The Nidal Hasan Lecture That Tells You Just About Everything You Need To Know about Nidal Hasan

So do bloviating bigots.

"But, well, you can imagine the mental pyrotechnics Jack Beatty and Ellen Goodman put themselves through to lift the pall that has now fallen over militant Islam. Apologists always sound pathetic."

Jack Beatty isn't just pathetic, he is utterly predictable. I stopped listening to On Point on Friday's since he is always on then.

Here is a more reasonable discussion about the Fort Hood massacre:

http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/11/fort-hood

I looked at Hasan's lecture. I honestly would have fallen asleep after the first twenty slides--it does not suggest vengeance until like slide 38. What I can't believe after seeing this, though, is why no one complained about the extremely religious content of this presentation. This is pure proselytization. Separation of church and state means the Army too, right?

I don't know. I think it is a plea for help, an alerting of sorts. The very last slide says:

"Department of Defense should allow Muslim soldiers the option of being released as "conscientious objectors" to increase troop morale and decrease adverse events."

The lecture is divided into two main parts : In the first part he details events in which soldiers converted and/or were involved in some "adverse event". The second part is an expose of Islamic faith, which develops from a mere recitation of the tenets of the faith to a more in-depth exploration of verses in the Koran which are engaged in persuasion for undertaking jihad.

Then, all of a sudden, a non sequitur in the directly formulated final slide with the recommendation I quoted above. It may not be "Why I Intend to Murder 13 American Soldiers at Foot Hood." But it might be interpreted as: I am trying to tell you something here, I'm trying to say that I may be susceptible to this persuasion I have just described to you, which is why I submit this recommendation. Stop me before another "adverse event" takes place..

I am beginning to think that some persons on that base have not been doing their job.

dylanposer
"I looked at Hasan's lecture. I honestly would have fallen asleep after the first twenty slides..."

It's a good thing, then, that you weren't part of the audience, isn't it?

Where was "Separation of church and state"?, asked dylanposer. There is no such thing in the traditional Islamic world-view because Islam was an early geo-political success. The state must be Islamic or it won't be legitimate. Christianity, by contrast, was a persecuted sect during its earliest centuries and hence developed parallel non-state institutions, cultivated an other-worldly perspective, and advised its followers to pragmatically render separately onto God and Ceasar.

Major Dr. Hasan, as a traditionalist Muslim, was in a quandary. He derived substantial economic benefits from his service in the infidel's army and was now being forced to repay the infidels in their battle against Islamic revivalism.

The US military must not only interdict human time-bombs like Hasan. If it is to continue to recruit Muslim troops, it must decide whether some Muslims represent too high a risk and it must come up with a much more sophisticated ideological rationale to integrate others successfully into the military.

Hasan's lecture is an exemplary lesson in how Powerpoint undermines logic and ruins thought. It's like a morbid version of Peter Norvig's witty "Gettysburg Adress" critique of this model of imparting information and enabling discussion, popular a few years ago:

http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/

At best, it seems as if Hasan is battling conflicting voices and dramatizes this struggle in his presentation. I think Noga's comment about a sort of (anguished?) warning being transmitted is very interesting, especially as the sudden shift to the "punishment" slides is noticeable as the lecture takes a theological turn that suddenly shifts the context from an Army problem to a Muslim theological problem (Hasan's problem?).

Also, recent reports (e.g in the Sunday NYT) suggest something about Hasan's long-standing anomie and inability to connect with people despite a surface friendliness. This is merely to say that he might have been particularly susceptible to an offered "meaning" that had more emotional resonance than the loyalty to the U.S. That is, very many Muslim soldiers may not be susceptible in the same way as they do not suffer Hasan's personality issues.

Was there anything in Hasan's lecture that was factually incorrect on the topic of "The Koranic View As It Relates to Muslims in the US Military"? If so, what it? If not, then isn't the 800 pound gorilla in the thread that we don't seem to want to confront the point noted in amidut's last paragraph?

"Also, recent reports (e.g in the Sunday NYT) suggest something about Hasan's long-standing anomie and inability to connect with people despite a surface friendliness."

Why give anomie a bad name? Many people suffer from alienation without resorting to murder at random and en mass.

"This is merely to say that he might have been particularly susceptible to an offered "meaning" that had more emotional resonance than the loyalty to the U.S."

