FORT HOOD

This is what happens when political correctness runs amok.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...t-infidels-should-have-their-throats-cut.html

This guy should have been disciplined and run out of the Army long before that day.

It's fine to be on the look out for post-9/11 violence against Muslims in the USA ... but the political correctness gestapo have taken it too far. Even when presented with a bonafide whacko, everyone is afraid to do the common sense thing for fear of being labelled a bigot, racist and/or hate monger.
 
So is there going to be a knee jerk reaction to other muslim members of the American military.
This is what worries me.
 
Same here, there are waaaayyy to many people I think that will just see his religion and go ahead and prejudge all Muslims hostile, even if they are fellow Americans. Thats wat makes me angry and uncomfortable, one guy acting alone gives a bad image towards an entire community of people, in reality had nothing to do with it, let's face it, even wordwide I bet most Muslims don't even encorage that behavior. It's always the minority of any group that causes distrust and disfavor like this.
 
Sukio, I think that was the problem all along. People in power and the media felt there would be a massive backlash against Muslims after September 11 ... so everyone went way the other way ... to the extent that when presented with an obvious crazy person, they failed to do anything for fear of being labeled a bigot or racist.

That ridiculous level of caution cost American lives.

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee149/BrorJace/Miscellaneous/PoliticalCorrectness.jpg

Now, going forward, what have we learned? Will we do anything differently? It's coming out in dribs and drabs just how radical this guy really was ... and the facts are starting to point to everyone around him knowing it.
 
it's interesting how people have gone to the political correctness accusation so quickly. one incident in 8 years, as terrible as it is, hardly seems to justify a charge that this was solely due to political correctness. there may be an element of it but if we don't look at the whole system- just write everything off to a case of racial bias- then we're simply setting ourselves up for another incident with a more prosaic inspiration.
 
This particular tragedy has more in common with the VA tech shooting than any real act of terrorism.
I've said it before but let me give you a big more pointers.

But before we begin let me say that this guy should be executed. He was (and still is technically I think unless something happened in the last three days) an officer in the United States Army. That behavior is BEYOND unacceptable. In wartime, you could be shot for disobeying a lawful order and disobeying a lawful order pales compared to what happened here.

Anyways some pointers:
It's incredibly difficult for these mallicious organizations of any kind to plant an informant into the US Army, especially if if the said infiltrator is not American born and/or contains a name that is also typical of people who are the nationals of America's enemies (of which he was the latter).
If any such group was in direct contact with this guy, or if he was serious about helping their cause, he would have not terminated his existance in the US Army that way. Sure people say that becuase of his MOS there is nothing he could have given, but even small bits of information are valuable for those who are not in the organization. Anyone aware of his job and what he intended would have immediately urged him not to. Including terrorists.
His behavior not only has parallels with VA Tech, but also a number of fratricide incidents in the RoK as well. In none of the cases were the perpetrator a spy working for North Korea nor were they especially active in pro-North Korea causes as far as I know. Every case of North Korean espionage that I know of involved two things 1) spread of propaganda 2) collecting information. It did not involve randomly shooting anyone.

I think the one part that political correctness may have played a role was that although this guy showed signs of not quite being together, they were afraid of doing anything or else they may have been accused of being racist or prejudiced towards Middle Easternerns or Muslims. The danger signs were there. This guy needed to be removed but no one seemed to have noticed enough to take action.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
This particular tragedy has more in common with the VA tech shooting than any real act of terrorism.
I've said it before but let me give you a big more pointers.

But before we begin let me say that this guy should be executed. He was (and still is technically I think unless something happened in the last three days) an officer in the United States Army. That behavior is BEYOND unacceptable. In wartime, you could be shot for disobeying a lawful order and disobeying a lawful order pales compared to what happened here.

Anyways some pointers:
It's incredibly difficult for these mallicious organizations of any kind to plant an informant into the US Army, especially if if the said infiltrator is not American born and/or contains a name that is also typical of people who are the nationals of America's enemies (of which he was the latter).
If any such group was in direct contact with this guy, or if he was serious about helping their cause, he would have not terminated his existance in the US Army that way. Sure people say that becuase of his MOS there is nothing he could have given, but even small bits of information are valuable for those who are not in the organization. Anyone aware of his job and what he intended would have immediately urged him not to. Including terrorists.
His behavior not only has parallels with VA Tech, but also a number of fratricide incidents in the RoK as well. In none of the cases were the perpetrator a spy working for North Korea nor were they especially active in pro-North Korea causes as far as I know. Every case of North Korean espionage that I know of involved two things 1) spread of propaganda 2) collecting information. It did not involve randomly shooting anyone.

