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HOME > PUBLICATIONS > Sudden Jihad or ‘Inordinate Stress’ at Fort Hood?

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Senior Intelligence Officials: Attempted Terror Attack "Certain"

The five senior leaders of the U.S. intelligence community told a Senate panel they are "certain" that terrorists will attempt another attack on the United States in the next three to six months.
If true, why do you think the jihadists feel emboldened?






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November 10, 2009

Sudden Jihad or ‘Inordinate Stress’ at Fort Hood?

Daniel Pipes

When a Muslim in the West for no apparent reason violently attacks non-Muslims, a predictable argument ensues about motives.
 
The establishment – law enforcement, politicians, the media, and the academy – stands on one side of this debate, insisting that some kind of oppression caused Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, to (allegedly) kill 13 and wound 38 at Fort Hood on November 5th. It disagrees on the specifics, however, presenting Hasan as the victim alternatively of "racism," "harassment he had received as a Muslim," a sense of not belonging," "pre-traumatic stress disorder," "mental problems," "emotional problems," "an inordinate amount of stress," or being deployed to Afghanistan as his "worst nightmare." Accordingly, a typical newspaper headline reads "Mindset of Rogue Major a Mystery."
 
Instances of Muslim-on-unbeliever violence inspire the victim school to dig up new and imaginative excuses. Colorful examples (drawing on my article and weblog entry about denying Islamist terrorism) include:
 
  • 1990: "A prescription drug for … depression" (to explain the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane)
  • 1991: "A robbery gone wrong" (the murder of Makin Morcos in Sydney)
  • 1994: "Road rage" (the killing of a random Jew on the Brooklyn Bridge)
  • 1997: "Many, many enemies in his mind" (the shooting murder atop the Empire State Building)
  • 2000: A traffic incident (the attack on a bus of Jewish schoolchildren near Paris)
  • 2002: "A work dispute" (the double murder at LAX)
  • 2002: A "stormy [family] relationship" (the Beltway snipers)
  • 2003: An "attitude problem" (Hasan Karim Akbar's attack on fellow soldiers, killing two)
  • 2003: Mental illness (the mutilation murder of Sebastian Sellam)
  • 2004: "Loneliness and depression" (an explosion in Brescia, Italy outside a McDonald's restaurant)
  • 2005: "A disagreement between the suspect and another staff member" (a rampage at a retirement center in Virginia)
  • 2006: "An animus toward women" (a murderous rampage at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle)
  • 2006: "His recent, arranged marriage may have made him stressed" (killing with an SUV in northern California)
 
Additionally, when an Osama bin Laden-admiring Arab-American crashed a plane into a Tampa high-rise, blame fell on the acne drug Accutane.
 
As a charter member of the jihad school of interpretation, I reject these explanations as weak, obfuscatory, and apologetic. The Jihadi school, still in the minority, perceives Hasan's attack as one of many Muslim efforts to vanquish infidels and impose Islamic law. We recall a prior episode of sudden jihad syndrome in the U.S. military, as well as the numerous cases of non-lethal Pentagon Jihadi plots and the history of Muslim violence on American soil.
 
Far from being mystified by Hasan, we see overwhelming evidence of his Jihadi intentions. He handed out Korans to neighbors just before going on his rampage and yelled "Allahu Akbar," the Jihadi's cry, as he fired off over 100 rounds from two pistols. His superiors reportedly put him on probation for inappropriately proselytizing about Islam.
 
We note what former associates say about him: one, Val Finnell, quotes Hasan saying, "I'm a Muslim first and an American second" and recalls Hasan justifying suicide terrorism; another, Col Terry Lee, recalls that Hasan "claimed Muslims had the right to rise up and attack Americans;" the third, a psychiatrist who worked very closely with Hasan, described him as "almost belligerent about being Muslim."
 
Finally, the jihad school of thought attributes importance to the Islamic authorities' urging American Muslim soldiers to refuse to fight their co-religionists, thereby providing a basis for sudden Jihad. In 2001, for example, responding to the U.S. attack on the Taliban, the mufti of Egypt, Ali Gum'a, issued a fatwa stating that "The Muslim soldier in the American army must refrain [from participating] in this war." Hasan himself, echoing that message, advised a young Muslim disciple, Duane Reasoner Jr., not to join the U.S. army because "Muslims shouldn't kill Muslims."
 
If the jihad explanation is overwhelmingly more persuasive than the victim one, it's also far more awkward to articulate. Everyone finds blaming road rage, Accutane, or an arranged marriage easier than discussing Islamic doctrines. And so, a prediction: what Ralph Peters calls the army's "unforgivable political correctness" will officially ascribe Hasan's assault to his victimization and will leave Jihad unmentioned.
 
And thus will the Army blind itself and not prepare for its next Jihadi attack.
 
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributor Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum, Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, and a contributor to FrontPageMagazine.com..
 

Reader Comments: Submit Your Comment (2)

DIFERENTES ARGUMENTOS SOFISTAS QUE SE USAN PARA "EXPLICAR" LOS ACTOS TERRORISTAS DE LOS MAHOMETANOS CONTRA LOS NO MAHOMETANOS, Y HACERLOS APARECER COMO - NO RELACIONADOS CON ESA RELIGION TERRORISTA - Y HASTA EXCULPARLOS.

Terminan estos argumentadores (expertos en embaucar ingenuos) desviando la responsabilidad y las causas de su VERDADERO ACTOR Y ORIGEN.

ABSURDO! - El colmo es alcanzado cuando luego de una o dos vueltas al razonamiento, o aun directamente, se ACUSA A LA VICTIMA de ser la causante de su propia victimización por el agresor mahometano.

HAY QUE VER EL CORO DE ALTO RUIDO QUE PRODUCEN CUANDO ALGUIEN USA LA LEGITIMA DEFENSA O LA DEFENSA PREVENTIVA.

Los no mahometanos tiene todo el derecho de realizar las acciones necesarias, que confiable y eficientemente, les garanticen poder vivir en paz sin ataques de estos predadores terroristas que son los mahometanos. Segun la mitologia biblica, estos religiosos mahometanos son los CAIN, en la historia de la humanidad

posted by : AUGUS
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 07:36 AM

I watch today as the soldiers sat at Forthood. Not one person said a word about the snipers on the roofs watching these soldiers or in fact who were the snipers really watching. I am blown away that when Obama made his day view that all of the American soldiers did not get up and walk away. I find it so hard to believe that the soldiers at Forthood did not fight back at this Jhad instead laid down on the floor to be shot in the backs. Most of all I can not believe that any soldier would have shown up today with out a weapon.They don't make them like they use too. I carry ever where I go. The Army has no bullets and the soldiers can not be trusted to have gun,but they can only have guns when it is time for this government to have them killed. but everyone else can have a gun. What is someone affraid that a soldiers might shoot himself in the foot. And I have ask this question did anyone notice besides me that only white people got shot? And how come the lady who was having a baby that got shot and they both died no one even counted them both nor did the news speak about this guy killing children to this day. I have no respect for our US soldiers untile they stand down under this Usurper.You can't fix stupid.

posted by : mike
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 08:21 PM

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