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Fort Hood Shooting: The Aftermath
Authorities are still piecing together a troubling portrait of the man thought to be the killer of at least 13 people in Thursday’s mass shooting at Fort Hood. Follow the breaking details about the victims, suspected shooter, and government response.
At least 13 people were killed and 30 more wounded in a shooting at Ford Hood in Texas on Thursday, and authorities are still piecing together a troubling portrait of the man thought responsible on Friday. The Army says the gunman is Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist born in Virginia and raised in the United States. Hasan, who is alive but in a coma and on a ventilator, allegedly shouted "Allahu Akbar!" before starting his shooting rampage, which is Arabic for "God is great."
The base commander says the gunman used “a very calm and measured approach” in his shooting. He was exiting the building when police officers Kimberly Munley and Mark Todd arrived, and he shot Munley in the thigh. Hasan allegedly then began to reload his weapon, and Munley shot him four times. An Army officer then used his belt to make a tourniquet on Munley's leg. She's in stable condition.
Click Below to View Photos from the Fort Hood Shooting
Hasan, whom officials now say acted alone, allegedly carried two weapons, one of them semi-automatic, which explains the high casualty count. Hasan, 39, is a psychiatrist recently reassigned from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., to work with soldiers at Fort Hood. His cousin said at Walter Reed, Hasan treated soldiers returning from war with combat stress and PTSD and was afraid of his own impending deployment to Afghanistan. Hasan had recently undergone a peer review; his fellow doctors found no fault with the care he provided.
His aunt told The Washington Post that her nephew tried to get out of his Army contract for several years but couldn't. She says he felt harassed because of his Muslim faith. Hasan reportedly drew the attention of federal law enforcement six months ago for online posts about suicide bombings and other threats including "a blog that equates suicide bombers with a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save the lives of his comrades." An imam at a Maryland mosque he attended said that Hasan was a lifelong Muslim, but showed little sign of political or religious zealotry.
Hasan's cousin Nader Hasan described the Afghanistan deployment as Hasan's "worst nightmare." Nader says his cousin was dealing with harassment from his colleagues and had hired a military attorney to help him. "We are shocked. We just found out on the news that he was being deployed," Nader Hasan told Fox News. One of Hasan's military co-workers told Fox News' Shepard Smith that the major was "aggressive" and cited religious callings as a Muslim, and Smith read accounts of racially charged harassment that Hasan allegedly underwent. Watch both interviews below.
On Thursday morning, Major Nidal Malik Hasan gave most of his belongings to his neighbor. Awhile later, a security-camera video showed him at a convenience store on Thursday morning buying snacks in a white robe and skullcap—traditional Muslim garb.
NPR talked to two psychiatrists who trained with Hasan in 2007, one of whom said that when he saw the news, he thought, "That completely fits the person I knew." The doctors said Hasan could be belligerent and "once gave a bizarre lecture to the medical staff in which he said the Quran teaches that infidels should have their heads cut off and set on fire." Around the same time, he regularly called the war on terror "a war against Islam." But Hasan's bosses at Walter Reed said he did a good job.
Hidden Camera Footage Allegedly From Day of Shooting
Suspect Made 'Outlandish' Comments
Cousin: Hasan is a 'Good American'
John Talks Joe
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let's put this terrorist in GITMO asap
He's no terrorist just because he happened to be Muslim. He is an army officer with a decent track record. He had psycholigical issues that may have been chemical, genetic, and possibly worsened by people like you in the army who hassled him about the religion he happened to be born into, since most of them were born into a different one. People like you are the real problem with this country. You are why there are a minuscule minority of Muslims who wish to destroy America.
This only proves that religion is a plague on humanity. I hope that at least some good can come of this atrocity and we begin to dismantle all religions, everywhere. Islam and Scientology are among the most dangerous and should be the first to go, but the other major religions like Judaism and Christianity must be abandoned if we, as a society, can ever hope to be ruled by reason, logic, and wisdom. Folks, no matter which way you slice it delusion is delusion and we have too many other issues to be concerned with to be dealing with warrantless barbarism.