But why so, if he was suffering from "anomie," why would he (how could he) choose to connect to one set of meanings over another?

"That is, very many Muslim soldiers may not be susceptible in the same way as they do not suffer Hasan's personality issues."

I assume that anomie isn't restricted to one soldier in the military. Would you use this same explanatory model to account for soldiers who snap and decide to retaliate against innocent Muslims soldiers?

"Also, recent reports (e.g in the Sunday NYT) suggest something about Hasan's long-standing anomie and inability to connect with people despite a surface friendliness."

Why give anomie a bad name? Many people suffer from alienation without resorting to murder at random and en mass.

"This is merely to say that he might have been particularly susceptible to an offered "meaning" that had more emotional resonance than the loyalty to the U.S."

But why so, if he was suffering from "anomie," why would he (how could he) choose to connect to one set of meanings over another?

"That is, very many Muslim soldiers may not be susceptible in the same way as they do not suffer Hasan's personality issues."

I assume that anomie isn't restricted to one soldier in the military. Would you use this same explanatory model to account for soldiers who snap and decide to retaliate against innocent Muslims soldiers?

Irony, fwiw, I think your thoughts are worthy of serioius consideration. It has become clear now that Hasan was driven by jihadist influences. But that does not mean that his psychological issues should now be dismissed or ignored.

b -- I do not know the answer to your question, but don't you suspect that the Koran, like the Bible, is susceptible to varying interpretations, depending upon the intepreter's predisposition or agenda?

dhurt,

Isn't the issue what interpretation of the Koran is considered authoritative, and whether Hasan's presentation is consistent with that interpretation?

I'm not sure if you're disagreeing with the references I make, JD, or what I infer from them. Obviously alienation and anomie can affect perhaps large numbers of people without that leading to mass murder. I mean, why would anyone claim otherwise? What I was hinting at -- partly because I'm not sure and I was struck by Noga's comment -- is that there may be a convergence of developments here, that may in most cases never have led to the massacre.

I'm not sure of your last question -- certainly on the face of it, soldiers could be driven by a number of things, and not just naked prejudice, to persecute or attack fellow servicemen who are Muslim.

My question for you: Do you think that any attempt to get to the bottom of this event is excusing Hasan in some way? If that's the case, then why would we investigate any murder at all, by anyone, anywhere? Just string 'em up and be done with it! But isn't it possible there might be useful things to learn here?

Irony, "...I'm not sure of your last question -- certainly on the face of it, soldiers could be driven by a number of things, and not just naked prejudice, to persecute or attack fellow servicemen who are Muslim.

My question for you: Do you think that any attempt to get to the bottom of this event is excusing Hasan in some way? If that's the case, then why would we investigate any murder at all, by anyone, anywhere? Just string 'em up and be done with it! But isn't it possible there might be useful things to learn here?"

Per my comment above, isn't one of the useful things to learn here whether Hasan was driven by orthodox Muslim theology?

It is instructive and fascinating to explore the emotional, religious and intellectual path to Major Dr. Hasan's crime, but so far, from what is known, it's hard to believe that he ever crossed the line to legal insanity. Unfortunately, his is not the only such occurrence of a Muslim soldier firing on his erstwhile military comrades in the US Army. We are fighting radical Muslim opponents in Muslim lands. So we must consider the religious dimension, while recognizing that most Muslims in the US Army are probably not obsessively concerned with Islamic correctness and we should not accentuate their distinctiveness lest that provoke more distinctiveness. I can only generalize from my cursory experience with American Muslims including a non-Arab Muslim supervisor (positive) at work. By analogy, if I were a young Jewish American soldier in the US Army today, I would want to be respected but not singled out.

dhurtado asked, "don't you suspect that the Koran, like the Bible, is susceptible to varying interpretations, depending upon the intepreter's predisposition or agenda." None of us in this group appears to know enough about Islam and interpretation of the Koran to authoritatively answer that question. We're handicapped by our lack of expertise. I can only comment that, although Islam is a highly authoritarian religion, religious authority is diffuse and tied to state sponsorship. There can be multiple interpretations, but some commentators are clearly more authoritative. Theology professors at Al-Azhar (Sunni) and Qom (Shi'a), for example, but they are obviously not concerned about internal discipline in the US Army. Although they have probably instructed Muslims on citizenship in non-Muslim countries. Also, the different (all orthodox) schools of Islamic thought agree much more than they disagree.

