Perhaps we will never know, but what that only helps bolster the argument put forth by the majority of Muslims themselves that these guys (the hijackers, Hasan and others) have a very corrupted and extreme interpretation of Islam. From what I understand, drinking alcohol is a pretty damn big deal as it is strictly prohibited and makes the body unclean in front of God.
Just curious here: do you expand that general view to include wars or only in the case of non-sanctioned murder committed by a civilian or a guerrilla fighter?
Islam has 3 forbidden things in which you are not a muslim if you commit. Drinking Eating Pork can't remember the last one. From what I've heard, no muslims drink at all. It is severely forbidden.
something about "a man who stands for nothing, will far for anything" etc etc.. people like to believe that simply doing their "best" here and there while alive and well is enough proof of conviction to demonstrate their "true" quality of person, that when everything gets to the critical point.. they'll happily degrade themselves to their most primitive self, free of conscience..
Do these people use religion as a excuse for their mentally incapacitated souls? I think so. I REALLY do not like getting into religious debates but that's how I feel.
a coworker of mine from Egypt and a devout Muslim, could drink anyone on this board under the table. probably even fatty
Somewhere else I saw a mention of Sirhan Sirhan, a Christian. I would think this guy has more in common with him than than some of the more "traditional" types of religious extremists. There is a point in some people's mind where religion, politics, and nationalism all come together. It certainly happens in the USA, where you see these things mixed up. It happens by design in some parts of the world, like Iran or lately in Israel. People who would have been "committed" Communist insurgents 20 years ago, are now all doing it because of their "great religious beliefs". It seems that the labels, iconography, and rhetoric aren't as important as we might assume they are.
There are plenty of Protestants who commit adultery, plenty of Hindu's who eat meat, plenty of Jews that aren't Kosher, plenty of everyone who break religious sacraments even amongst the deeply religious. Are people that naive? What amazing me isn't that this guy hung out at a strip club or had a few sips of beer....what amazes me is that a guy who justified suicide bombings was allowed to enter the army as a psychiatrist!!???? His classmates, teachers, and even the Army were aware of his stances and disturbing ideas - yet they had no issue putting him into that position without any sort of check-in or dialogue? No one asked this guy how he felt? What was going through his mind? Who is evaluating the psychiatrists? here is a guy who didn't like his co-workers from what I am reading here - didn't hang out with them like most people do in the Army or in life. How does the CIA not pay attention to an Army major that tried to reach out to Al Qaeda and not take any action - not even wire-tap the guy? No warrant, no surveillance, no action? Both the Army and CIA gambled with people's lives and lost. This guy was a messed up person. It's not about Islam so much as what was going on in his head. But what we do need consider is whether or not there was some sort of discrimination or hostility that added fuel to the fire. That doesn't justify what he did, but need to understand whatever contributing factors so we can have a better Army, and a better community across this country.
there are freakazoids already calling for a "cleansing" of the military Conservative Christian Group Calls For Ban On Muslims In Military
This story is believable. My $0.02: 1) Fundamentalists of any religion are surprisingly hypocrites. Bash gays. Turn out to be gay themselves. Bash pre-marital sex. Kids get knocked up out of wedlock. Preach family values. Commit adultery. Bash the infidels. Go to strip clubs and get drunk. There are plenty of examples. 2) The guy went to a BYOB club. BYOB clubs are like using training wheels. 3) "He didn't want to take anyone home and was respectful" It's called the nice guy routine. If he didn't go nuts, I'd say this guy would have closed the deal.
Obviously there are Muslims that drink, but that does not mean it is condoned or allowed in their faith. I have Muslim friends that drink and bang every chick they see, but when I ask them they tell me they are not really observant Muslims, no one has yet denied that alcohol is strictly prohibited in their faith. There are non-observant followers of just about every single religion out there. But based on what I know, drinking is very much a deal breaker from a theological perspective, and the different sects all agree on this (any Muslim poster care to confirm or deny this?) Given a choice, of course, I would take a very liberal (religious adherent, Muslim Jew or Christian) over a fundamentalist one any day.
The funny part about that is I am absolutely positive that we (America, not Whites or Blacks or Latinos or Jews or Muslims, but all of us) cannot achieve our desired goals overseas without tripling or quadrupling the number of Muslims serving in the military and intel community, so these guys are undermining the war on terror to feed their own xenophobia. It would be a damn shame if the already very small minority of Muslims serving our country in various ways are alienated and pushed out of service through intimidation or other 'terroristic' means. I just hope fair-minded Americans (the moderate majority) would help counter these fringe elements and not let an unpopular minority fend for itself when America needs them the most. You know these guys are coming out of the woodshed, talk radio is partying like it's the 1950s in the south all over again.
