Fort Hood: Victim or Terrorist?

This man was a terrorist, period. He was a perpetrator who victimized everyone who wanted nothing to do with Islam or what it stands for. Sarah Palin said he should have been prpofiled, Brigette Gabrielle said the 9/11 terrorists should have been profiled. Noni Darwish spoke at "A Night To Honor Isael" in Sacramento and said political correctness will destroy us all. Muslims would not have been able to cause the bloodshed without help from somewhere. That help is always from leftists who want Israel and America drowning in blood becausethey are cut from the same cloth. I used to be a Democrat. They are now too transparent to trust them.

Hassan, as a member of the Armed Forces, swore to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States of America. Instead he has reportedly said that the Koran trumps the Constitution. As a member of the healing arts, he swore to "first, do no harm." He showed no compunction about doing a lot of harm in cowardly killing and wounding a large group of his comrades in arms. This was not a terrorist attack; it was one seriously twisted coward who did not want to be sent to Afghanistan; he wanted the Army to do his bidding instead of following orders. I'm certain that some of his fellow radical Islamics cheered his actions, but I know for a fact that many Muslims in Texas were shocked and saddened that that coward had done what he had done.

"I blessed the act because it was against a military target. And the soldiers who were killed were not normal soldiers, but those who were trained and prepared to go to Afghanistan and Iraq." -Imam Anwar al-Awlaki (one of Hasan's influences) Hasan's actions had EVERYTHING to do with his beliefs. Jihadist Islam isn't even a religion. It's a tyrannical psudo religio-political system. Anthony Flew said it best: "best described in a Marxian way as the uniting and justifying ideology of Arab imperialism." Jews are the ones pertuating lies against Muslims? Some people are so belligerent they will blame anyone but the real perpeTRAITOR. "Hasan was a victim of circumstace!" Sounds like moronic post-modern liberal reasoning to me! A spade is a spade. CALL IT WHAT IS ALREADY!!!!!

I agree with Judy in Atlanta. Not only is the doctor Hasan, who took the hypocritical oath a Murderer who deliberately Killed Americans, Committed Treason against the United States, The American People and committed treason against the very system that gave him so many opportunities, he is also a terrible reminder of the enemy "within." It is the enemy that still, is dormant, but could waken - the vitriolic, carcass of virulant and widespread anti-semitism. This man, has succeeded in polarizing individuals, and ideologues , would-be anti-semites who are biding their time, and far left radical leftists, who blame everything on Israel and the Jewish Pepole. Common Sense, and intellectual honesty are provided the opportunity of exit, amidst the rationalizing, and normalizing of anti-semitic views - all Jews are affected. This ego-centric, moral cretin, has not only committed murder, but has succeeded in giving strength to the assorted ideologues who loathe Jews, often-times covertly, and mostly veryopenly. I am Delighted, that Israel, continues on its way, and does not focus on the hatred ad jealousy being directed against it by the moral corruption of its perseverating enemies. It is also a Very proud moment to know, that our tradition Refuses the retaliatory answers that hate-filled, and intellectually dishonest individuals imbue themselves in self-righteous manners, often very publically. It is a sad spectacle, but Justice is always served, in my view, and the forces of violence, Barbarism, and subterfuge, are always adressed bluntly.

Terrorism is generally defined as (1) a violent attack (2) with political motiviation (3) on civilian targets. While the Ft. Hood shootings clearly meet (1) and (2), the attack was launched against those on an Army base, not civilians. I am not suggesting that this in any way exonerates the shootings. Indeed, every soldier takes an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. In short, this was an act of treason. But words are important; let's not call this man a terrorist when he was, in fact, a traitor. As for "Allahu akbar": Yes, jihadists use it. But, just as a Jew's last words should be the Shema, a Muslim believing death is imminent is supposed to recite these words. We've already seen Muslims (and others) hassled for praying at airports. What's next -- a Muslim having a heart attack being treated as a terrorist as he collapses? Let's not rush to pardon nor judgment, but keep some perspective.

At least there will be no debate as to where the good Major will be tried.

There are many lines of argument in this excellent article, but if I follow it through to one of its logical conclusions then let us be more blunt and ask: If you have a religion which has the means to subvert the mind of a psychiatrist in the US Army then you have a weapon far more powerful than a gun. Europe is already paying for its tolerance policy. America will hopefully wake up before it is too late. This is pretty harsh but you either claim that the man is a nut and has nothing to do with Islam , or he is a terrorist and you must take things to their logical end.

The reason why the Liberal and mainstream media are walking on eggshells around this matter can be summed up in two words: Jyllands-Posten. That is the name of the Danish newspaper which in Sept. 2005 published cartoons depicting Islam's prophet, Muhammed. If we didn't know then, we surely know now that this action is considered unforgivably sacreligous to followers of the Muslim faith. The Muslim world violently rose up in protest, setting fire to the Danish Embassies in Syria, Lebanon and Iran, storming European buildings, and desecrating the Danish, Dutch, Norwegian and German flags in Gaza City. The website called "Cartoon Body Count" totals 139 deaths, and 823 injuries that protests over the Danish newspaper cartoons spawned. Now ask Newsweek, Time, and MSNBC if they want to help create a monster protest over Nidal Hasan.