Although I have not read "For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia" by Robert Crew, I understand that it describes how the imperial Russian government, as a necessary price of its conquests, become heavily involved in the internal affairs of its Islamic communities, appointing approved clergy and creating its own Islamic institutions to mediate between traditional Islamic authority and the Russian state. In that context, they were generally successful. If not entirely applicable, this experience may still hold a few lessons for us.

It may also be useful to look at the Israeli experience with its Beduin and Druze troops. In those cases, the Israelis had the permission of traditional leaders to induct their young men.

While this situation is quite nuanced and requires a balanced policy response to the Muslim presence, the military's primary concern must be internal discipline and cohesion. Major Dr. Hasan will have to face justice for his pre-meditated crime.

bl462

"Isn't the issue what interpretation of the Koran is considered authoritative, and whether Hasan's presentation is consistent with that interpretation?"

bl, I suspect that the problem isn't the Koran nor any single interpretation of it even the most radical. The problem is that of a culture which considers only a small number of interpretations as legitimate while dismissing all others as heretical; moreover the fact that those who man the gates of Koranic interpretation are ready to turn to violence to enforce their monopoly of the Koranic truth only exacerbates the problem.

Even the interpretations of the Wahhabis or of a Bin Laden need not be a problem if contrary interpretations were also allowed. But his is not the case and anyone who questions their view of the Koran becomes an enemy of the faith. Hence the fatwa against Salman Rushdie or the suicide bombers who have been told by authorized interpreters that they will go to heaven as martyrs.

I suspect that Nidal too was looking for confirmation of his views of the Koran from some approved interpreter. The way to fight this kind of culture is to insist on open interpretations including historical ones which question the very existence of Muhammad. We need to make it clear that we are not fighting against Islam but for an opening up of interpretations of Islam.

All interpreations and readings of the Koran should be allowed and we need to protect those people who are brave enough to challenge the monopoly on interpretations currently held by differenct sects.

This is what allowed mainstream Christianity and Judaism to open up to criticism of their religion.

Irony, of course looking for immediate causes is important. But I sense that too many people are afraid of the consequences of stating that the cause is an orthodox interpretation of Islam.

Whether Nidal was a neurotic and suffered from anomie is irrelevant since some people with similar personality traits don’t go on to kill and some even end up doing good work. Many painters and poets were alienated neurotics.

Even among religious people neurosis and alienation can lead to a Paul, or a Kierkegaard or to an abortion clinic bomber, or a Nidal Hasan.

JD and b: Yes, looking at the implications of the theology (do we know it's "orthodox," btw?) is not only important but also perfectly legitimate. However, as we can assume that there are a couple of million Muslims in the U.S., probably many of them believers in "orthodox" theology, and a few thousand in the armed services, and they don't run amok killing unarmed comrades on a base, isn't it sensible to also look at the peculiarities of Hasan himself, who did?

If something is at least prima facie a radical exception, why try to create a generality from it?

Total digression:

I am waiting with breath that is bated ("Bated here is a contraction of abated through loss of the unstressed first vowel (a process called aphesis; it means “reduced, lessened, lowered in force”. So bated breath refers to a state in which you almost stop breathing as a result of some strong emotion, such as terror or awe. Shakespeare is the first writer known to use it, in The Merchant of Venice, in which Shylock says to Antonio: “Shall I bend low and, in a bondman’s key, / With bated breath and whisp’ring humbleness, / Say this ...”. Nearly three centuries later, Mark Twain employed it in Tom Sawyer: “Every eye fixed itself upon him; with parted lips and bated breath the audience hung upon his words, taking no note of time, rapt in the ghastly fascinations of the tale”.) for the explosion of debate on trying some of the bad guys in NYC. This is sure to be le sujet of the next or next after Spine post, Hasan getting to be so 5 minutes ago.

For myself, and I predict for P. too, it's indefensible.

We'll see!

