We know quite a lot already about Maj. Hasan.  He was born in Virginia to Palestinian immigrants from the West Bank, and he joined the military directly after high school.  His military service has been relatively commendable, and colleagues have come forward and spoken of his good service record.  However, in July he did receive a negative performance evaluation.  Since he was a psychiatrist, his job involved listening and giving council to members of the military returning from the warfront, and save a few incidents which I will soon address, he seems to have been a pretty effective listener.

Listening to these stories no doubt took a toll on him psychologically, and this certainly could have contributed to his agitation.  He was mortified of being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan and recently sought legal help to get out of the military completely.  He even went so far as to offer to pay the military back for the training he received.  Several people have indicated that Hasan had been harassed because of his religious faith.  This also could have contributed to his desire to leave the military, although there are reports from the organizations to which soldiers report incidents of harassment that indicate that they have no reason to believe that any harassment occurred as no incidents were directly reported.

Federal investigators grew suspicious earlier this year when several postings on the Internet musing on the motives of suicide bombers were linked to Hasan by a screen name, “NidalHasan.”  So far there is no solid evidence that Maj. Hasan wrote these postings, but I’m sure that the FBI will soon be able to solve this small mystery.  There have been many reports from Hasan’s fellow soldiers and from Hasan’s family that he had become a more devout Muslim in the years following his parents’ deaths, and some soldiers have said that Hasan was extremely conflicted about the war in Iraq.  One colleague stated that Hasan had written a paper exploring whether or not the war on terror was in actuality a war against Islam itself.

If the evidence reveals that Maj. Hasan’s attack on his fellow soldiers was motivated by religious and political beliefs and that he acted on those beliefs in order to affect an emotional (and political) response from both the United States government and its citizens, we can begin to consider whether or not this event can be classified as an act of terrorism.  Until that time, no one has any logical reason to call it a terrorist act.  It’s no secret that the September 11^th attacks prompted an increase in discrimination against those who are (or appear to be) Muslim or Middle Eastern, and the public response to the shooting at Fort Hood (and the response in the media) has done nothing to waylay the fears of those who believe it still occurs on a daily basis.  One only need to look at the response at Fox “News’” very own “Fox & Friends” to understand why people might think that anti-Muslim sentiments still exist in America.  (By the way, Brian Kilmeade, the one who makes the suggestion in the previous linked video that we should “screen” all Muslims in our military, also apparently believes in eugenics.)

Read Part III of this post here.