On Thursday November 5th, a man opened fire at a military base Fort Hood in Texas. The gunman killed 13 and left 30 wounded. The shootings were devised by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a mental health professional that worked at the base. Sources say that he was awaiting his deployment to Afganistan. This could be the trigger for his insanity—the fact that he was about to be sent to a very violent place. I remember watching the news while this story broke. I was very upset to hear that yet another mass shooting had occurred in the United States. What was his motive? Why did this happen? The American public has yet to find accurate answers to these questions. However, there is plenty of speculation to go around…
I was watching the local news and was surprised when I realized the reporter was reporting from an Islamic Center in Los Angeles. Why was she doing that? Then I heard the gunman’s name, Hasan. So they are turning this into a militant Islamic attack? Well he is a Muslim so he must be associated with terrorist organizations from Afghanistan. Then you get reports like this one that say that it is “possible” that Hasan had relationships with two of the 9/11 hijackers. Could these people have influenced him to side with radical Islamists whose aim is to destroy the United States? Well, maybe, but more investigation needs to happen into the dynamics of these relationships. I do not think that because “all were in the area at the same time” means that they were friends.
View more about his possible motive: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5581022n&tag=api
One report states: “Questions still remain unanswered whether this was an act of terrorism or just a soldier’s stress mismanagement.” This sentence indirectly defines terrorism as an apparatus coming from the Middle East. The reporter is stating that a question still remains if Hasan had direct ties to al-Qaeda, because, if not, well it’s not classified as terrorism. I tend to think that a mass killing of 13 people can be easily defined as terrorism.
People just do not want to accept the fact that this could be a case of American home grown terrorism. What if he had no contact with terrorist abroad and that his anger and violent behavior were cultivated on our own soil? Well, maybe that is a little too simplified. You cannot deny the fact that he practices Islam and that could have very well defined the reasons he perpetuated this horrific act of violence. But is it responsible to immediately report that there are possible connections with the terrorist organization al-Qaeda?
Many of the reports I read attempted to connect him to al-Qaeda because his name was Hasan and because he practiced Islam. They want to create a good versus evil scenario where al-Qaeda inspired terrorism is the evil and U.S. soldiers are the good. I think in this case, it is more accurately classified as an army psychiatrist who did not want to be deployed as the bad and, well, there really is no good.
The best part of this entire story? He survived his own suicide mission. Hasan was actually able to recover from the four gun shot wounds that took him down during his rampage. This means that we will be able to find the answers that we are looking for—assuming he is not assassinated or commits suicide first. We can only hope that his motives will be revealed because I know I am not the only one that is curious. And all this speculation is killing me.
UPDATE: The radical imam Anwar Alawlaki, who was the imam at the mosque Hasan attended in Virginia, just posted an interesting commentary on his website entitled “Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing.” The comments under the article are rather eerie. Let the anti-Muslim movement commence once again…
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Its not surprising that the gunman's middle eastern descent and Islamic heritage brought about questions of his association with al-Qaeda. In reality this seems more like a ploy by the media to increase the intrigue of the story. Though these shootings are both shocking and horrific in themselves, adding a conspiracy twist takes it to a whole different level.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely agree- it does seem quite questionable whether the shootings were connected with Al-Qaeda. What's interesting is the way radical imams like Alawlaki only fuels further suspicion about the validity of this claim. I wonder how strong the voices are of moderate and more progressive imams?
ReplyDeletetheurbanbriefcase.wordpress.com
All this specualtion seems to be fueled by ignorance. The way this story is being presented on TV news is very upsetting. Time after time the White House, FBI and U.S. Military asked the media not to speculate and despite their pleas that's exactly what they did. But what is even more upsetting is that there were signs that there was something a little bit off about him and yet a red flag was never risen. There's a presentation he did which to me seemed like a huge red flag especially because it was supposed to be about medicine. You can find it on the Washington Post. By the way the link to Alawlaki's blog works but all his posts have been erased. Let the speculation begin again.
ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting how you bring up the fact that this is terrorism whether or not he's involved with al-Qaeda. It's easy to forget that terrorism has a broad definition, but we've totally confined it to being from people of middle eastern descent. Maybe a little bit racist?
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