/religious difficulties with the wars.
Other than that, he seemed to be doing pretty well by the Army–he was making six figures and was a Major.
sorry for the typos. my connection here actually cause my keyboard to ignore some key strokes and combined with numb fingers make for mistakes. plus i hate editing.
Supposedly he was saying ‘God is great’ in Arabic as he was shooting people and some of his writings before the incident are interesting too.
What would people think if a man was saying Praise the Lord as he or she was shooting people?
Looks to me like a textbook case of “sudden jihad syndrome.”
Just as a thought experiment, imagine what the left would say if he had shouted “Rush Limbaugh” instead of “Allahu Akbar.” 🙂
…They would need to say he is great because the open interpretation.
He was a jihadist and I think had considered doing this for quite some time.
arrangt & direction artistique