I think the one part that political correctness may have played a role was that although this guy showed signs of not quite being together, they were afraid of doing anything or else they may have been accused of being racist or prejudiced towards Middle Easternerns or Muslims. The danger signs were there. This guy needed to be removed but no one seemed to have noticed enough to take action.
Click to expand...

Right, the guy just had a serious mental breakdown, and snapped, when people snap they can go in many different directions, with different amounts of severity, but this guy, and what he did, shows exactly what a human being in the right conditions is capable of. He had it all, a high stress level, probly some prejudices, and access to a large group of UNAMRED people and firearms.

Theres no doubt in my mind that it is what it is, and not some elaborate terror plot, I am not saying that any terror organizations won't say anything about it, but, I believe that their involment is almost nonexistant, limited only to minor influence. Besides, just beacause this guy may have some Islamic and Middle Eastern Background, that does not mean he may have acted directly on them. He may have, but he may have had other causes for his behavior, no doubt, he is guilty, I am not saying its not his fault, the guy is as guilty as sin.
 
Yeah my point is that if he wanted to truly help terrorists and the like, he would have kept his job and given them intel. When captured, he would have accepted it as God's Will and accepted what came at his trial.
That would be consistent with the whole "he's a terrorist" stuff.
Sukio, this guy was more than just mildly flawed. This guy had some SERIOUS problems. How no one managed to spot this is shocking.
 
Yea that a very strong point 13th Redneck, common sense could spot that, your probably right, he was not associated with a terror group, I seriously doubted that from the start. Besides if it was a terror plot there would be a paper trail, if it was even a criminal plot there would have been a plot, I mean look at the facts so far uncovered, there is video footage of him getting coffee that morning at a local gas station, I mean, the guy may have shown signs, but they were mental and behavioral ones, not espionage or a domestic security risk
 
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My gut tells me that the shooter is a terrorist. The reports say that he went to the same mosque as some of the 9/11 murderers and that his mother also went there while she was alive. There are indications that he has been planning an act like this for year. He is not the first to attempt this kind of act on a military base. He is just the first to be successful. Why not our government is more interested how fast they can spend our money, and passing other unconstitutional laws like Universal Health Care.
 
Idk....theres no evidence to indicate he is a terrorist, or even linked to it, read 13ths posts in this thread, they do provide some solid counterpoints, read em and c wat you can come up with.
 
I don't think anyone is saying this is part of an elaborate plot. It doesn't have to be to be an act of terrorism.

Bin Laden DID say he wanted Muslims around the world to act out against the United States ... even independently. This guy WAS in contact with at least one extremist cleric (e-mail records show). Reports say he shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he killed people. It's not a stretch to call this terrorism.

The whole political correctness angle comes from the fact that this guy had SERIOUS problems and should have been severely disciplined and/or kicked out of the Army months if not years ago. It seems everyone who knew this guy was coming unglued were afraid to say so for fear of being labeled a bigot or racist ... fellow doctors as well as Army officers.

That kind of thinking just cost so over a dozen lives and even more wounded. How many more people have to die before we get our head on straight with regards to looking for terrorists among people who fit the profile? In the airports after 9-11, they are/were stopping celebrities and 70 year old grandmothers and letting men of middle-eastern descent in their 20s go through for the same ridiculous reasons. With fuzzy thinking like this, it's any wonder why we haven't lost another fleet of Boeing 757s while we (Americans) try and figure this out.
 
Bror, look at the whole picture and not just a part of it.
In this case, radical Islam seemed to be more of the symptom rather than the main cause.
If you classify this as terrorism, just about any crime committed by a Muslim becomes classified as terrorism. Do you see a problem with that? I do.
Even the 2003 fragging by Hasan Akbar in Kuwait that killed two and wounded several others is as far as I know, not considered an act of terrorism.
This guy didn't even make demands to the United States regarding any of their policies in the Middle East or anything for that matter. In every terrorist attack there is a message regarding policy changes. The attack on the Madrid train station - the message was to have Spain pull out of Iraq. The attack in London - same deal. 9/11 - America to leave all Muslim soil.

