Labeling Nidal Hasan a "Jihadist" Sidesteps Calling Him an American

Emily and Marjorie, don't you think we ask ourselves different questions about Major Nidal Hasan because he wasn't just a Muslim or jihadist, he was also a U.S. citizen and a member of the armed forces? It's easy to reduce the 9/11 terrorists to pure villains. Because Hasan was truly one of us—born here of an immigrant family, like 20 percent of the population—this feels different.

Both Dorothy Rabinowitz and David Brooks fault the media coverage of the Fort Hood shooting as a willful avoidance of the obvious. Emily agreed with Rabinowitz, saying that we as a nation find it "more comfortable to look away from his religious beliefs for an alternate theory." Brooks claimed that looking beyond Islamic extremism to the other factors affecting Hasan "sought to reduce a heinous act to social maladjustment."

I'd argue that we're looking beyond his religious beliefs because that's what we as a society do. When we look at other religiously motivated domestic terrorists, like Eric Randolph (who bombed both the Olympic Park and an abortion clinic), we don't accept religion alone as a motivation. It's just not enough to explain how an American would look other Americans in the face and then end their lives.

Marjorie, you're right that a "rush to judgment, and willingness to accept bits and pieces of information as a whole picture of a fractured man we have yet to fully know," would be wrong. But I don't think that's what's happening. I think we're all engaged, publicly and privately, in trying to understand not just why something like this happens, but how to keep it from happening again—and wrestling with the fact that, inevitably, it will. When we question the ways that Hasan's former colleagues were bothered by his behavior, we're trying to understand how his behavior was different without using 20-20 hindsight to attack everyone who ever knew him. When we look at his life outside the base and the mosque, we're doing our best to wrap our minds around the incomprehensible.

If we write Hasan off as nothing but a religious zealot, we're missing the bigger picture. This shooter wasn't some mysterious other or foreign power. He was, like Timothy McVeigh, like Seung-hui Cho, like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, a citizen of the United States—and he chose a particularly American methodology for his terror. People in other countries (other than those at war) just aren't as inclined to shoot up their schools and workplaces. When we put aside the idea of Hasan as part of a jihad, we're not avoiding reality—we're looking it squarely in the face. We have met the enemy, and far too often, he is us.

Photograph of the skyline with Twin Towers on homepage by Photodisc/Getty Images.

Tags: ft hood, maj. nidal malik hassan, Terrorism

KJ Dell'Antonia Former Manhattan lawyer and prosecutor, Xxtra Small reviewer, parent of four. Lover of books and bacon.

Comments

Labelling Hassan

By: FATBOY46 | Mon, 11/16/2009 - 14:56

? Sounds like more 'apologist'-speak to me. "other countries are less likely to bomb schools ...." surely you arent talking about Iraq, Iran, Syria, Palestine..or where ever the Jihadists are bombing this week, are you? To lay this upon American society as though we(Americans) are at fault, could lead idiots to think that because we have freedoms, like gun ownership, that we are inherently a viloent society.
Nah, just more feel-good-about-myself-because-I-blame-America crap. Hassan shot those people because that is what he wanted to do based on what he is taught as a Muslim. OOOKAY, so that is not a PC state,ment.. it is a TRUE statement. As long as we continue to acquiesce to every religios belief, especially Islam, we will lose ground just like the UK, France, Spain, etc. We will be a minority to Islam based on sheer numbers, then we will be another Islamist country and wondering how it happened. Islam is a religion of peace? hardly! Islam worships the same God as Jews and Christians? hardly! Islam is what it is- a manmade religion that prohibits the believers from reading anything negative about it, discussing Islam with non-believers-- umm...gee... sounds like a sect, doesn't it! Well, it is.
Hassan killed because that is what he believes in. the Koran (Quran).

"Why, exactly, is it

By: Hypatia | Wed, 11/11/2009 - 20:48

"Why, exactly, is it "breathtaking" to state that we should examine our culture when it comes to violence?"

Why? Because every single point of evidence we have shows that "our culture" didn't have a damn thing to do with this mass-murder, and everyone, whether or not they will admit to it, knows it.

