So a Muslim kills a bunch of people

It's only news because the Muslim was in the U.S. Army and the suicide* mission occurred in Texas. The mainstream media such as the New York Times doesn't mention anything about the guy being Muslim. God forbid that people think Muslims are not peaceful!

The mainstream right-wing blogosphere has the story covered well enough, so I don't need to write anything else.

*Technically not a suicide mission because the jihadist is still alive.

Comments

[Sheila Tone]

And he was a psychiatrist! He made it through medical school and had an actual career and everything! In real life, it's rare that people that competent do something like this. He must have been really batshit crazy. Does anyone know, was he a convert? Maybe he converted because he was already batshit crazy and needed somewhere to channel his craziness.

Even most Muslim terrorists aren't that accomplished and competent. They're young unhappy students or have other typical cult vulnerabilities. This dude is a serious outlier. Don't just fall into your reflexive Jew-dumping on Muslims, HS, try to give us some insight into this.

[HS: He wasn't a convert, he was Muslim his whole life, he lied on his army form when he stated he didn't have a religion.]

[Nathan]

An American born and raised, flips out and goes postal, killing a bunch of people? Wow. And and army guy at that! Those are usually some of the most level headed and balanced of all people. Well, I'm shocked.

[superdestroyer]

HS,

I will give you an alternate theory that the left (he was an oppressed by white racist Americans) or right (Al-Queda terrorist) will not have.

MAJ Hasan is/was a scammer/con artist who was frustrated that his con/scam did not work.

DR Hasan had his medical school, medical internship, psychiatry residency, and disaster mental health fellowship paid for by the government. All of the medical education occurred in DC with a large Muslim community and relative nearby. Now that the military had no more advantages/professional development/education to give DR Hasan, he wanted out. However, he started his scam before 9/11 and had not realized that times had changed and the military was not going to be so easy to scam.

The idea that Dr Hasan had been trying to get out of the military for several years makes no sense since he had applied and been accepted to a fellowship program in the last three years and fellowship training in the military requires a pay back in years of attending physician service. While in training, DR/MAJ Hasan had gotten to live for more than a decade in Silver Spring, Maryland and was probably living as close to a civilian life that anyone in the military can lead (7:00 to 4:00, maybe on call, no weekend, no nights, no deployments)

Given the one picture of MAJ Hasan that is floating around, it is obvious that he was out of shape and I suspect that MAJ Hasan was claiming physical ailments to keep from having to take is mandatory semi-annual physical fitness test (something that is very common among military physician no planning on a long military career.

In short, MAJ Nadal was an unmarried 39 professional on the border of profressional and personal failure who just wanted the military to pay for his medical education but was facing being sent into a war zone where being an incompetent would have really been obvious. MAJ Nadal used militant Islam as a cover for his own professional and personal failures. MAJ Nadal is just an odd type of going postal at work.

It is just a theory but fits the facts better than what most others are saying.

[DaveinHackensack]

One part of the story that resonates with me is that these soldiers were all unarmed and defenseless when they got attacked on an Army base. I guess that's still the way the Army rolls on the home front. Back during the run-up to the first Gulf War -- some of you may not remember this -- there were concerns about terrorist reprisals here in the U.S. I was in the Army Reserve back then, and they started stationing some of us at the Reserve Center's front entrance without giving us any weapons.

We had weapons in an arms room in the basement, but that room was locked like Fort Knox and maybe one or two officers had the keys to it. There might not have even been ammunition down there, I don't remember. We only fired those weapons on Army bases (Ft. Dix or Ft. Indiantown Gap), and we might have gotten the ammo there. We had some tool from the Army's Criminal Investigation Division drop by and give us a speech about the terrorist threat and the importance of being vigilant, but the weapons stayed in the basement.

Someone like Nadal would have still gotten smoked if he tried to shoot up my unit though: about half the guys in it were cops, and most of them packing their service pieces. Too bad the only guy packing at Fort Hood was Dr. Jihad.

"Even most Muslim terrorists aren't that accomplished and competent."

I don't know about competency, but accomplished Muslim terrorists aren't too rare. Wasn't at least one of the 9/11 terrorists an engineer? And there were also those physician/terrorists in the UK.

[J]

"he started his scam before 9/11"

Has anybody seen an actual timeline of his military service? I have difficulty believing a guy who was an MD in the Army 8 years ago, even with bad OERs (or whatever they're called now) is still only a Major (and some accounts say that was a recent promotion).

"In real life, it's rare that people that competent do something like this"

Actually, I've read several reports of suicide bombers in Israel who were very highly educated. Terrorist leaders certainly tend to be well educated and come from a wealthy or upper middle class background, so I don't know that this guy is that far off the profile (yes, I'm aware this wasn't technically a terrorist attack). Also, don't confuse "highly educated" with "competent"; several reports state that he got poor reviews for his work in DC.

[DaveinHackensack]

"yes, I'm aware this wasn't technically a terrorist attack"

Why do you think it wasn't one?

[Kirk]

He must find it embarrassing, to be taken down by a woman.

[J]

"Why do you think it wasn't one?"

It was an attack on military personnel. I'd consider it an act of war, not terrorism.

[Sheila Tone]

Superdestroyer, intriguing idea. Thanks also to the guys with some military insight about his lackluster career. J, I'm trying to find stuff about the UK guys -- I'd thought they were med students.

[rightsaidfred]

NPR interviewed some of this guys colleagues, I think it's here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120162816

The guy definitely had some issues, like psychopathy and control.

It makes me think that a lot of immigrants and their children are so much immigrants as they are an invading army doing their share of pillaging (sucking off the welfare state), raping (pace Redmond CA, muslims in Sweden), and killing.

[not too late]

Okay, game experts, is Maj. Hasan an alpha, beta, omega?

I am going with omega.

I haven't yet peeked to see what roissy says.

[Melykin]

Kirk wrote:
"He must find it embarrassing, to be taken down by a woman. "
------------------

:)

I'm glad he survived, and thus can know this.

[superdestroyer]

J,

A timeline on his military service. He was enlisted some time before 1992. The attended a community college in Barstow California so I suspect that he was assigned to Fort Irwin, California.

We attended Virginia Tech from 1992 to 1995 according to a statements posted on the Virginia Tech website. He also attended a community college in the Roanoke area before attending Virginia Tech.

According to the State of Virginia website on physician licenses, Dr Hasan graduated the Uniform Services University of Health Sciences in 2003. That means he started in the summer of 1999. The then did his internship, residency, and fellowship at Walter Reed/National Naval Medical Center and finished his fellowship in the summer of 2009.

The idea that Dr Hasan wanted to get out of the ARmy for several years makes no sense with his fellowship in Disaster psychiatry which would have added years to the payback that the Army would have required. Also, according to the State of Virginia physician license website, Dr Hasan had not yet passed his board in Psychiatry.

My guess is that DR Hasan was using the military for all he could get out of it and felt like a failure. No medical boards, sent to Fort Hood (possibly because he was no longer welcome at Walter Reed), and isolated from the Muslim support mechanisms that he had in Silver Spring.

Dr Hasan is just another disgruntled failure who shot up his workplace. However, since he was Muslim, the media places him in a particular story line despite the facts.

[Sheila Tone]

Wow, another Virginia Tech killer!

SuperD, I heard he was trying to get out of overseas deployment, not necessarily the Army entirely.