So, what if Hasan’s faith did have something to do with the incident?  What if, after a lot of soul searching, he finally determined that he had a responsibility to his religion and his people to murder some infidels?  What then?  How much attention should we give his religiosity, and what are the consequences of pursuing, in our media, the line of reasoning that Islam itself drove him to commit this act?  It may be easier to look at the situation by way of example.

Of which faith was Scott Roeder, the man who murdered Dr. George Tiller earlier this year?  Roeder was a Christian.  He was a self-proclaimed member of the Army of God, an actual terrorist organization (I don’t know if they are classified as a terrorist organization by our government, but they carry out acts of violence in order to intimidate individuals and the government into bending to the group's agenda, which is the textbook definition of terrorism.).  Roeder’s faith was definitely a motivator of his actions, and the organizations that he is associated with proudly declare that the killing of an abortion doctor is “justifiable homicide.”  So, should we take into account Roeder’s religious beliefs when investigating the crime he committed?

The short answer to this question is “yes.”  But we must be extremely careful regarding the manner in which we consider his Christian beliefs.  We must make sure we do not make the ignorant assumption that all Christians believe the same things that Roeder apparently believes.  There are millions of Christians in the world, and if every single one of them wanted to kill all abortion doctors and illegalize abortion, we can be pretty sure that, at least in the United States and Canada, there would be no abortions.  Similarly, we can assume that, given the sheer number of Muslims in the world, if every single person who practiced Islam believed the same things as Osama bin Laden or any of the other Muslim extremists believe, the United States would have had absolutely no success in Iraq or Afghanistan, and the members of our military who practice Islam would have openly revolted, en masse, years ago.

Earlier I mentioned that Hasan had several “incidents” with the soldiers to whom he gave council, and I’d like to address those “incidents” here, as well as Hasan’s growing suspicion that the war on terror was, in fact, a war on Islam.  Hasan, like many people in the United States, did not support the war in Iraq.  That alone is nothing to be suspicious about, even though he is a member of the United States military.  I have met multiple people in the United States military that oppose the war in Iraq to their very core but continue to serve out of dedication to their fellow soldiers and out of dedication to their country.  They do not go on shooting rampages, nor do they openly challenge their superiors.  With respect to the incidents Hasan had with fellow soldiers and with respect to his possible belief that the United States was fighting a war on Islam, we must dig a little deeper.

Read Part IV of this post here.