Yes, this attack was a case of Muslim extremism:
A former classmate has said Hasan was a “vociferous opponent of the war” and “viewed the war against terror” as a “war against Islam.” Dr. Val Finnell, who attended a master’s in public health program in 2007-2008 at Uniformed Services University with Hasan, said he told classmates he was “a Muslim first and an American second.”
And yes, this should have been caught earlier:
“In retrospect, I’m not surprised he did it,” Finnell said. “I had real questions about what his priorities were, what his beliefs were.”
More details at HotAir.
Muslims need to be especially careful with these kinds of people. Christian extremists generally become radical pacifists (Quakers, Amish) or engage in mass suicide (Jonestown, Branch Davidians, Heaven’s Gate). Muslim extremists tend to be violent chauvinists, whether here, in Iraq, in Iran, or in Afghanistan, and they can get a lot of innocent people killed if the saner people around them don’t control their delusions.
And we really shouldn’t validate and encourage this kind of behavior out of cowardice.
“Well, I wanted to do that, I have to admit … but my co-writer Harald said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie.”
Comments
6 responses to “More on Hasan”
“a Muslim first and an American second.”
And they made him Major.
What do you have to say to be made General?
If Heaven’s Gate was a Christian group, I’m the Queen of England.
Can this man’s actions be justified by a mainstream, non-extremist interpretation of the ideology he follows?
The answer is yes; all mainstream interpretations of Islam honour this man as a Jihadi (or Shaheed if he dies).
The “extremist Muslims” are the peaceful Muslims.
Please do not continue with your mis-characterisation of Jihadis as extremist Muslims. They are mainstream Muslims.
Even though technically you are right to include the Branch Davidian suicide with Jonestown, what happened at Mt. Carmel was much more than that. The suicide only happened after a lengthy government siege. Even sane people, and the Davidians were very irrational, would be driven to it under the circumstances.
Yes, Vernon Howell, aka David Koresh should be held responsible for the mass suicide, but equally so the government.
In the case of Hasan the wingnut Muslim, he should be tried and hung. And then the government should make reparations to the victims and family survivors for its complicity.
Frank,
True enough. OTOH, they also could have strapped dynamite and ball bearings to themselves first. Different guiding philosophies lead to different choices.
notaclue,
No, they really were Christian. Their cult was based on a passage in the Christian Book of Revelations.
“According to Jacques Vall?e in his 1979 book Messengers of Deception [5], the group began in the early 1970s when Marshall Applewhite was recovering from a heart attack during which he claimed to have had a near-death experience. He came to believe that he and his nurse, Bonnie Nettles, were “the Two”, that is, the two witnesses spoken of in Book of Revelation 11:3 in the Holy Bible.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_(religious_group)