Gunmen attack Fort Hood, Texas

[slapout9]

Suspect appears to have popped up on FBI's radar 6 months ago.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,...est=latestnews


My hunch, within the next few days evidence will surface of a detailed plan of attack.

[jmm99]

A “NidalHasan” wrote the following - secondary source:

There was a grenade thrown amongs a group of American soldiers. One of the soldiers, feeling that it was to late for everyone to flee jumped on the grave with the intention of saving his comrades. Indeed he saved them. He inentionally took his life (suicide) for a noble cause i.e. saving the lives of his soldier. To say that this soldier committed suicide is inappropriate. Its more appropriate to say he is a brave hero that sacrificed his life for a more noble cause. Scholars have paralled this to suicide bombers whose intention, by sacrificing their lives, is to help save Muslims by killing enemy soldiers. If one suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers because they were caught off guard that would be considered a strategic victory. Their intention is not to die because of some despair. The same can be said for the Kamikazees in Japan. They died (via crashing their planes into ships) to kill the enemies for the homeland. You can call them crazy i you want but their act was not one of suicide that is despised by Islam. So the scholars main point is that “IT SEEMS AS THOUGH YOUR INTENTION IS THE MAIN ISSUE” and Allah (SWT) knows best.

primary source 1 and primary source 2.

Same guy ? - the Internet tracks and trails, and his computer (if still containing data), will tell the tale.

Still many large gaps in how we get from All-American Boy to mass killer.

----------------------------
PS: After watching a few hours of media on this, one concludes that firearms knowledge is not a requisite for TV reporters. My heavens, the man had a "semi-automatic pistol" which accounted for the large number of casualties. And so it goes .....

[slapout9]

Go to the link below and click on Outlandish comments made. Appears he had been the subject of an unofficial Army investigation for comments about his opposition to the War according to a retired Lt. Col. who worked with the suspect.


http://www.foxnews.com/

[jmm99]

I listened to LTC Lee's interview when it first aired. He seemed credible. He told of direct statements from MAJ Hasan - as well as second and third hand statements. All of those will have to be tracked back to the original sources.

Still many pieces missing.

PS: The pieces have little to do with the salient evidence of the crimes - that will be obvious and beyond a reasonable doubt. The pieces have to do with his motivation.

[Tukhachevskii]

Hearing about this first thing this morning made me numb .. and reminded me of something I once read...



http://www.danielpipes.org/3450/sudd...north-carolina

[Greyhawk]

Longer bio.

http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/225310

[MikeF]

Longer bio.

http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/225310

This quote jumped out at me:

While he worked to aid people scarred by war, that work in turn scarred Hasan.

It's eerily familiar to what I've read while studying the non-religious female suicide bombers in Diyala.

Mike

[omarali50]

Hearing about this first thing this morning made me numb .. and reminded me of something I once read...

http://www.danielpipes.org/3450/sudd...north-carolina

My take on spontaneous jihad syndrome in general:

1. Its not that sudden. I think there are usually warning signs. It seems like there were some signs here too.
2. MOST Muslims are not at some special risk of exploding all of a sudden. But loners and misfits who have joined a conservative/orthodox Islamic center or group and turned more religious ARE a high risk group. Those who are deeply religious but otherwise well adjusted are NOT a high risk group. But a turn towards orthodoxy could be a warning signal (sensitive, but not specific) because there IS a subtext of solidarity and religious conflict in the medieval theology of Islam (as there may have been in other medieval ideologies or even modern ones, the difference is that this "extremism" is still part of mainstream Muslim theology whereas it has already been pushed to the fringe in many other religious traditions...the saving grace is, the theology is not known to most mainstream muslims in any detail. sounds confusing, but its true).
3. But these signals may be ignored out of a concern not to appear "islamophobic".
4. The real "islamophobes" like Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer are correct in saying that literal adhesion to orthodox Islamic theology (not "extremist", just orthodox) is likely to include a mixture of Islamic solidarity, dislike for infidels, desire to fight in the way of Allah, etc. They are incorrect in assuming that all Muslims adhere to medieval injunctions about Jihad and fighting the infidels or that all Muslims are capable of ignoring more immediate secular interests and taking up the banner of jihad at a moment's notice. I suspect they are biased by their own agenda (usually pro-zionist, in some cases extremist Christian) and would like to advance particular foreign policy goals (like making the Israeli occupation permanent). but the bottom line is that while they are not unbiased messengers (who is?), they are closer to the truth when it comes to medieval Islamic theology than the Karen Armstrong types.
5. I guess what I am pushing is the idea that common sense CAN actually be a guide here. There is no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater and equally there is no need to be willfully blind to warning signs. And that biased agenda pushers on BOTH sides of this debate have obscured common sense options. Islamists operating out of Saudi supported Islamic centers are NOT a majority of American Muslims, but they have disproportionate share of media exposure as "muslim spokesmen". At the same time, people like Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer have a definite foreign policy agenda and it suits them to malign all Muslims (no matter how "secular") as long as they suspect them of Palestinian sympathies. Their warnings need to be heard keeping this in view.
6. I am still hopeful that common sense will prevail.
7. All nutcases cannot be stopped beforehand. Some surprises will always happen. There is no risk-free society, with or without muslims.

(Added by moderator: Discussion on this is on: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=8890 )

[Greyhawk]

But I fear we're going to soon have something called "Pre-TSD" as an identified psychiatric condition.

MikeF, I think there will be much chicken/egg debate regarding the doc. But I'd like to hear more about the suicide bomber angle. I take it you're saying a "caregiver" instinct was exploited to actually influence behavior towards something counter to the expected norm.