by reneeschaferhorton on Nov.06, 2009, under Bad Religion, Life
Religion gone bad
National Public Radio this morning had a report that included interviews with doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter in yesterday’s Fort Hood massacre. That report came before employees at WR were put on lock down as far as talking to anyone, including the press, and, according to NPR, the FBI.
I can’t find the report on their Web site, although this story mentions briefly how Hasan was reprimanded for proselytizing about Islam when he was in training at the Uniformed Service University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. Even though I’m lacking evidence that what I heard in the car this morning wasn’t a product of my imagination, I’m sticking my neck out with a big question: Why didn’t the folks at Walter Reed report this guy as crazy if what they recall happening indeed did happen?
I think it is because there is a fine line between racial/ethnic/religious profiling and pointing out the obvious and people are really afraid of crossing over to the wrong side. Since 9/11 people have been afraid of appearing racist where Muslims are concerned. There’s good reason for that, such as the case of the flying imams.
So, instead of appearing intolerant, people stay quiet, even – sometimes especially – other Muslims. They don’t want to be judged by their religion so they are reluctant to judge others by that rubric, even when they know that the person they are dealing with is dangerous.
A few months after 9/11, I was working on an analysis piece for the Texas Catholic, and I interviewed a Dallas imam about this very thing. I asked him why imams would keep quiet if they knew someone nefarious was in their congregations. He said that if a dangerous Muslim was at a mosque, the best thing was to hope that he – in hearing the moderate, educated teaching preached at the majority of American mosques – would either change his stripes or, “in most cases, we just hope he leaves.” The community wants the crazy guy out of their religious space because, the imam said, lunatics are just as likely to kill other Muslims as anyone else.
In other words, moderate Muslims are trying to protect themselves as much as the rest of us, but in so doing – in not directly going after the crazies among them – they are putting others at risk. Ditto for your average citizen, or the doctors who knew Hasan. Who wants to be called intolerant or a racist? According to the NPR story, Hasan was cold, horrible with patients and fanatical about his religion. Doctors would talk about him in the hallway, the report said, asking themselves if he could be a terrorist or if he was just a really bad doctor.
Who knows if that is what drew him to kill people at Fort Hood? We won’t know until the investigation is complete, or until he talks. (And once he gets a lawyer, fat chance of him talking). But what we do know is that he was not a very warm, caring doctor – even by military standards – and people noticed that early on. They noticed that he seemed more concerned with his religion than his schooling and treatment of soldiers. They noticed that he used medical lecture slot to preach the Quran. And yet he continued at the medical school, worked at the hospital, moved on like low-achieving students who are socially promoted because the grade they are leaving just wants them out of their hair.
What happened at Fort Hood shows that common sense really needs a shot in the arm. We don’t necessarily have to go all Hannity on folks, but we need to stop being so afraid of speaking up when craziness is staring us in the face.
36 Comments for this entry
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November 6th, 2009 on 9:41 am
It will be interesting to see if this turns into a muslim/christian/American/Middle East thing, or just a mental illness thing in the popular imagination.
November 6th, 2009 on 9:59 am
My question is, how did this zealot rise to the rank of major.
Also, on the news last night it was reported that several of his fellow officers reported him saying some very disturbing things, things which a lesser ranking person would have been courtmartialed for. Rank evidently has it’s privileges.
November 6th, 2009 on 10:29 am
I think if you have a medical degree you start right out as a captain. Then, if you’re around long enough, don’t they either have to get rid of you (RIF you) or promote you?
November 6th, 2009 on 11:06 am
Pretty much, and doctors are hard to keep around. Probably fast tracked him.
November 6th, 2009 on 10:20 am
Why is this breakdown in common sense only applicable to Islam and not Christianity ?
They had to have a major investigation of Christian proselytizing in the Air Force Academy and they still haven’t cleared it up – the prosecutor was fired for trying.
It seems if you object to Muslims proselytizing you are exhibiting common sense, and if you object to Christians proselytizing you are an atheistic secular nut job.
It has nothing to do with racism – it is that we as a society will do everything we can to protect religious nuttery because so many of us have an interest in protecting our own particular brand of religious nuttery.
Sometime that bites you.
Military Religious Freedom Foundation
November 6th, 2009 on 11:00 am
I agree. How could you overlook ANY religious nutbag, then promote the SOB! Red flags should have went up all over the place when this kook converted and started spouting Islamic rhetoric. I’d feel the same way if he was quoting The Revelation.