Don't let anyone ever tell you they know what happens after you die, because they don't. Anyone who claims to know is 1) lying and 2) psychotic.
Be strong enough to know the universe isn't that small or simple. Use your own thoughts and convictions to give rise to spirituality unique to yourself and make your own reasons to live life as a good person. It's time we, as a nation, stop clinging fearfully to these ancient fictions and start being spiritually self-sufficient.
He absolutely is a terrorist, an Islamic terrorist. His actions prove it. Your denial of the fact, that his total consuming belief in all Islamic teachings was the motivating force behind his bloodshed, is the attitude that destroys American freedom. People like you are the real problem because you underestimate the danger and are not willing to confront the issue of Islamic intollerance. Like this terrorist you blame America as a justification for murder.
Hotfrostins and cesspool,
He was no more a terrorist than Timothy Mc Veigh or the members of the Aryan Nation. So if we are going to take the Muslims to GITMO let's round up those racist White boys too.
Ever wonder how many people on this earth have lost there life in all of time for nothing more than RELIGION.
How about how many have lost their lives living in Atheist societies like China and the Soviet Union?
I understand many of the social and political reasons of the Muslim world and it's suffering.
But what I do not understand is how a man raised in this country who was blessed with all it has to offer could do this.
Why is it always Muslims? I don't get it. It has almost become a cliche. It is so frustrating. One tries to keep an open mind but it is so difficult.
Oh Hawnz, it is not "always Muslims". It is, very often, fundamentalists of just about any religion. Then again, we still don't know about what just happened in Florida, do we?
FL is a dangerous place to live, despite the PR efforts... it's gotten really bad during the Crist administration, too. I know, I've lived here for 15 years. Ans the 'Tan One' really thinks he has a chance to be our next U.S. Senator! My biggest question is if he'll stay in that staged marriage after defeat?
Timothy McVeigh was not a muslim.
Always a muslim huh...are you sure you want to go there? How about abortion doctor killers? Bet none of them were muslims but in fact republican christians. Does the name Timothy McVeigh sound muslim to you? I could go on, but you see my point!
Why don't you go on and on?
Come on, name some more.
A couple of christian fundamentalists in as many years?
Islamofascists are doing this on a daily basis all over the world by the hundreds.
Please spare us the Moral Relativism.
Or David Koresh, Jim Jones, Charles Manson, Albert DeSalvo etc etc
This is for escomments; Have you ever heard of the Crusades?
And obviously, you have never watched Monty Python, or for sure you would have heard of the Spanish Inquisition. And what do you think the Rev.John Hagee has in mind with his whole "Christians for Israel", gig? Ya' know what that's about, bunky? Their intentions are to exacerbate the rift between Muslims and Jews so as to bring the great conflagration in the Mid-East that will bring about their rapture.
In other words, stow your Christian holier than thou, crap. It ain't gonna wash here. These new fundamentalist Christians are the bane of mankind. Pound for pound, worse than any Muslim.
johnie2xs
Are you really trying to justify Islamic terrorism by pointing out Christians were bad too?
You are actually going back to the crusades for this?
Maybe you need to be checked by a shrink.
Preferably one who is not a western civilization loathing Muslim Extremist like they allowed in the army.
You aren.t going to strap on bombs and go to a mall or anything are you?
Didn't know Tim McVeigh was a muslim.
Thank you, I was thinking the same thing.
You all may be right. But the McVeighs and the Doc Killers are few and far between.
This constant barrage usually comes from a similiar source.
If this was happening within the Christian community I would be the first one to change that fact.
No, you wouldn't because it happens all the time in the "Christian " community. How about all those good Christian mothers who lill their children because some god's voice told them to. How is that one bit different than this?