I don't think religion drives people to kill, if they are not predisposed; and if they are predisposed, if it is not religion, it would be something else that triggers rampage. These days, militant Islam happens to provide the flavour of the month/year/era for deeply disturbed individuals looking for confirmation/affirmation/glory/virgins; in the 60s-70s it was Communism; in the 30s-40s, it was Fascism/Nazism; earlier, the Belgians attracted genocidal maniacs to their Congo efforts and the British to the Indian exploitations.

This does not mean that one excuses the extreme elements of Islam - or any religion, or ideology, for that matter - from their part in the carnage. Religious imagery can be extremely powerful, even when badly delivered.

The Powerpoint - God, people actually sat through the stuff? - reminded me of Grade 11 religion class in Tehran, where our teacher blathered on endlessly about the glories of martyrdom (this was during the Iran-Iraq war) and how, if only each of us 16-yos could walk on a minefield or throw ourselves under a tank (with grenades strapped to our bellies), we would spend eternity in the arms of 72 virgins. (The guy had a truly vivid way of portraying heaven - which only reminded me that I had to get back to the States and move to Lake Tahoe, as the closest appromixation of Islamic heaven - minus the virgins, I guess.) The thing is, I remember sitting there, thinking, First, why the hell would I want to sleep with virgins in heaven - I mean, wouldn't I want really experienced courtesans to give me pleasure? Second, still undecided on the subject, I wondered what if I were not in the vagina business; would heaven be accommodating? And third, what about that age-old adage, a bird in hand is better than two in the bush - no pun intended?

To make a long story less mind-numbing, I settled for the bird in hand, so to speak, not being entirely sure that the illiterate oaf talking about heaven really knew what he was talking about. BUT, my buddy - grown up in the US, spoke Persian with an accent, used to swap Mad Magazines with one another - he took to the fatigue and by November (six weeks into the academic year) was in the front. Now, it is entirely possible that he is fucking 72 virgins a day while I have not had a date in months; it is also possible that he is not. The thing is, we got the same propaganda; for some reason, it worked on him, while turning me into a heretic/infidel/secular nonbeliever.

I suppose this is just a really really long way of saying I agree with Irony.

"Gathering what we can from the works of such thinkers as Sayyid Qutb, Abul Ala Mawdudi, and Abu Bakr Naji (the author of The Management of Savagery), and from various pronouncements, fatwas, ultimatums, death threats, and suicide notes, we may compare radical Islam with the thanatoid political movements we know most about, namely Bolshevism and Nazism (to each of which Islamism is indebted). Of the many
affinities that emerge, we may list, to begin with, some secondary characteristics. The exaltation of a godlike leader; the demand, not just for submission to the cause, but for utter transformation in its name; a selfpitying romanticism; a hatred of liberal society, individualism, and affluent inertia (or Komfortismus); anobsession with sacrifice and martyrdom; a morbid adolescent rebelliousness combined with a childish love of destruction; “agonism”, or the acceptance of permanent and unappeasable contention; the use and invocation of the very new and the very old; a mania for purification; and a ferocious antiSemitism.

But these are incidentals. Thanatism derives its real energy, its fever and its magic, from something far more radical. And here we approach a pathology that may in the end be unassimilable to the nonbelieving mind. I mean the rejection of reason – the rejection of the sequitur, of cause and effect, of two plus two. Strikingly, in their written works and their table talk, Hitler and Stalin (and Lenin) seldom let the abstract noun reason go by without assigning a scornful adjective to it: worthless reason, craven reason, cowardly
reason. When those sanguinary yokels, the Taleban, chant their slogan, “Throw reason to the dogs”, they are making the same kind of Faustian gamble: crush reason, kill reason, and anything and everything seems possible – the restored Caliphate, for instance, presiding over a planetary empire cleansed of all infidels. To transcend reason is of course to transcend the confines of moral law; it is to enter the illimitable world of insanity and death. This dual negation is for a while intensely propulsive. It gives the death cult its needed momentum – its Printer Friendly Page 3 of 5 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2424020.ece?print=...... 9/29/2007
escape velocity. On the other hand, for our part, the high value we assign to human life is not a matter of illusion or sentimentality or “hypocrisy”; it is not the “PapistQuaker
babble” derided by Trotsky. Reason, moreover, is one of our synonyms for realism, and indeed for reality; without it, as Islamism will soon find, the ground turns to mire beneath your feet. Death cults are in the end obedient to their own illogic: what they do is die."

