Columnist: Political correctness obscures discussion of gunman’s motives

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On the morning of Nov. 5, while most in the city of Killeen, Texas, were still sleeping, an Army psychiatrist named Nidal Hasan went to mosque. After the 6 a.m. prayers, Hasan asked for forgiveness from a fellow worshipper for any past offenses, and gave one friend a hug, telling him, “I’m going traveling. I won’t be here tomorrow.”

Around noon, Hasan entered his workplace at Fort Hood military base, with two handguns and his pockets full of ammunition. Eyewitnesses said he bowed his head for a few seconds, presumably in prayer, and then opened fire, shouting “Allahu Akbar!” — Arabic for “God is great!” Within minutes, a dozen were dead and 30 wounded. Hasan was shot four times before being subdued by local police. He survived and is now in stable condition, awaiting military trial.

Hasan displayed certain signals in the months leading up to the shooting, actions that were once easily justified but in hindsight take on an ominous aura.

Six months ago, a user named “NidalHasan” made Internet postings glorifying the actions of radical Islamic suicide bombers. Federal authorities picked up the comments, but never definitively attributed them to Hasan. Family and friends have said he repeatedly criticized the American war efforts in Iran and Afghanistan and the military’s attitude towards Muslims. He even tried to be excused early, on religious grounds, from his obligation to the Army, which would have ended in 2010.

The list goes on. During his internship last year at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Hasan received counseling and extra supervision due to poor performance and statements that made others uncomfortable. Finally, he maintained regular contact in recent years with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical imam and spiritual adviser to three of the terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks. Al-Awlaki, now living in Yemen, praised Hasan’s actions on his Web site and encouraged other Muslim soldiers to “follow in the footsteps of men like Nidal.”

The unprovoked killing of unarmed soldiers and civilians at Fort Hood was a tragedy by itself, but it points to a more oblique problem: the stranglehold of political correctness. I mean, has anyone else been as bewildered as me to watch the television “experts” speculate endlessly about what Hasan’s motivation possibly could have been? Was it stress? Delusion? Latent psychosis?

I cannot fathom what thoughts were in this man’s mind as he calmly went about his errands on the morning he would bring about so much death. But his motive? Well, forgive me for stating the obvious, but I think it’s pretty clear that Hasan’s extremist, jihadist understanding of the Islamic religion fueled his rampage.

As Americans, and especially as university students, we have endured the shackles of political correctness for far too long. According to American journalist Richard Bernstein, the “P.C.” movement that started in the 1960s was originally more satirical than serious — an ironic self-criticism of the “radical left.” But now it has somehow become ingrained in our intellectual framework, and we freely accept exactly what then-President George H.W. Bush warned about in a speech to the 1991 graduating class of the University of Michigan: “Certain topics [will become] ‘off-limits,’ certain expressions ‘off-limits,’ even certain gestures ‘off-limits.’”

Once upon a time, the greatest virtue at a university, and consequently American intellectual circles, was the free exchange of ideas. These days, it appears to be “not offending people.” Hasan was a radical and unstable Islamic extremist with a history of expressing anti-American, pro-jihadist views. His reason for killing men and women in cold blood was his ideology, plain and simple.

Nidal Hasan operated on the fringe of a faith that is largely one of peace and worship, practiced as such by the vast majority of its adherents. However, until we begin to discuss these rare but devastating cases of radical fundamentalism in frank and unflinching terms, I fear we will continue to see such atrocities perpetrated, enabled by our desire to indulge religious sensibilities.

Tyler Francke has read the First Amendment and didn’t see the words “politically correct” anywhere.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2009, 2:02 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.