November 6th, 2009 on 11:21 am
The crusade for a Christian military
November 6th, 2009 on 7:23 pm
he did not cnvert ……… always a muslim.
“proselytizing” is not the issue. murdering soldier is.
November 6th, 2009 on 1:11 pm
Tip: I think they need to look into any proselytizing, but you have to differentiate between someone saying “Be a Christian because we think its great ” and “Be a Christian or you’re going to die.” Or, for instance, if a Chrisitan dr. was giving a presentation at a medical school and he turned it into a treatise about the bible, such has Hasan did with his presentation. Sharing your faith is not necessarily radical. In fact, it isn’t , most of the time. But sharing a version of your faith that shows you are unstable (not knowing the proper time and place, for instance) and connectin your faith to the need to kill people – that’s different. But over all, no one should push their beleifs on anyone, imho. As St. Francis once said, “Preach the Gospel always. If necessary, use words.” Your actions are what would draw anyone to your way of life …. likewise those actions, if crazy, give a bad name to all normal believers.
November 6th, 2009 on 1:55 pm
I agree with you wholeheartedly. If we can’t mention God in schools, then a man in a position of authority at an Army base should not be allowed to talk about his religion while on the job.
November 6th, 2009 on 2:56 pm
I think they need to look into any proselytizing, but you have to differentiate between someone saying “Be a Christian because we think its great ” and “Be a Christian or you’re going to die.”
How about “Be a Christian or you’re going to hell” ? Because that sounds familiar to me – I even remember it from a military chaplain.
The point being, of course, is that the military CANNOT exercise the “common sense” that you wisely recommend and weed out nutty Muslims because it would also have to weed out the nutty Christians with which it is, literally, infested and who have powerful political friends.
November 6th, 2009 on 7:15 pm
Yea, because just last month a nutty Christian gunned down 12 soldiers at Ft. Hood.
Proselytizing is not gunning down people and the person proselytizing is not by default a murderer.
you seem to have a major problem with religion tippy ……. and your tirades against religion should be throwing up flags.
November 6th, 2009 on 8:12 pm
Yea, because just last month a nutty Christian gunned down 12 soldiers at Ft. Hood.
No – the last I remember was in Wichita (Dr. Tiller) but I don’t keep exact count.
Of course I have a problem with religion – look at this incident.
November 7th, 2009 on 11:38 am
tiller did not die from his wounds ……… and i do not remember if the shooter was ranting anything religous at the time.
let’s stay with apples to apples.
November 7th, 2009 on 12:21 pm
may 2009 ….. tiller ….. i forgot that he got popped again.
still, let stay with apples to apples.
November 7th, 2009 on 1:33 pm
“you seem to have a major problem with religion tippy ……. ”
So, tippy has a problem, but people who believe in talking bushes and spontaneously multiplying dead fish, they’re completely rational?
November 7th, 2009 on 3:02 pm
rational? what is rational lefty?
most beliefs are based in faith ……… faith does not need rationality to sustain it. irrational? it is in the eye of the beholder.
when it preaches the violent overthrow of a nation and the subsequent conversion of all at the point of a “sword” it is not just irrational, it is dangerous and needs to be eradicated regardless of what it worships.
November 6th, 2009 on 11:10 am
i heard that Mjr. Hasan was adament about not being deployed because of the soliders he counseled at the facilities he worked in. I have not heard or read anything about his theorized muslim proselytizing and so what if he did, the military proselytizes christianity every day with their pledge of aligence to the country and god.
From what I can tell the guy really wasn’t in the military to fight merely to serve his country and get a degree. Can’t fault him for that and the fact that he took some heat for being muslim couldn’t have helped much.
He snapped and if there was true conern that he would have gone this far he surely would have been under survellinece. He did not have that kind of history and did not show signs of this kind of violence from what I have seen so why would anyone think he would’ve gone to this extreme?
November 6th, 2009 on 11:29 am
The field of psychiatry has, statistically, the highest rate of suicide out of any and all professions. Making this terribly tragic situation into yet another “religiously nutty man of middle eastern descent and therefore more reason to stay at war with the entire Middle Eastern region because we will never be safe” is not only insulting to the intelligence but is just becoming way too tired already. Even if all the anecdotal evidence were videotaped and put out there in a rational manner it still looks like a very familiar agenda to me. At least it looks like it’s not another gun control/high school shooting senseless murder. I’m all for keeping psychiatrists from owning guns. Too bad we can’t keep them from messing up people’s heads and giving them drugs, tho…
November 6th, 2009 on 1:12 pm
I thought it was dentistry with the highest suicide rate.