Aside from McVeigh- who did not perpetrate his crime in the name of any higher being. Most of the acts of mass terrorism in which several people were killed have been perpetrated by Muslims-usually against other Muslims, but a fair amount against Christendom as well. To tiptoe around the fact that there is a muderous strain inside of Islam is ridiculous.
The religion only grew through military conquest. Mohammed attacked Mecca and then sent out "emissaries" to Egypt, Constantinople, Ctestiphon(Baghdad) telling the rulers to convert or face conversion by the sword. Initially, Christianity spread only by word and deed until it was so prevalent that Constatntine needed to recognize it as a matter of political expediency to garner support for a war he was waging- that took 300 years . For the Muslims, the political mixed with the religious began from the inception.
To equate the two is ridiculous in today's world. Abortion bombers are routinely condemned by all mainstream Christians as are the murders of George Tiller and the doctor in Pensacola. No where in the New Testament does it say it is OK to kill anyone, in fact the opposite is preached almost to the opposite extreme by Jesus. The same cannot be said for Islam.
Yes, they are. And, as a percentage, Muslim extremists are just as rare as KKK members are. Get your facts straight.
@BCaldwell. I take issue with this statement "Christianity spread only by word and deed", unless by deed your are including the "Christian" crusades. The only difference between Christianity and Islam boils down to the interpretation very few events.
Yes Roadrunner you may be right, but today you don't see Klansmen or anyone professing to be a sympathizer with the Klan flying planes into buildings and blowing up train stations all with the xpressed purpose to kill as many people as possible to inflict terror.
Also, initially, Christianity did not spread through violent means unless you count the oppression of its adherents by the Romans. from the death of Christ until 323 AD you cannot name one conquest of Christianity that was violent, it was only when Constantine made it the state religion that it was compromised. The crusades despite popular sentiment in many quarters was actually started as a defense against Islam and its violence and to recover those territories that were once part of Christendom like Jerusalem and Palestine that the Arabic Muslims took in war....see battle of Yarmuk if you need a reference. Also see the Mamaluk invasion of Egypt and the slaughter of the Copts. Please don't play with me on this history end.....you're just not qualified!!!!!!
I think everyone is over thinking this. Mental illness is mental illness is mental illness. C'mon! Killing yourself and/or killing others in a rampage is the most extreme thing a person can do.
The fact that he was Muslim and in the Army are just the flourishes on the story. Disgruntled non-Muslim postal workers, accountants, IT guys, college students, and high school kids have all gone on killing sprees in the last 15 years.
It is what it is. A mentally ill person snaps.
I agree with you. However, I think this provides a good opportunity for those who hate/fear/distrut any faith to point fingers and launch into their screed.
The fact is, this guy was a psycho and a mass murderer.
A multi-faceted answer is really necessary, but one thing to consider is, of the three major religions, The Muslim Religion is the only one that never went through any type of reformation, hence they are still somewhere in the fourteenth century, or so.
Kind of like your racist White thinking.
So the kids who went on a killing spree at Columbine were Muslims? The guy who went on a killing spree at Virginia Tech was Muslim? The post office workers who went on killing sprees were Muslim? News flash to the world.
timothy mcveigh....the weatherundergrown....the symbionese liberation army.......???????????????????
You forgot to say Why is it always Muslims or White men! I don't get it either. White males get the best this nation has to offer yet it is always a cliche. I try to keep an open mind but it is so difficult.
What bothers me the most is the folks who love being in the armed forces when they are attending medical school on the government's dime, but suddenly become "anti-war" , hire lawyers to get out, etc. when it is time to perform the duties they signed up to do in exchange.
All veterans and miltary should absolutely receive educational benefits as it is part of their contract. But they should also follow deployment orders as also stated in the very same contract. Not sure how any one can rationalize any other logic.