Another problem in calling it terrorism is that the people who were targetted were military personnel. If you do this, even a Special Forces strike that kills legitimate targets behind enemy lines will be classified as an act of terrorism and we will have nothing to say in response.

I know people are pissed off at political correctness, as am I. It played a huge role but not in the way most people think. It prevented the identification and removal of a person who was clearly a danger to the Army.
 
So if radical Islam was not the cause what was?

PTSD? He never deployed.

Harrasment? The only verified incident occured off base and may or may not have involved a service member.

Disagreement with the war and not wanting to kill his muslim "brothers"? H e had no problem killing his Military Brothers.

I'm pissed that the Army and DCIS dropped the ball on this clown in the name of PC.

But I'm also pissed at the constant push to down play radical islamic teachings role in this....so as not to offend.
 
No it's pretty hard to say at this point. I think more things will become clearer over time.
It's not PTSD. I never claimed it was and those who claim it was probably don't know what they're talking about.
Yeah he wasn't harrassed much either. At least not significantly more than anyone else.
Rarely are things like this only one thing. Again I think it's the combination of several factors.

You know what I really want to know (though I won't be surprised if they're never released) is what his patients actually said to him. Even for folks who are American first and something else second, hearing crap about whatever they are second usually doesn't go over very well. Now this guy was obviously something else first and American second, one wonders how a guy like that would react to things like "I want to kill Arabs... they're all the same... **** 'em" etc. For a guy who was as unstable as he was, it's going to drive him over the edge.
I believe it was his unstable personality (severely anti-social), misplaced loyalty and the stories he heard from people who had horrible experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan and made no quarter about telling him how they felt that really drove him to do what he did. I believe this sort of thing made reach out and be more inspired by extremists than was originally the case. He was a bad egg to begin with and he only got worse.

The other problems I have with simply concluding it was primarily extremist Islam:
- This guy was in the Army for about 20 years. Since he had showed interest and like for extreme Islam for many years, why was it that he did not commit something like this years before?
- When America invaded Iraq, what was he doing?
- When America invaded Afghanistan, what was he doing?
- When America killed Somali pirates (who are Muslim), what was he doing?
Why is it that he did NOTHING for all those years and suddenly decide to snap now? It really sounds like a case of a guy who for some reason "couldn't take it anymore" first before it seems like a case of a guy who really believed in a cause.
I think he just wanted to end it all and found a way to do it.

The only real reason I'm downplaying its role is because I'm seeing far too many people simply put it at extremist Islam and end the story right there. It's a bit more complicated than that.
It's not in order not to offend. There is nothing worse to most Muslims around the world than extremist Islam. You should see this grafitti here... there's this construction site and on the wall is a long line of grafitti, and there are quite a few that condemn terrorists and praise the country's CT units. The guys who drew them are Muslim.
 
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So if radical Islam was not the cause what was?

Nobody is suggesting it wasnt a factor, what is being suggested is that he might have been bonkers (or at least unstable) before going off the religious deep end. Although the most recent news suggests that his dealing with radicialization might have been deeper and older than previously thought. Remember terrorist recruit people who are out of order within society. People truly happy in life to not generally become terrorists.

 PTSD? He never deployed.

I actually read a article a day or so ago (ill have to dig it out, if I can) that suggested that PTSD doesnt necessary have to be experianced firsthand. Essentially what the article suggested that a person such as a Army shrink or Priest how who is constantly bombarded with Horror stories from others can suffer the effects of PTSD via an intraparty. I am no doctor, but I do know Human pyske is a phenomenia that is little understood.

Update: Looking for the First artricle I found another that said this was impossible, However it did also say that a person (even a shrink) that is already depressed, can fall into a much greater depression even a nervous breakdown being influanced by the PTSD of others.

Two contradictory arguements. I am not a doctor, ill leave this one for the experts.


Harrasment? The only verified incident occured off base and may or may not have involved a service member.

Who really knows? Most incidents of harrassment in the civilian sector are not reported. Is it so different in the Army?

