Opinion Forum

Pity the Poor Mujahid

November 13th, 2009

The proper Arabic term for someone like Major Nidal Hasan who fought to advance jihad by the terrorist murder of unarmed American soldiers is mujahid. So let’s all pity Hasan, the poor mujahid. That, at least, is the view of some leftists and much of the mainstream media.

Hasan displayed the courage typical of mujahideen, targeting unarmed people who had done him no harm. I wonder what would have happened had his victims been in the field and armed with loaded weapons? But then, being a typical terrorist mujahid, he wouldn’t have picked victims who could defend themselves. And what irony, that he was brought down by a female police officer. I wonder if his quota of virgins in paradise will be reduced because he was defeated by a woman?

Details keep coming out that prove something could have been done long ago about Hasan, but for the protection people like him enjoy from pervasive political correctness. Here’s one example from The Washington Post:

Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, the Army psychiatrist believed to have killed 13 people at Fort Hood, was supposed to discuss a medical topic during a presentation to senior Army doctors in June 2007. Instead, he lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting wars in Muslim countries.

You can read the slides from Hasan’s lecture here in The Washington Post.

Charles Krauthammer, himself a psychiatrist, wrote in a column published today:

What a surprise — that someone who shouts “Allahu Akbar” (the “God is great” jihadist battle cry) as he is shooting up a room of American soldiers might have Islamist motives. It certainly was a surprise to the mainstream media, which spent the weekend after the Fort Hood massacre playing down Nidal Hasan’s religious beliefs.

“I cringe that he’s a Muslim. … I think he’s probably just a nut case,” said Newsweek’s Evan Thomas. Some were more adamant. Time’s Joe Klein decried “odious attempts by Jewish extremists … to argue that the massacre perpetrated by Nidal Hasan was somehow a direct consequence of his Islamic beliefs.” While none could match Klein’s peculiar cherchez-le-juif motif, the popular story line was of an Army psychiatrist driven over the edge by terrible stories he had heard from soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

For those not up on French, cherchez le juif means “always the Jew.” That’s a particularly odious inclination on the part of some increasingly anti-Semitic leftists these days. A Muslim murders innocent people, and by some twisted logic Jews are responsible. There’s historical precedent for that particular pathology.

Krauthammer continued:

[I]f the shooter is named Nidal Hasan, who National Public Radio reported had been trying to proselytize doctors and patients, then something must be found. Presto! Secondary post-traumatic stress disorder, a handy invention to allow one to ignore the obvious.

And the perfect moral finesse. Medicalizing mass murder not only exonerates. It turns the murderer into a victim, indeed a sympathetic one. After all, secondary PTSD, for those who believe in it (you won’t find it in DSM-IV-TR, psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual), is known as “compassion fatigue.” The poor man — pushed over the edge by an excess of sensitivity. …

Consider the Army’s treatment of Hasan’s previous behavior. NPR’s Daniel Zwerdling interviewed a Hasan colleague at Walter Reed about a hair-raising grand rounds that Hasan had apparently given. Grand rounds are the most serious academic event at a teaching hospital — attending physicians, residents and students gather for a lecture on an instructive case history or therapeutic finding.

I’ve been to dozens of these. In fact, I gave one myself on post-traumatic retrograde amnesia — as you can see, these lectures are fairly technical. Not Hasan’s. His was an hour-long disquisition on what he called the Koranic view of military service, jihad and war. It included an allegedly authoritative elaboration of the punishments visited upon nonbelievers — consignment to hell, decapitation, having hot oil poured down your throat. This “really freaked a lot of doctors out,” reported NPR.

Nor was this the only incident. “The psychiatrist,” reported Zwerdling, “said that he was the kind of guy who the staff actually stood around in the hallway saying: Do you think he’s a terrorist, or is he just weird?”

Was anything done about this potential danger? Of course not. Who wants to be accused of Islamophobia and prejudice against a colleague’s religion?

No rational person thinks all Muslims are terrorists. But the pattern is so clear and has been seen so often, with sometimes horrific results, that we must overcome the political correctness that makes us vulnerable to would-be mujahideen. All the symptoms were painfully obvious in Hasan’s case, and they were ignored, with deadly results. That has to stop.

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Fort Hood, Hasan, Islam, jihad, mujahid, Muslim, terrorism
Categories: Media, Military, News, Politics | Comments (5) | Home

5 Responses to “Pity the Poor Mujahid”

larry | November 13th, 2009 at 9:37 am

Excellent
Straight forward and to the point.
Not a nut case waiting to explode but a terrorist waiting for an opportunity. The Major had to have planned (premeditation) this murder of the innocents to have maximum effect and exposure. Terrorist acts are planned and carried out to cause as much fear and damage as possible. They have to be public to be effective. This was no random act. The Muslim Major brought two semi-automatic pistols and several extra clips of ammo. His defenders can say what ever they want but the facts remain, this man came to kill as many as possible.

Harvey | November 13th, 2009 at 12:39 pm

Tom,

As Larry said: “Excellent! Straight forward and to the point.”

The last sentence in Krauthammer’s excerpt: “Who wants to be accused of Islamophobia and prejudice against a colleague’s religion?” is, no doubt, exactly why there was no early warning. I heard a discussion by a former JAG lawyer this morning explaining that the prohibitions against intolerance against any minority in the military are so strict now that an accusation or even a warning by an officer could ruin an officer’s career.

Islam has found another way to bring America to its knees!

Bo | November 14th, 2009 at 1:57 am

The imperial occupatons of Iraq and Afghanistan have taken well over a million Iraqi and Afghani lives. The brutality of subjecting an indigenous population takes its toll on the psyche of those who are sent to accomplish it. No amount of chauvinist mumbo jumbo, anti-Arab racism, anti-Islam hysteria, or ‘patriotic’ propaganda can erase this fact for those who participate in it. As a consequence of these horrific crimes against humanity and the crippling spiritual and psychological crisis they can bring about, many soldiers have ‘snapped’ and done some horrible things. Hassan is the latest. Americans ignoring the reality of this is likely to be very dangerous.

Brian Bagent | November 14th, 2009 at 2:34 am

Bo, at the end of the day, everyone is responsible for their own actions (unless they are actually insane). Hasan is no different. His actions indicate thoughtful consideration over a period of time. Thoughtful consideration is the opposite of insanity. Hasan may have been driven to despair, but that doesn’t obviate or mitigate responsibility for his reprehensible actions.

cube | November 18th, 2009 at 12:56 pm

I don’t care what we call this terrorist scumbag as long as we are honest in our labeling of him as a terrorist scumbag. I had never heard the term “mujahid”, but I’m glad you brought it to my attention. I live and learn.