Mark Mardell:
The alleged murderer was clearly a Muslim, but there is very little to suggest that he adhered to a hard-line interpretation of his religion or that he had political or religious motives.
Really? How about this, Mark?
A US officer who killed 13 soldiers in a gun rampage at a Texas army base shouted a triumphant Islamic proclamation before opening fire, it was claimed today.
Army spokesman Lieutenant General Bob Cone said witnesses heard Major Nidal Malik Hasan cry “Allahu Akbar” – Arabic for “God is great” – before opening fire at the Fort Hood complex.
And this?
He gave a Grand Rounds presentation. . . You take turns giving a lecture on, you know, the correct treatment of schizophrenia, the right drugs to prescribe for personality disorder, you know, that sort of thing. But instead of giving an academic paper, he gave a lecture on the Koran, and they said it didn’t seem to be just an informational lecture, but it seemed to be his own beliefs. That’s what a lot of people thought.
He talked about how if you’re a nonbeliever the Koran says you should have your head cut off, you should have oil poured down your throat, you should be set on fire. And I said well couldn’t this just be his educating you? And the psychiatrist said yes, but one of the Muslims in the audience, another psychiatrist, raised his hand and was quite disturbed and he said you know, a lot of us don’t believe these things you’re saying, and that there was no place where Hasan couched it as this is what the Koran teaches but you know I don’t believe it. And people actually talked in the hallway afterwards about ‘is he one of these people that’s going to freak out and shoot people someday?’
[snip]
“A source tells NPR’s Joseph Shapiro that Hasan was put on probation early in his postgraduate work at the Uniformed Service University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. He was disciplined for proselytizing about his Muslim faith with patients and colleagues, according to the source, who worked with him at the time.”
It’s not as if Mark Mardell hasn’t had time to read the internet today:
But for some, nothing less than a conspiracy will do as an explanation. On the website of a respected newspaper, I see one poster has blamed Barack Obama, whom he calls “that Marxist thug”. It’s not that it’s hard to follow the logic; it’s that there isn’t any.
Mardell would rather recount the idiotic comments of one goofball he’s read on a website somewhere than concede that the motives of a Muslim mass murderer could be down to his religion. Never mind the killer, check out this fruitcake instead; right wing nutters are the real problem here in America, nudge nudge.
He concludes:
Still, searching for patterns and for answers is part of what it is to be human. I loathe cliche, but perhaps, for once, this is a “senseless tragedy”, devoid of deeper meaning.
Nothing to do with the Religion of Peace! Repeat – nothing to do with the Religion of Peace!
Here’s another cliché for you Mark – wake up and smell the coffee.
Update:
In the morning, neighbors said Hasan handed Qurans and donated his furniture to anyone who would take it.
Update:
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people and wounding 30 others at the Fort Hood Army Base in Texas, regularly described the war on terror as “a war against Islam,” according to a doctor who was in a graduate program with him.
While studying for a masters degree in public health in 2007, Hasan used a presentation for an environmental health class to argue that Muslims were being targeted by the U.S. anti-terror campaign, said Val Finnell, a classmate.