Disagreement with the war and not wanting to kill his muslim "brothers"? He had no problem killing his Military Brothers.

In his mind he picked one over the other. Those muslims in the US Army who serve honorably have made exactly the opposite choice. One cannot serve two masters simultanuously. I wonder if the same question were put to the radical evangelicals what they would chose if they were actually forced to make such a decision.

I'm pissed that the Army and DCIS dropped the ball on this clown in the name of PC.

Apparently he had been on a FBI watch list too, but he was deemed not a threat. And perhaps he wasnt at the time of there evaluation or perhaps they missed the warning signals althogether. Either somebody (many) dropped the ball or Hasan was good at covering his tracks.

But I'm also pissed at the constant push to down play radical islamic teachings role in this....so as not to offend.

Its not the radical part, its the Islamic part. The rightwing rent-a-mouth in the media make no bones about lumping "radical" and "Islam" together (and they are having a field with this story), to them all Islam is radical. Yet nobody does the same with radical Christianity or Judiasm (and ther are kooks in those groups too). Thats what we object to. I have Muslim friends and I dont like people making vague accusations that generalizes all Muslims. There are over 1 Billion Muslims world wide, and these radicals dont even make up 1%. And yet all we ever do is talk about them.
 
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mmarsh said:
PTSD? He never deployed.

I actually read a article a day or so ago (ill have to dig it out, if I can) that suggested that PTSD doesnt necessary have to be experianced firsthand. Essentially what the article suggested that a person such as a Army shrink or Priest how who is constantly bombarded with Horror stories from others can suffer the effects of PTSD via an intraparty. I am no doctor, but I do know Human pyske is a phenomenia that is little understood.
Click to expand...

Look man, you've stated many times that you know nothing about being a soldier so I'm trying to be patient with you. How could PTSD, even secondary in this case cause this reaction? As an NCO and a leader in the Army with extensive combat time in this war, I have tried my best to counsel and mentor soldiers through hard times and PTSD related problems many times. When the trauma is beyond the supervisor or peer level, we refer these guys to doctors (like Hasan). Almost every story of PTSD that I have been exposed to has either been from:

A. a soldier makes a mistake that leads to the death of a civilian, or another soldier and feels horrible about it. To the point where it affects his work.

B. A soldier suffers an attack that leaves himself badly injured, or kills a team member and he cannot function normally afterward. Sometimes a soldier even does something like stays back from a patrol due to sickness and the guy who replaces him gets killed, resulting in him getting consumed by guilt.

I don't know of one incident where a guy who is so anti muslim that he enjoys killing would either seek help from the Army, or even if he did seek help.... imagine a guy with a low opinion of arabs and muslims in general walking into a Major's office... the guy is arab... and named Hasan... and muslim. Do you really think the soldier would tell him anything? My point is, if you were affected by the PTSD stories that soldiers tell (ESPECIALLY working at Walter Reed where many of his patients were amputees with horrible injuries), wouldn't that horror drive you away from radical islam and not towards it? I try to have as much patience as possible discussing this stuff with civilians who blatantly have no idea what I'm talking about, but it's hard. I've lost friends and fellow soldiers on all 3 deployments, and I just recently recognized some PTSD symptoms in myself. I think I can deal with it on my own.. but I dunno. I responded to the scene of an IED strike where one of our Lieutenants had been hit by an IED. Half of his head was gone and his brains were out. I remember looking at it, and I was one of the guys who put him in a body bag. I remember seeing it, because I was describing it to people at the scene and I remember thinking "I'll remember this for the rest of my life"..... but now a few months later, I cannot remember anything. I remember seeing the body but I cannot remember seeing the blood or the wound. I can't explain it. I just don't get that a doctor, hearing stories like this, would become enraged at the US. Most soldiers do not tell stories of PTSD if they killed a justified target, because they are proud of their performance and happy to have lived through it. The ones that aren't are remorseful.... so how could hearing stories like that drive someone to hate the soldiers instead of pity them? So, mmarsh, if I have come off a little too snappy towards you at times, it's because for some people, this war is a little more real. I mean no real disrespect to anyone, but some of these subjects are very touchy for people. If you do in fact understand about the human psyche, then maybe you will understand why this is a much harder issue to deal with for some than others. I appologize for the graphic nature of this post, but this is a military forum that appears to have a few soldiers who are sometimes not understood well by the civilians who criticize them... especially when it's in regards to subjects that (thankfully) they know very little about.
 