Islamist "culture" did, though. If you'd like to skip the hard work of reading the Koran, the hadith, and the Sira yourself to find out why Major Hasan screamed "Allahu Akbar" before shooting his (unbeliever) comrades in the back, feel free to review the bullet list of Islamic beliefs presented by Major Hasan himself. It's available at

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2009/11/10/GA200911...

Takes almost no time at all to understand the good Major's pious motives; he did all the work to present them clearly and plainly to his listeners.

And yep, I'm going to stick to my point that anyone who sanctimoniously implies that somehow this Islamic jihadist murder is "America's" fault -- even before all the victims' bodies are in the ground -- is beyond all decency and has no shame. The implication that we should do yet more navel-gazing and self-criticism is no longer acceptable when yet another pious Muslim shoots up a base, tries to bomb an office building, murders his wife and/or daughter for "Westernization", slaughters women in a Jewish social services center, mows down students at a college with an SUV, or any number of the other jihadi attempts to force a Stone Age ideology of hatred for women and the "unbeliever" upon us. There are simply too many bodies now to ignore.

Even today a jihadist violently tore a crucifix from the neck of a customer at a Northern California mall, screaming "Allahu Akbar," "Allah is power," and "Islam is the greatest!"

http://www.danvilleweekly.com/news/show_story.php?id=2339

Inspired, perhaps, by the good Major?

No mosques are burning in the U.S., though churches and temples regularly burn in Muslim countries, often with Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists inside. We do not owe explanations any longer. We are owed them.

Breathtaking? Really?

By: nagatuki | Wed, 11/11/2009 - 16:03

"When we put aside the idea of Hasan as part of a jihad, we're not avoiding reality—we're looking it squarely in the face. We have met the enemy, and far too often, he is us." This absolutely breathtaking statement and its maker are, quite frankly, beyond contempt even as families mourn the brutal murders of Americans serving their country.
~~~~~~~~
Why, exactly, is it "breathtaking" to state that we should examine our culture when it comes to violence?

Answer? It isn't. This kind of language only dramatizes the situation "Oh, how dare you question the media in condemning this man before he's proven guilty for a religious-based attack"?

If you care so much about America you'll care that our judicial system is based on evidence and not guessing at someone's motives, and the author, far from being contemptible, is rightly pointing out that we don't do this sort of religion-bashing in a whole lot of cases in this country and yet easily and quickly connect dots when it comes to Islam, which is not how our country works.

And please, you have no sympathy for the mourners - soldiers who fight for religious freedom, BTW - if you use them to justify your own biases.

Oh, and FYI? Your derisive tone of "obediently pray" is not missed, but there are plenty of Muslim women who do pray, of their own volition, because they're obedient to their religion, not their husband, and it's no different than attending Church every Sunday (or Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, as some do), or Synagogue every Saturday, or any number of religious guidelines. Just because you think it's a burden doesn't mean they do, and he has every right to wish for a religious spouse as anyone.

Repellent excuses for murder in the face of all evidence

By: Hypatia | Wed, 11/11/2009 - 15:36

First of all, the actual evidence -- not that it matters in the least to the poster -- shows that even Major Hasan disagrees with her. He self-identified not as an American, but as a Palestinian, while seeking a properly head-wrapped Muslim wife who would obediently pray five times a day.

It's also a bit unusual to argue that it's not an religiously-motivated attack simply because Hasan, shouting "Allahu Akbar," used guns. Would it be more convincing to Ms. Dell'Antonia had he used a bomb belt and chosen a mall? Fired a rocket from the roof of an apartment building? Those are more the technique of the other thousands and thousands of Islamic jihadist murders, but is it really the weapon that matters? (Further, the horrific school shootings in Beslan, theatre mass murder in Moscow, and hundreds of gun murders against Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, animists, apostates, disobedient women, and even other Muslim men in places from Thailand to Iraq strongly argue against Ms. Dell'Antonia's point).

"When we put aside the idea of Hasan as part of a jihad, we're not avoiding reality—we're looking it squarely in the face. We have met the enemy, and far too often, he is us." This absolutely breathtaking statement and its maker are, quite frankly, beyond contempt even as families mourn the brutal murders of Americans serving their country.