I was gearing up to respond and say "good post," up until I read the part in bold. Hasan's radical Islamic beliefs were part of what was going on in his head. Surely we are not going to try to excuse away the hateful, murderous ideologies that Hasan openly embraced as his own. Whether this guy was a "terrorist" or not is a matter for debate. That determination comes down to exactly what a terrorist is, as we discussed earlier in this thread. But it makes no sense to suggest that Hasan was completely unaffected by a set of beliefs, which he adopted as his own, that encouraged exactly the sort of horrendous conduct that he ultimately committed here. And with regards to the underlined portion of your post, it appears that you are suggesting that Hasan, the mass murderer, is somehow a victim in all of this. What? You cannot be serious. He is a mass murderer. He certainly appears to have snapped and lost control of himself. But that excuses nothing. He did not do this against his own will. He chose to do it. It does not matter if he was discriminated against in the army. People are treated harshly in the army all of the time. That does not cause them to start indiscriminately killing their comrades in arms. Hasan is fully responsible for his actions here. Please reassure me that I have misunderstood you on this point. Surely you did not just play the victim card on behalf of Major Nadil Malik Hasan with regards to this unspeakable act.
The problem is if you let someone out for something like that then the word is going to get around and other people who really don't want to be there are going to try the same crap. The army spends a lot of money training etc. and to give them a way out would be a disastrous precedent.
I think it can be both. Certainly he is a mass murderer and deserves to be justly punished. That doesn't also mean he wasn't discriminated against, and that might have played a factor in his decision(I agree he made the choice) to commit the mass murder. If we know that people who are mentally fragile might snap given the right stimuli, and make the choice to commit mass murder, it would be better if we worked on eliminating that discrimination while also identifying potentially dangerous disturbed people. If a lack of discrimination would make a disturbed person think twice about committing mass murder, why not work on fixing that problem? It doesn't excuse anything the murderer did, but it also doesn't mean we shouldn't examine factors that might have help stave off this tragedy.
I wrote that it doesn't justify what he did. Meaning there is no excuse and he should be prosecuted under the fullest extent of the law. He certainly is not a victim. That being said, the goal of our Armed services is to prevent these kinds of things from repeating themselves. What was the causes? Understanding the true cause for something isn't about hiding behind something. I refuse to just say "it's all about Islam and his beliefs". Frankly, you don't know that. I don't either. Any assessment there is jumping to a conclusion. And I am not going to do that. I want to know what drove this guy to do this. Was he just insane? was he indoctrinated into some sort of terrorist cell? Was this an act of desperation of an unstable man? There are many many possibilities. The Army needs to know what were the factors. To what extend did his beliefs play a role? To what extent was it his instability? Was he waging a moral war in his head that lead to something? Who the heck knows. None of that make him a victim, what you want to do is to make sure this doesn't happen again....with anyone. Muslim, Christian, it doesn't matter. People lost their lives, and there is no such thing as justice for those people - their lives are gone. Put this guy to death - fine...but that's only a small piece of it. The only way you truly honor those who lose their lives this way is to take the steps the prevent this kind of tradegy from happening again. If you disagree with me - fine. But I don't think I am turning the a-hole into a victim.
Good post. I largely agree with everything you said. If there is any substantial pattern and practice of a culture of hostility towards Muslims who serve in the military, that should certainly be addressed. At the same time, Major Hasan appears to have been protected by a certain culture of political correctness in the military that discouraged the Army from addressing his open embrace of radical Islamic teachings, including the duty to practice jihad on the "infidels". That is flatly incomprehensible. And it also contradicts to some degree the case that some people may try to make about his being discriminated against by the army. Based on what we seem to know about the army's actions in this series of events, if Hasan had not been improperly discriminated in favor of, he would have been discharged from the army some time ago. In which case all of this might have been avoided. So the army will share in the blame for this, but probably not so much for discriminating against him. The army will probably see heads roll for accommodating a culture of political correctness that effectively encouraged a discrimination in Hasan's favor. This culture of political correctness will shoulder a significant share of the blame for the deaths of these men and women killed by Hasan.