Only Fox News dared to Be non-PC and call a spade a Spade. The liberal press almost to a man jumped on the disgruntled victim wagon.

Yes, he was a horrible man but people are overlooking the fact that the army was partly responsible for this. The warning signs were there long ago but the army did nothing. They did transfer him from the more elite Walter Reed army hospital to a lesser one. He should have been dismissed. How did he get into a building with guns anyway? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Thank you for this excellent article perfectly articulated! most of all for keeping my son an infantryman United States Army in Texas, alive, safe, and well from evil sadistic murders like the one who shot and killed 13 innocent and wounded so many more. O G-d, let the familes of the victims feel your love -- comforting, healing, strengthening them beyond words. The same for all our beloved men and women in uniform.

I don't care what religion he claims, what the color of his skin may be, where he was born, how he was raised, what his influences may have been. He committed cold-blooded, pre-meditated murder against other human beings. Justice should be swift, and his punishment equal to his crime.

Dr. Hassan, is a very troubling phenomenon. The US "hates" muslims so much that they paid for his medical education, his psychiatric specilization, granted him access to "wounded" soldiers, and promoted him to Army Major. His response - lecture others on the need for "understanding" and broadening one's consiousness on the relevancy of Jihad for a Muslim, and establishing personal contact with a controversial radical Jihadist, in order to better Express his profound faith, which disabled him from being able to consider "killing a fellow Muslim." There is no dressing up this stink-bomb into a genteel, sophisticated, complex, gentleman's conduct. His was the Hypocritical Oath. This "complex" doctor, can not plead insanity, or plead for understanding of his torutred "soul". He can only plead TREASON, since, that is the act he has committed,

He is not the victim-he is the killer who shot the real victims. People saw him do it-he made that choice-we all make choices in life. You kill you pay the consequences. I have no pity on him what so ever. My sympathy lies with the families who will never see their loved ones again.

To even think that he had PTSD is to minimize the problem that so many of our male and female soldiers returning from combat areas have. This man was not going to be sent to a place of combat, would not have to carry a gun and, would not have been in harms way. The blood of all those killed and wounded is on the backs of those who ignored his prior actions and speech. How sad for us all but most of all for those who were involved in this senseless massacre.

No "sympathy". Nothing to excuse him. He is even worse than a "plain terrorist" since he is a M.D. and a psychiatrist. Let him go to the electric chair and to hell !!!

Rather than discounting whether Hasan is a Muslim or not, it should be discounted that Charles Krauthammer is a conservative. The truth is that Hasan is a murderer. He is a jihadist, and he found the ideal place to carry out his task as such. He chose to fire on unarmed American soldiers. His intention was to kill them. Period. His anti-American, anti-western, anti-woman sentiments and anger/hatred towards non-muslims is well known and documented. Period. Yes, there is no doubt he is an Islamic terrorist. How can anyone think otherwise? Instead of making excuses for Hasan, we would do well to learn to be prepared for more such attacks. I'm not suggesting we be frantically paranoid, only that we stay on guard and aware. The extremists are no doubt encouraged by this event, and the sympathy Hasan has received, even emboldened. Jews, especially, must be observant in many ways.

This article was very good, but it missed one more issue. This issue is the issue of the lack of equitable treatment of newspaper between religions. If a jew commits a crime it is always "Rabbi caught...". For some reason if a muslim commits a crime it is always "Man goes crazy...". One wonders what this truly says on how papers view Islam...

Seems the very few have their eyes open. But truth be known, the emperor has no clothes. Look around the world folks; it's them again. Pick any hot spot today and Islam is behind it. Does that wrankle you ? Then pick up an unabridged, full copy of the koran and see what the religion has to offer our so-called civilized world; you wont do it ,but it's all there... Being culturally or politically correct avoids the obvious- that Islam is bad news. There are many good Muslims out there - only 10% are the bad guys. Well, with a billion Moslems living in our world... that leaves 100 million as radicals who confirm 5 times a day to put away the saturday people and then the sunday people. That's you and me dear reader.... The world is not awake or even willing to face this. Perhaps Sarkozy of France is setting the pattern for us all in recent news by export/deporting trouble makers.

Excellent article. One wonders what is going on in our government. One might be forgiven for wondering if the sensitivity of Islamists has been put before the safety of Americans.

To claim an extreme position stating that he was only a terrorist, and nothing else, is not any better than an extreme position claiming that it was all PTSD and not at all his religious/cultural background. Not everything is so black and white; there are almost always many shades of gray. Much more likely than your position is that he had something medically wrong with him, and this made him turn in an unacceptable way towards the jihadist ideas that he adopted. While his ultimate horrifying actions were intricately tied to the extremist views present in his religion, that does not mean that a medical reason was not what originally caused him to "seek" for something to "cure" himself. Acknowledging this does not remove his culpability, nor the fact that he of all people should have brought himself to find help in a medically accepted way; but to try to remove all possibility of mental illness seems much too extreme in the opposite direction.