http://www.martinamisweb.com/commentary_files/911_cultofdeath.pdf

Having read the Dana Priest piece referenced by Peretz, I couldn't care less whether Hasan was speaking about the Koran, the Talmud or the Gospels. Clearly, his audience of physicians thought his choice of subject matter was entirely inappropriate to the occasion, a presentation at Grand Rounds. So what did anyone do about it? Nothing! Did Hasan's superior officers think their presenter was fit to provide psychiatric services to ailing American service personal --of any creed--at Walter Reed, Fort Hood, or wherever? Where is the outrage?

icarusr “I don't think religion drives people to kill, if they are not predisposed; and if they are predisposed, if it is not religion, it would be something else that triggers rampage.”

This is a very comfortable tautology.

There are killers everywhere, some ideologies and regimes make them possible for them to justify their “innate lust to kill.” (I am using icarus notion of some people being programmed to kill.)

Now, let’s play what if…..

I would guess that if Hasan hadn’t been justified by a certain Muslim theology he would have been an interminably unhappy dude who like so many others would have had to live out his life in despair.

On the other hand, had he not been a Muslims he would have been thrown out of the Army medical unit long ago.

"However, as we can assume that there are a couple of million Muslims in the U.S., probably many of them believers in "orthodox" theology, and a few thousand in the armed services, and they don't run amok killing unarmed comrades on a base, isn't it sensible to also look at the peculiarities of Hasan himself, who did?"

OK, Irony, a few month back we discussed American Muslims and you said then that they were different from European ones, and that they wouldn't become radicalized.

You now say well maybe a couple here and there but almost all are not radicalized.

My question, then, is how radical Muslims should be tolerated in the Armed Forces? A thousand? A couple of Hundreds, a Hundred, or may be fifty? How about a dozen? A dozen Hasans can still cause a lot of damage, don't you think?

b1462 asks: "Isn't the issue what interpretation of the Koran is considered authoritative, and whether Hasan's presentation is consistent with that interpretation?"

I suppose so b, but perhaps you can educate me. Is there in fact an interpretation of the Koran with regard to violent jihad that is considered authoritavie, and, if so, what is it? I am highly sceptical that it justifies terrorism. If it does, then why to 99+% of Muslims not follow it?

JD: "My question, then, is how radical Muslims should be tolerated in the Armed Forces? A thousand? A couple of Hundreds, a Hundred, or may be fifty? How about a dozen? A dozen Hasans can still cause a lot of damage, don't you think?"

Ideally, none. And yes, they can.

I'm not exactly sure -- in fact, I don't know -- how one completely resolves that question in the real world, however. Watching every muslim member of the armed forces in order to spot the moment of radicalization when it happens isn't an option.

" Is there in fact an interpretation of the Koran with regard to violent jihad that is considered authoritavie, and, if so, what is it? I am highly sceptical that it justifies terrorism. If it does, then why to 99+% of Muslims not follow it?"

1 percent of a billion people is still a lot of people.

And how does one know the exact number of Muslims people who follow the teachings of Jihad?

There may be many what used to be called fellow travelers giving help but taking no part in direct violence themselves.

"I'm not exactly sure -- in fact, I don't know -- how one completely resolves that question in the real world, however. Watching every muslim member of the armed forces in order to spot the moment of radicalization when it happens isn't an option."

Why isn't it an option?

We may not want to do it right now, but a couple of more such attacks and you can bet your bottom nickel that it will happen.

"1 percent of a billion people is still a lot of people." Sure it is. But it does not justify extrapolating to the other 99+%.

"And how does one know the exact number of Muslims people who follow the teachings of Jihad?" One doesn't. That's precisely why it is prejudicial to assume that most of them do.

b1462 asks: "isn't one of the useful things to learn here whether Hasan was driven by orthodox Muslim theology?" Perhaps, but let's be careful here. It might be that he was driven by a peculiar interpretation of orthodox Muslim theology.

Basman, I too am waiting for a discussion of trying KSM et al. in NYC. I am surprised it has not yet emerged, although I am not sure the Spine is where it will do so.

""1 percent of a billion people is still a lot of people." Sure it is. But it does not justify extrapolating to the other 99+%."