Honestly - I bet if they had to be deployed *before* they could get the education, a lot fewer people would sign up. It's a lot like smoking, drinking, driving too fast. Most of us have done these things, but we bet that we weren't the ones who would get hurt by it. Most of my life,the military was a pretty safe way to get a free education. My brother just had to spend a few months each year on an aircraft carrier, and that was the worst that happened to him. Had real combat seemed more likely, I doubt he'd have signed up.
Not many people ever really understand or feel the possibility of death until it is literally right on top of them. I've talked to men who fought in Vietnam who thought it was no that big a deal until they or a friend got shot. We all operate on massive denial of person death, and there would be no military if we didn't.
It takes years to get through medical school. It's possible that in those years, even on the government's dime, that personal growth and life experience teaches these folks that yep, anti-war is a good philosophy that makes sense.
Your idea that a person remains the same over many years, holding the same beliefs, is false.
Yep, Med School takes years and many thousands of dollars. And yep, people's philosophies change. But he signed a legal contract. Did he not understand when he signed up for all those educational benes he was now a member of the ARMED forces? I am anti-war. It is not something that crept up on me. It never entered my mind to join ROTC and enter the miltary just to reap free schooling and then murder/wound people because I now did not want to go to war. He was smart enough to read the part of the contract where he gets to go to med school for free but not smart enough to read the part where he was required to enter ARMED combat as a result?
There are many ways to be a coward, none of them equate to being anti-war. The man lacks any principles. Use whatever excuse is handy at the time - I am being picked on, I am now ultra relgious, whatever, But when it was time for him pay back his debt he chose to mow down scores of people waiting for a medical check-up.If he was so conflicted and against the war he could have found another way out - like refusing to go and sitting in a brig - safe from harming himself or others. If all else failed he could have put that snazzy new gun's barrel in his mouth and just pulled the trigger once. No excuse at all. He is a lying coward who only wanted to play when things were going his way. When it changed he threw the temper tantrum of all times. No excuse at all.
Being a Muslim may have given him extra fuel for his anger, but this guy was clearly messed up. Whether he would have committed the same acts had he not been Muslim is something we can never know, but a screwed up guy with deeply-held beliefs being asked to go and fight against the people he identifies strongly with is a recipe for disaster. I'm not making excuses for him, just trying to understand how he got from point A to point Z in his thinking.
Not all Muslims are nut cases. Not all nut cases are Muslims.
Problem is, I think we are trying to make sense of a senseless act.
No matter how much of an explanation we will be given, in the long run, only this man will actually know what was in his mind and what his real plan and reason was. And, IMO, even he may be about as confused over what he did and why he did it as the rest of the world is.
His acts, as a Muslim, have only harmed the acceptance of Muslims as true Americans and have set the Muslims back many years.
Only if Americans can't think clearly. Any fundamentalist religion or ideology is as damaging as the next, as an excuse for bad behavior.
So what the boys at Columbine, Tim Mc Veigh, David Koresh, Jim Jones, and the hundreds of other White males who have done senseless crimes have not set the White male acceptence back and harmed their reputation, so how would one Muslim American born set back the Muslim community. If some one is going to discriminate against a group of people, it won't be just all of a sudden, it will be because they were racist bigots to begin with.
Senseless is right! Despite his religion and whatever his grievances, how could a guy - a PSYCHIATRIST no less! - think that the way to deal with his situation is to gun down a bunch of innocent people who did nothing to him! This is just mind blowing! In one way, this was really no different than the other mass shootings (Columbine, Va. Tech) in that it's someone who is f***ed up and decides to kill as many people as possible, but on the other hand, it wasn't young men in high school or college whose brains are still potentially in flux, but a mature, college-educated PSYCHIATRIST! And since he's Muslim (although it really could have been any religion/ethnicity), he has likely ruined all the progress that Muslims have made over the past 8 years. Horrible.