It is some sort of Stockholm Syndrome, I think. A warped attitude... Only Divine Intervention can provide solution.... No more no less.

What you say about this man, if true, about how he spouted hate and was so off the charts, then I would say, why was he allowed to continue as a psychiatrist, when he was obviously deranged? I am shocked this happened. It was an unspeakable tragedy and might have been prevented given what you are saying.

This whole compassion fatigue thing is the deepest case of baloney I have heard. Terrorists have no compassion, or they would not attack unarmed people, nor hide behind their own children. You can't even call them warriors, as warriors have a code of conduct. Ever since PC became popular, you can't call a spade a spade, even though it is taking an increasingly larger one to shovel all the fermenting manure. The first time I heard this "compassion fatigue" theory espoused, I exhaled my coffee via my sinuses. During the Vietnam War, I lost my best friend and childhood playmate over there. After it ended, I was a bartender, in a place that was frequented by a lot of veterans. I can assure you that bartenders hear things disclosed that probably not even psychiatrists hear. I shared hugs, wiped tears, and called taxis for those who had enough to drink to let down the floodgates of some horrible memories that they would never disclose in total sobriety. My heart ached for all of them, but at no time then did I take up a gun and go on a mass shooting expedition, and frankly, it never even crossed my mind. "Compassion fatigue" is just another term for a chicken-livered excuse for someone who has no guts to engage in a real confrontation, but opts to choose their targets from those who are in no position to safely defend themselves.

Charles says it so spot-on that one has to wonder why people just don't get it!

Hassan is a coward of the first degree. The army is moronic in the same degree. Hassan didn't want to go to Afghanistan because "Muslims don't kill other Muslims." Apparently he has kept himself away from the news of car bombs that were set by Muslims to kill other Muslims. The coward simply didn't want to go to Afghanistan and said so many, many time. The Army knew about him and should have pulled him and given him a dishonorable discharge, but that would have been denying him he equal rights. There is only one punishment for him: Death by lethal injection. And soon. No months spend on trying to figure out his frame of mind, kill him as quickly as possible. I am usually opposed to capital punishment based on eye witness, but in this particular case there were several reliable eye witnesses. I live in Texas, a veritable death camp if you're on the wrong side of the law. The Army has not killed one of their own since 1961 when a private was hanged. If his is not put ot death by January then justice will not have been served.

I think that this article says it all. Wake up, already! !

Fear of Islam will project it above the knowledge of the truth. This fear is the true sickness of the world. Awesome article! It is another wake up call to a politically correct society who thinks that if you ignore a problem, it will just go away.

It is only natural that the stresses of endless war creates crazies like Nadal Hasan or Timothy McVeigh. Imagine if there was a Jewish doctor who was treating American soldiers who had been fighting and killing Jewish men women and children in a never ednind war all over the world. What would he do? Support the troops!!! End the Wars!!!

There may be thousands just like him in place. In Industry Education, Small business, Military, Hospitals, next door neighbors. We all know about agents in place from the film 'The Bourne Identity', from the film 'No Way Out' starring Kevin Costner, we know about agents in place from books by Helen MacInnes 'Agent in Place". Why is this man a surprise to anyone? He was well documented.

It does not make a difference whether He is a Muslim are not... He was in the American Army & killed innocent people in the arm forces & should be executed for this crime... It isn't doing anyone any good by saying what He is!!! There are good Muslims in this Country and through out the world... It is the Radical People of all the parties & the world that are they cause of all the problems in this Country & the rest of the world... As far as I'm concern... Those that use Religion to get their beliefs in politics completely wrong... You see it with the Muslims & Catholics both... Which is bad for the rest of us that want things better not only in this Country but all Countries of the World...

I stood behind an Arab man on line in Target and watched as he purchased 20 prepaid cell phones. Could I be racially profiling?

Thank G-d for people like our Charles Krathammer. Who have the intelligence, the moral courage not to follow the sheepish Media crowd..Anyone who still has not understood the vision of the fascist Jihadist -to conquer the Judeo /Christian world, is in for a big awakening.!! I only hope they're not in the room next time someone shouts"Allah Akbaar!"

I'm usually pretty inarticulate about my thoughts & beliefs, so it is with joy that I read your commentary on this incident. Thank you for MAKING SENSE!.

Charley is a brilliant man who could have much to say. However, given his recent rock-ridden conservatism he has little credibility any other than the extreme right wingers. AISH would be wise to keep political idealogues of either stripe out of your articles.

It was worse, within seconds our FBI said that it was Not a Terrorist Act!! Next our President goes on National TV and ask's the American not to jump to any conclusions! It took my 9 year old daugther about 5 min. to draw her conclusion, Terrorist!

Thank you for telling it like it is. If only the world would listen! Wake up, people!!!!