This may be a tough topic but let’s address the Fort Hood shooting and media/populist reaction. Major Nidal Malik Hasan attacked fellow comrades last week leading to over 40 casualties including 13 deaths. Many news organizations immediately started questioning his heritage (Arab descent), his possible connections to extreme Muslim groups, and positing whether or not this was a terrorist attack. We all know this was a deplorable and cowardly act, so we don’t need to focus on that. Let’s instead talk about any of the following topics:
1) Does the media question other attackers connections to extreme groups (ex. abortion clinics) and therefore was their immediate reaction fair?
2) Not too long ago an American soldier killed 5 comrades at a base in Baghdad (1). Was this covered similarly to Hasan?
3) Should more attention be paid to stress surrounding military life during a time of war (ex. Stop loss)?
Let’s avoid “hindsight 20/20” conclusions such as, “the warning signs were there and Hasan should have been removed before he had a chance to carry out this act.”
Source:
1) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/world/middleeast/12iraq.html?_r=1&hp
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He was a psychiatrist (trained through a military Health Academy) and was 39. It seems unlikely that he was a terrorist. Seems much more likely that he was a psychiatrist who was seeing people coming back from where he was about to be deployed (hell in his mind) and the stress was too much to bear. Again, this is highly unlikely to be terrorism. Combine education and injustice and these kind of acts are bound to occur. Does this act make the man a patriot or anti-patriot? Patriot in the sense he may have been acting in the name of justice, anti-patriot in that he was acting against the state.
ReplyDeleteAnswer: neither. He's a man who was put into a very difficult situation, internal strife manifested as external disaster.
The interesting thing to watch now is what the military does to prevent such occurrences again.
ReplyDeleteIn World War 2, our commanders would take German ethnics to the Pacific and Japanese ethnics to the European Theatre. Current commanders might now implement changes with this model in mind.
I haven't read much of the coverage of this.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how the media has covered other attacks that aren't explicitly 'terrorism' (i.e. abortion clinics). But from the little I have seen or heard, it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. I doubt the previous attack you cited was covered the same, at least in terms of volume, because I had already forgotten that one. This one I don't think I will be forgetting as quickly.
One thing that jumps out at me about this one is the storyline that there's a possible or even likely conflict of interest for muslims fighting in the military. I've never heard about that for Christians. Granted, we haven't fought in any wars during my lifetime against largely Christian nations. Maybe similar story lines have been written in the past, but I would assume at most it's based on race (i.e. Japanese Americans in WWII), rather than religion.
It's based on loyalty which is directly influenced by ideology which is directly influenced by religion and upbringing.
ReplyDeleteThe interesting question becomes, what about human freedom? The military requires machine-like efficiency from its personnel and freedom is therefore limited. It's not necessarily a bad thing though; the situation seems to require it.
I don't know many people in the military, but those I do know for the most part are pretty reasonable, well spoken individuals willing to discuss things even if they don't agree with me. In my experience (which I want to reiterate is very limited), when these individuals are among their military friends and coworkers, they show a different side, one that is derogatory, racist, and offensive to people who people who share the ethnicity or religion of the countries enemies. As Randall said about machine-like efficiency, this attitude may to some extent make things work more smoothly in a warzone, maybe its just an example of Groupthink, or maybe its just bad sampling on my part. Regardless, this attitude, if prevalent through the military, would put a Muslim of Middle Eastern descent in an enviroment where his religion and ethnicity were openly criticized by colleagues.
ReplyDeleteWhile this was a terrible trajedy, and isn't excusable, when I first heard the news and who it was, it struck me as much more like recent school shootings than a terrorist attack.
Well said MrL. My brother actually is in the Air Force so I have limited personal experience (two conversations on paramilitary forces in the last 3-4 years). I've met some people through school (VA medical center), but the focus was not on politics in those conversations obviously.
ReplyDeleteThe key to answering this question is to start at the top and work your way down. Look at leadership and read first person documents. But even before you do that, ask, "what would I do in the same situation?" Maybe you'll be surprised about what you read after or maybe you won't, but either way you'll learn something interesting.
Randall, where would you suggest finding first person documents?
ReplyDelete