It's been fascinating (and disturbing) to watch the evolving story of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan in the media since the massacre at Ft. Hood last week. It began with the FBI, barely an hour after the shootings and with no evidence or investigation, declaring that this wasn't a terrorist act.
The mainstream media and leftist propagandists (but I repeat myself) quickly picked up that meme. Newsweek, in a contemptible piece, declared that Hasan's act was a symptom of "a Military on the Brink." The Huffington Post on Friday was awash with similarly vile posts about how the war, the "sick" military, American foreign policy, our cowboy insistence on defeating our enemies, and/or lack of sufficient mental health care funding were to blame for Hasan "snapping" (see here, here, and here for examples).
Then there was the ABC News story, picked up by many others, parroting the family's explanation that Hasan snapped because he was "constantly harassed," called a "camel jockey," and subjected to "bullying" for being a Muslim.
And there were countless suggestions that Hasan, who counseled post-traumatic stress disorder patients, had succumbed to PTSD himself.
Filling in for Rush on Friday, Mark Steyn joked that, since Hasan has never been deployed to a war zone (or even overseas), he must have suffered from "pre-post-traumatic stress disorder" — something akin to feeling pain in your leg because you're going to break it next week. But these days, it's not easy to parody the left. A while later, Steyn was informed that a commentator on NPR had in fact suggested Hasan was suffering from "pre-traumatic stress disorder" due to his pending deployment. It was Tom Gjelten on NPR's Morning Edition (emphasis added):
GJELTEN: That's right, Steve. You know, you referred to the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There's – almost seems to be a phenomenon that you could maybe call a pre-traumatic stress disorder. There have been a lot suicides in the Army, many more as a result of these wars than in previous years. Interestingly enough, as many soldiers have killed themselves before they were due to be deployed as after. Thirty-five percent of the suicides are pre-deployment, 35 percent are post-deployment. So there seems to be an issue here of expectation of what you are getting into. And the fact that Major Hasan would've known better than others, even, about how traumatic combat experience would be, you know, raises the question of, you know, was he an example of these soldiers who are literally freaked out by what they are likely to face when they are deployed?
Freaked out — as if the psychiatrist Major would be going into battle with a rifle instead of sitting in an office holding counseling sessions.
Even as such nonsense was being offered, a mountain of evidence was accumulating that Hasan was a radical Islamist and had been for years. He proselytized his co-workers and his patients (a gross violation of professional ethics), warning them of the deadly consequences of remaining infidels. He praised suicide bombers for killing the soldiers who waged war on Islam. He worshipped at the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, VA, maybe the most radical Wahabbi mosque in America, alongside two of the 9/11 hijackers. He remained in touch (into this year) with its former imam (now living in Yemen), Anwar al-Awlaki, who praised Hasan as a hero who did the right thing. He contacted or attempted to contact al Qaeda leaders.
This evidence was only spottily reported in the U.S. mainstream media (for thorough coverage, check the British press, especially the Telegraph). And then, usually accompanied by demurring that we don't know what motivated him or why he "snapped." The President cautioned us not to "jump to conclusions," and that blathering idiot, Chris Matthews wondered aloud on national TV, "it's not illegal to call up al Qaeda, is it?"
Dorothy Rabinowitz outlined a lot of this insane, delusional denial in an excellent Wall Street Journal column this morning. And growing numbers of people — even some in the media — are now questioning why the FBI, CIA, Justice Dept., and Army all failed to "connect the dots" regarding Hasan.
They failed because even now, eight years after 9/11, our government institutions and their media lapdogs refuse as a matter of policy to acknowledge the dangers of radical Islam and its many adherents. They practice as a matter of policy a suicidal political correctness that makes a question like "it's not illegal to call up al Qaeda, is it?" something other than absurd. For fear of offending the easily offended and violent, they embrace dhimmitude, and they're going to get a lot more of us killed.
Maj. Hasan isn't an isolated phenomenon. He's one of many examples in the U.S. (and many, many more in other countries) of what Rusty Shackleford called "individual jihad" and Daniel Pipes dubbed "sudden jihad syndrome." Three years ago, an Islamist website even published a "Guide for Individual Jihad."
Pipes argued that this phenomenon means that all Muslims must be considered potentially dangerous. I disagree. People like Dr. Zudhi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, are decidedly not potentially dangerous. In fact, they're critically important — and immensely brave — warriors in the fight against radical Islamism.
But Pipes is partly correct. The mosques funded by the Saudis, distributing radical Islamist literature, and preaching Wahabbi doctrine, the mosques controlled by Hezbollah, and all the men who worship at these mosques and have been or are being radicalized by them are potentially dangerous. No, we don't lock people up or strip them of their rights for having a dangerous potential. But we shouldn't turn a blind eye, either.
When such a person is in the military, and provides plenty of warning signs of extreme radicalization, we sure as hell shouldn't ignore those signs and promote him! When we're that willfully ignorant, people die.