And here we find the problem with worshipful attutitude towards human intelligence or high educational achievement that some people see as the ultimate "good". It can only take you so far. Character is far more important
You would be surprised how many Psych's (both MD's and PHD's) are borderline unstable. I've had many work for me over the years and I can count the number of well-adjusted ones on the fingers of one hand. Why do you think many of them pursue that line of work and study but to seek solutions to their own issues.
The MSM is beginning to make excuses for this guy. Dear God, is no one accountable for their behavior at any level?
Thanks for knocking down that Straw Man. Are you talking about anyone in particular? Didnt think so. Now go back to church.
So, were all this sheep busy this Friday night?
Gawker.com now has documents showing this dude was part of Obama's National Security Transition team. Now, doesn't that make everyone feel safer!
Rhonda, you are a terrorist plant with a mission to make conservatives look humiliatingly ridiculous. I won't believe you weren't sent her by North Korea until you produce your American Birth Certificate, signed by a doctor, with S&H Green Stamps attached. Your North Korean birth certificate is already on the web, you imposter!
CO-SIGN.
rhonda,
A research genius, you ain't. He was in the audience at a meetings. See the following:
"FRIDAY MORNING UPDATE: Daniel Kaniewski, the institute's deputy director, confirms that Hasan attended task force meetings as an audience member, and stresses that he was not a member of the task force. "All of our events are open to the public," Kaniewski says, "and when someone RSVPs we put their name in the [report] so everyone knows who was in the room."
http://tinyurl.com/ygg54rf
When I read comments such as yours, I don't feel safer. I fear you and those like you more than I would fear this man, frankly. You are like him in your own way - determined that what you believe is the truth and nothing else matters.
"I fear you and those like you more than I would fear this man."
You say this just after "this man" murdered 13 innocent men and wome and tried to kill 30 more. What's it like to be a complete f#cking moron?
maladapted,
We don't know, we are waiting for you to give us your report on being a "complete f#cking moron"
Rhonda don't you have a corner to get back to? I am sure someone will pay your going rate of a dollar an hour for your services, because God knows you don't have anything else going for you.
thanku13 -
you might want to give some thought to replies that are 100% ad hominem. This is what thirteen-year-olds do. If you don't think there's anything dubious about about preferring to face a multiple murderer rather than someone who disagrees with you, tell us why. Defaulting to an I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I reply tells more about you than you want be known.
If you are in fact 13 or under, never mind, no offense.
I don't understand. If he wanted out since 2001, why couldn't he get out, I mean that is around 8 years.
Now reports are saying he was a career soldier for around 20 years. So why couldn't he get out?
I would like to see more information about that.
If you sign a loan repayment agreement with the Federal Government, you had better abide by the terms or they will chew you into little tiny pieces.
Precisely, the military has NO need for people whao are trying to get out on a regular basis . If he wanted out badly enough, he had his opportunity. If this is the case, it means somewhere along the line he re-upped, probably twice.Stop/Loss would not have affected him because he was not part of a combat brigade. If he was a big enough pain he could have beed discharged easily. This guy wanted to stay in the military.
I guess it is possible, no one really expected these wars to go on for so long, it has been around 8 years. They were supposed to get in and get out, no wonder the stress is getting hard to manage.
Once you have the courses, credentials and experience, you think if you really tried to get out you could, and even pay back what was owing, or pay to get out of the contract. There should be some way to get out, so people don't feel so boxed in.
Awol would be the way to go if you had to, not what he did.
The only way this guy had any commitment would have been if he had signed a 4 year commitment. If for instance he had wanted out since 2001 and his contract came up in 2005 he could simply have chosen not to re-up. He could have been discharged- possibly honorably and he could have gone on to make the bucks in private practice as a psychologist. He had ample opportunity to get out at 39 years old. This guy wanted to stay in.
