Fort Hood

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the shooting at Fort Hood yesterday. That a man would walk onto a United States military base and shoot his colleagues, men and women serving their country, is an act both tragic and despicable. I cannot even imagine the pain that the friends and relatives of those killed are going through right now. My deepest sympathies go out to them.

This sort of violence is deplorable, and Major Nidal Malik Hasan is indeed a monster for having committed such an atrocity. Unconfirmed reports indicate that Major Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar!" before commencing the attack, making him yet another person who used religion as an excuse for horrific violence against innocent people.

People who warp religion to serve some violent goal like this represent a fringe minority only tangentially related to religious folks who are good, decent, and hard working. It is not an Islamic phenomenon, but a human one. It mustn't be forgotten that Christianity has also been used by malicious individuals as a mandate for bloodshed. Though Hasan's motives may well have been religious, it is important that we do not let the actions of one madman color our opinion of an entire group of Americans.

I do believe that what happened at Fort Hood Thursday was an act of terrorism. Likewise, when a white christian male shoots an abortionist it is also an act of terrorism. The difference is that in the latter case it is difficult to identify the "other."

I cannot express enough my outrage at the violence perpetrated by Maj. Hasan. It is important that we as a country mourn and take care to remember the lives lost there. If we are wise (and I pray that we will be), we'll also learn a lesson from this tragedy.

Already the reports are swirling about the motive for this attack, and whether or not it was the violent outburst of a lone maniac or a part of some other larger community of people with anti-American sentiments. Some news outlets (cough...FOX..cough...cough) have already tried to paint a disturbing portrait of Hasan, but at it seems they have come up with is an army psychiatrist of few friends who was so terrified of the prospect of deploying to war that he tried to get out of the army several times, even offering (and I'm quoting FOX here!)" to repay the cost of his medical training." And this guy was living in a $300/mo apartment. More sad than terrifying.

And while these things in no way justify his actions, in addition to recognizing their horror it is important to question whether or not the demands of two wars on an increasingly strained military have anything to do with why more warning signs were not either noticed or addressed sooner.

The use of the military might of the United States is a heavy decision, and unfortunately it was applied irresponsibly, landing us thigh deep in the muck that is our current situation in the Middle East. I do not hold George W. Bush and Dick Cheney solely responsible for this. The legislative branch authorized the use of force, and kept continuing to renew the budget. More importantly, we, the American people, kept electing these same people. Our current mess is everyone's responsibility, yet instead of trying to come up with feasible solutions both parties seem content to point the finger at each other and whine. What does it say about our culture when something like this shooting, this mass murder, will inevitably be molded into a playing piece in the war between the lovable media caricatures War Hungry Redneck and Freedom Hating Liberal Elite? Instead of speaking barbs to one another we need to come together as a country and fix something about ourselves. And we need to either end the war (the most preferable option) or, if not that, then get our men and women in the armed services easy access to mental health care, the kind that can try and determine preventatively whether or not sending someone like Hasan (a man whose day job was listening to horrible stories about Iraq and Afghanistan from soldiers fresh back) to a war zone would set off some sort of violent mental avalanche.

It may very well come out that Hasan was cozy with radicals. It may very well be that he was a loner teetering on some sort of personal brink and just finally went over. Regardless of which one it is, it is important to remember that the best way to respect the tragedy of what went on today is to see it for what it was: a violent outburst by a hateful man with a complex psychological profile, somebody lost in the system that committed an atrocious act. If we allow it to become a tool in the condemnation of all people muslim, we use that event to hurt even more people, thus tarnishing it. Instead of focusing on who to blame, we should be focusing on how to prevent this sort of lashing out in the future-- pragmatically. Not dogmatically.

I love my country. Not because I think it's perfect but because I believe in the special ability of America to grow and change, to get wiser and better as we go forward. If we do not learn something from this tragedy more nuanced than "blame the muslims," it will be a slap in the face to that American ability of forward progression, and a repeat of past mistakes, notably the demonization (and eventual internment) of Japanese citizens during WWII. So let's sit back and wait for all the facts to roll in before we do anything hasty.

My heart goes out to everyone affected by yesterday's events. This is a national tragedy and we should all think long and hard about how we're going to respond to it.