November 9th, 2009 on 2:34 am
It is indeed Dentistry. We learned this when I was in Nursing School and working in Mental Health.
November 6th, 2009 on 11:34 am
The field of psychiatry has, statistically, the highest rate of suicide out of any and all professions.
Yes suicide – not shooting rampages. That honor goes elsewhere and we are far to familiar with where, unfortunately.
November 6th, 2009 on 7:40 pm
where?
November 6th, 2009 on 12:53 pm
Murderers are often not ‘crazy’ but hateful.
“Crazy’ or ‘insane’ may be the wrong words to use when describing a mass murderer. Many are very much aware of their actions and the outcome.
November 6th, 2009 on 3:26 pm
I wonder if people will start to “go military”, as they used to “go postal”.
November 6th, 2009 on 5:03 pm
“I wonder if people will start to “go military”, as they used to “go postal”.”
We refer to that as “PTSD”.
November 9th, 2009 on 2:40 am
Lets not give PTSD such a bad rap. PTS is mostly turned inward.
The medical profession does very little vetting of its own. Years ago while working on the Psychiatric Unit at St. Marys Hospital, the staff all took the MMPI test that screens for mental illness. We would post the results in the coffee room and then guess who they belonged to. We did this for fun. Guess what? We could never get the Psychiatrists to play with us!
Do you think Glenn Beck would take it?
November 6th, 2009 on 7:20 pm
PTSD ………….. a real nice bag to tie up a lot of problems and excuses in.
the legit PTSDs should not be entangled with the home grown jihadists and just plain dirt murderers.
November 7th, 2009 on 12:04 pm
Religions are all myths, encouraging people to believe fantasies. Then we act surprised when people extend these fantasies back into our real world, such as yelling “God is great” and then shooting people, or flying planes in skyscrapers thinking that it will earn them 72 virgins in a mythical afterlife. Why can’t we just come out and say it that religions are often very dangerous?
November 7th, 2009 on 12:31 pm
“Why can’t we just come out and say it that religions are often very dangerous?”
and yet, in this country, more people are killed every day in car accidents, drowning, electrocutions, falls, heart attacks, cancer etc. other than from religious anything.
“very dangerous” let’s keep an eye on the ones preaching the direct violent overthrow of this nation and the complete conversion of all at the sword.
would that be Christianity?
would that be buddhists?
would that be hindus?
would that be athiests?
would that be mormon?
let’s see …….. i think it starts with an “i” ……. let me think now.
November 7th, 2009 on 1:29 pm
I’m willing to say that car accidents, water, electricity, falling, cardiac disease and cancer are dangerous, Moppy; along with religion.
November 7th, 2009 on 3:07 pm
“Moppy; along with religion” i agree within the conidtions below ……..
when it preaches the violent overthrow of a nation and the subsequent conversion of all at the point of a “sword” it is not just irrational, it is dangerous and needs to be eradicated regardless of what it worships.
let’s include communism, a form of religion, which has slaughtered tens of millions by its own communist leaders.
November 7th, 2009 on 9:30 pm
This is exciting news. If Communism is a religion, then I’m gonna call my house a church and start claiming tax-free status!
BTW, Moppy; I’ll be heading down to Ft. Huachuca for the annual protest against the School of the Americas later this month. Can we count on your support? Cash is always nice.
November 8th, 2009 on 2:22 pm
lefty, i already posted elsewhere about this but …….. of course you can always count on my support for the School of the Americas. they do great work. God bless ‘em.
“If Communism is a religion, then I’m gonna call my house a church and start claiming tax-free status!” go for it. i support anyone that can short change this gutter regime of tax dollars.
November 9th, 2009 on 2:44 am
What happened to the good ole war on Communism? Did Socialism bump it? Where is Joe McCarthy when we need him? tsk!
Oh yeah, we can’t fight communism anymore because we borrow money from them, and they make our clothes. China, Vietnam
November 9th, 2009 on 7:27 am
we surrenderd to the communist whe we started to supporting their economies.
put an American out of work …….. save a buck and half by buying a shirt made in china sold in china’s outlet shop called whore-mart.
socialism ……… communist toddler.