This shooting was not about religion. It was one more deranged suicidal psychiatrist. They have the highest suicide rate among professionals. Because of the perfect image created by high paid K Street lobbyists few in the population dare to question what they say or do. They predict the future in courts with a straight face and are defended on these blogs with a vehemence usually only seen among Obama kool-aid drinkers. Psychiatrists do more harm in the name of good than a thousand gunmen. Intolerant conformist journalists (many of whom take psychiatrist drugs) refuse to question these charlatans. Working with police these control freaks will take all freedoms if you let them.
menckenlite, do you belong to the club of Tom Cruise? You seem to have drank HIS koolaid rants against psychotherapy.
The thing I do not understand is that he would never ever have been in a forward unit. he would have been in a rear medical unit. what the hell did he do this for. sad sick man
Can somone who was actually in the military explain what role a PSYCHIATRIST plays in a war zone? Isn't he/she usually left behind in the medical unit? They aren't really fighting or being placed in a position to be fired at so I don't understand why a doctor would fear being deployed.
Additionally this guy has been in the military his entire adult life so why freak out now? Finally, how many 39 year old male doctors have never been married. He is in the military and a doctor, that's traditionally a "chick magnet". It's strange that he wasn't in a relationship at his age. Lots of people who go into psychiatry are trying to solve their own personal mental disorders or grew up with family members who had mental disorders.
This whole thing is sad, those people didn't need to die he could have simply committed suicide.
Once again, "religion poisons everything". And they are "always Muslims" because their holy books instruct them to kill the "infidel". That would be you.
And me. This is not to say all religions don't have their extremists, but it is to
say religion in general has become an antiquated modality for dealing with modern problems. Death to religion.
So then, we should not expect this sort of atrocious behavior from atheists and agnostics, correct?
Your statement is a "religious" statement. You are speaking from what you believe.
I can, because I am a former Marine and have been in forward units. Psychiatrists and psychologists have been in theatre since WWII although never in a forward position they are usually consigned to a medical facility far away from the fighting . Sometimes they make special vists to MASH units ....just like in the TV show, but as a rule they stay at or near a real hospital taking care of their patients and conducting therapy or what have you. If this guy was going to Afghanistan he was going to Bagram or Iraq that would've been Baghdad ....although that seems odd to me because most of the PTS guys are first sent back to Kuwait and then shuttled off to Germany or the States. The real head cases like sociopaths and other anti-social types are sent directly to the States to places like Ft Hood or Leavenworth or for that matter Walter Reed. It might be better for us to wait and find out more about this guy's orders before we start to figure him out. Something about this is not right.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------
Nov/7/2009/1:00 A.M.
The USA without being muslims had been killing thousands
of persons in the Middle East for many years.Does this makes
the USA a sick demented country like this poor demented in-
dividual?
The only ones responsibles for these atrocities are
Bush/Cheney.
George H.Bush in 1991 screwed up.He allowed Saddan
Hussein to live.In 2003 his inept son George W.Bush,a lier and
a criminal.Beause his personal vendetta with Saddan Hussain
made everything worse.
We need to be prepared for 17 more years ( in Iraq and
Afghanistan ) of these Bush/Cheney consequences.
Are we going to keep printing money and keep borrowing
money from the chinese so that we can keep killing muslims?
It is about time that we start acting responsible.Bush/Cheney
need to be prosecuted.When a leader lies,steals the USA
presidency and makes the USA a number one killing and tor-
turing country means that he needs to be prosecuted.Tricky
Dicky Richard Nixon should had been sent to jail,he was also
a lier.Bill Clinton should had been prosecuted according to him
his dick is more important than the USA.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ -----------------
Psychiatrist, muslim, arab. Mmmm.
Psychiatrists are very troubled people, lots of them are "certifiable"
Muslim is a religion , religions had generated a lot of horrors on mankind.
Arab have never been know for treating others nicely.
This guy was all of the above, and even though he was born in the US, his last words before opening fire was in Arabic!
That's democracy. Next week it will be all forgotten unless there is nothing else more appetizing in the news
That's today's reality.
Thank you.
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