So, I’m in Texas for the annual Collegiate Network Conference and I wrote this all out on the plane, but since some additional things have come into play, I’ve jumped all the hell into it and worked them in. Basically: How important is it that Nidal Malik Hasan is Muslim?
Mike and I got into it a little bit via GChat (as we are wont to do) on the topic of labeling Hasan a Muslim terrorist. The latter noun requires motive, but since it was and is still unclear, we both agree terrorist is a dangerous description at this point in the case.
The term taken on the whole, Muslim terrorist, also evokes and prompted speculation about Muslim extremist terror cells and al-Qaeda. This is also problematic.
But back to the word Muslim: How critical is it?
Well, it depends on the motive for the shooting. A hypothetical: If Hasan were Jewish or Christian, would the religion have been notable? Well, no, unless he were a radical Zionist or a fundamentalist Christian. Even these distinctions, however, still hinge on some related or external motive (Iran, abortion, whatever).
Hasan could be a Seung-Hui Cho — a seriously overlooked mental instability waiting to explode. His politics, while influenced by his faith, could have been the largest contributing factor. It is, clearly, possible to have an irrational, bitter hatred of U.S. policy in the Mid East in the last decade. It’s possible to imagine a scenario involving dogmatic political views, mental instability, perhaps a personal crisis, and an impending deployment to a war zone without religion touching the thought process.
Rick Moran, in a highly recommended post, described the entire process of figuring these motives out thusly:
News flash: Everyone can’t be right. In fact, it is likely everyone is wrong. Was it an example of Muslim extremist terrorism? Or a reaction to bullying and name calling by brother officers? Or the prospect of being deployed to Iraq? A combination? None of the above?
I am making the same argument I made when six police officers were gunned down in Pittsburgh – the result, we were told, of the maniac listening to conservative talk radio and reading conservative literature. Trying to glean motive when a madman acts insanely is an exercise in futility. This is especially true when you pull such theories out of your ass because no investigation had been made at that point into the shooter’s motives.
Identify Hasan first as a Muslim, potentially without a direct motive derived from his faith, and risk the rhetorical jump to Muslim terrorist — or worse “another Muslim terrorist.” Hasan grew up in Virginia, went to Virginia Tech, served in the U.S. Army; too many U.S.-born Muslims have to deal with discrimination and distrust for actions and beliefs they have nothing to do with. I’m willing to concede profiling, by virtue of reality, must sometimes play a role in security — but not in the way we report the news or history.
Now, important: If we find Hasan’s massacre was primarily the product of his addled interpretation of Islamic law, then yes, “Muslim shooter” is accurate, if limited. In fact, at that juncture, it’s maybe the spark we need to open a few rounds of debate on Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s idea* that American Islam needs to divest itself from the infallibility of Muhammed in the same way that Catholicism and mainline Protestantism has largely divested itself from Christian fundamentalism.
*I said debate. That divestment is exactly my anecdotal experience, growing up in an area with a far higher Muslim population than most anyone I know, though mine is limited by the economic disparity between American and European Muslims Ali discusses in that interview.
If it was insanity, it was insanity. If it was political, it was political. If it was religious, it was religious. If it was a mix, then so be it. We don’t know yet — which Ed Morrissey wisely pointed out this morning, and subsequently President Obama emphasized this afternoon.
But finally let’s knock out some of this equivocation: This is not post-traumatic stress (Hasan never deployed to a combat zone). This bastard killed 13 people, injured 31 and still survived four bullet wounds. He murdered 13 people. This is the case of someone who has forfeited their rights to quite a few things, likely including his life.