Yes I find the 2nd hand PTSD hard to agree with. I do know someone very well who had a form of PTSD, though not from the military but doing dangerous work regardless. Fortunately wasn't a weak one and recovered well but I never caught it despite being the first person that person talked to regarding the matter. It's a bit personal so that's all I'll say but 2nd hand PTSD sounds a lot like horse sh1t.
You can get depressed. You can have a much lower opinion about the world or people in general but PTSD is something completely different. I can't say I've seen a lot of it like 19K (only seen one case and heard of another... someone I know indirectly who did deploy a few times) and the pattern seemed to be being fearful of things. Driving down a perfectly fine road almost expecting bad things to happen... the fear of the sound of footsteps around the corner, the like. A really heightened sense seems to be one of the symptoms too. Correct me if I'm wrong 19K... that's what I saw but I'll admit it wasn't a lot.

19K, that's kind of why I want to know what exactly it is his patients said to him. If indeed they didn't go into detail about what happened over there... sometimes people telling stories can get so lost in them that they can forget who it is they're telling it to. If there was nothing of that nature the patients talked about, I think the argument for radical Islam being the major factor becomes a bit stronger.

The reason why I suspected this to be the case was because there are some extremely similar parallels with the VA Tech shooting. In that case it was some Korean-American guy who felt he was being discriminated against etc etc. There's a small element of truth perhaps but the main problem was him. He was just an anti-social nut who was consumed in his own imaginary hate. No doubt though, he was pushed towards the edge by small events that would happen... perhaps offend him and he'd take personally as if the event was race motivated even if it was not. Things that piss folks off are here and there, even places you least expect. For example, with the exception of Kung-Foo guys, how often does an Asian guy show up as an action hero? And how often do Asian guys appear as this almost non-male character? It annoys most Asian people, but it REALLY eats the guts out of the weak ones. When pushed to the edge and beyond, he got his guns, planned his exit from the world and executed it.
I see a similarity that's too close to discount.
That's why I say the major force behind this tragedy was HIM as a highly flawed individual. If the Fort Hood shootings count as terrorism, so should the VA Tech shooting. They look surprisingly similar.
 
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It's definately tricky, and I am also not willing to slap a terrorism label on this one. Timothy McVeigh taught us that you do not need to be part of an organization to execute a terrorist attack, but this doesn't seem like the same thing. I firmly beleive that radical islam played into this, and that the guy identified himself with the global idealogical struggle, but I doubt that he had any real connection to terrorists. The feds seem convinced that he acted alone, and that seems to ring true. So far, I think the closest analogy that anyone has come up with is the guy who kills abortion doctors because it lines up with his own personal and religious beleifs.

You are correct that heightened alertness is a symptom of PTSD as well, and it's one that my wife is all too familiar with. Last time I was home on leave, I wouldn't go anywhere without a gun (I have a TX CHL). I also get paranoid when someone moves my stuff, and stay away from crowded areas. If I go into a restaurant where there are too many people, I need to leave(oddly enough I mentioned this issue to the Darnell medical staff from the unit that Hasan was with, and they didn't seem too concerned). I don't mean to sound like a PTSD expert, but we all receive classes and study this issue. Ft Hood leads the Army in soldier suicides and it's a huge leadership challenge to constantly monitor the mental health of your troops. When something traumatic happens, leaders have limited time to process it, and then must immediately get their soldiers into action so they can focus on a task, and not the death/injury. You spend so much time as a leader in this fight putting your own emotions on the back burner and worrying about others, that sometimes redeploying can be really hard. It all comes out and it's hard to cope with. Last tour we had been in country for only 2 weeks, when one of the NCOs from the unit that we replaced killed himself. He was leaving for the states in 2 days, and it later came out that his wife had left him. He left a note saying he was sorry to everyone, but that the only reason he had stayed alive was to make sure all his soldiers finished the tour and got back home safely. He stated that now that his job was done and they had made it, that he had no further reason to live and couldn't bear going back to the states to face his divorce from the woman he loved. This war affects all people differently, and I've seen enough pain and suffering that sometimes I get a little upset when civilian desk job types pass judgement on me.
 
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