It's imperative to take precautions.

""And how does one know the exact number of Muslims people who follow the teachings of Jihad?" One doesn't. That's precisely why it is prejudicial to assume that most of them do."

This is precisely why we need more and more accurate information because there could lots' more of them.

I'll repeat what I said above:

There may be many fellow travelers giving help to Jihadists but who take no part in direct violence themselves.

Hence the number of Jihadist in the Muslim world could be much higher than the fanciful figure of one percent.

"Why isn't it an option?"

JD, it isn't an option because

1. It would involve a level of individual intelligence surveillance that would be difficult to mount even in a dictatorship let alone a democracy (if regular surveillance reveals something about a particular individual, that's another matter).

2. It would seek to quantify something that is essentially a qualifiable event (a change in belief with a danger of violent expression of such change), which leads to dumbing down and oversimplification.

3. It would be difficult to keep secret, and once public would be tantamount to Uncle Sam saying Oh, if you're Muslim, don't even bother joining up.

See http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2003/12/muslim-soldiers-in-the-west-crit..., updated for Nidal Hasan. It cites Army statistics that show few self-identified Muslims in the US military, 1563 active-duty soldiers out of 553,000 as of April 2008, "despite assiduous efforts to attract more Muslims". It contains a link to a NYTimes article about his family.

Jackson: could be . . . could be. Therfore, let's discriminate against Muslims based purely on their religious affiliation, and let's condemn Islam. Right?

dhurtado "Jackson: could be . . . could be. Therfore, let's discriminate against Muslims based purely on their religious affiliation, and let's condemn Islam. Right?"

Bull, hurtado, if this the best argument CAIR can ut forward then they are worse than pathetic.

ironyroad

"JD, it isn't an option because

1. It would involve a level of individual intelligence surveillance that would be difficult to mount even in a dictatorship let alone a democracy (if regular surveillance reveals something about a particular individual, that's another matter)."

This is wild exaggeration, but if the threat is real this what we might get. (If there are many more such shootings or worse)

"2. It would seek to quantify something that is essentially a qualifiable event (a change in belief with a danger of violent expression of such change), which leads to dumbing down and oversimplification."

Nice Hegelian move, (switch from quality to quantity) but not convincing. Also the dumbing down is being done by those who minimize the threat.

"3. It would be difficult to keep secret, and once public would be tantamount to Uncle Sam saying Oh, if you're Muslim, don't even bother joining up."

Not really, if the Israeli Army can have Muslims (even as officers) in its ranks there is no reason we can't also. Where you ever in the military?

Pretending that there is no Islamic problem is the worse thing we can do to Muslim soldiers.

"Bull, hurtado, if this the best argument CAIR can ut forward then they are worse than pathetic."

I am afraid there is no content to your argument Jackson. First, what do I have to do with CAIR? Second, the issue on the table is whether violent jihad is representative of Islam. There is no question that violent jihad exists and that it is dangerous and needs to be addressed. But is it representative of Islam? You have argued strenuously in these threads that it is. But to the proposition that jihadists represent only a miniscule minority of Muslims you respond by speculating that there may be more of them then we think.

Well, what is the import of that speculation? That we should assume that Muslims are Jihadists? That we should condemn Islam? That we should be at war with Islam? Is that your argument or not?

re 1 -- I don't understand why you say it's an exaggeration when you proposed it yourself as a reasonable option (I was just providing some detail -- how do you imagine this checking or monitoring would happen?).

re 2 -- Hegelian? I do that before breakfast, but apart from the referential riposte, in what way is it not convincing? You just say it isn't but don't elaborate. And even if it is an Hegelian move, why is that wrong?

re 3 -- I wasn't in the military myself but I worked for several years as a civilian with the army (JAG). That said, I agree that the Israeli military offers some very interesting lessons -- but what are they? Noga or ginzy may know.

Here is a link to a scholarly discussion about Islam:

The McAlvany Weekly Commentary

http://www.mcalvany.com/podcast/?p=104

ironyroad
"re 1 -- I don't understand why you say it's an exaggeration when you proposed it yourself as a reasonable option (I was just providing some detail -- how do you imagine this checking or monitoring would happen?)."

There are ways of keeping track without needing to resort individual surveillance. Hasan should have been spotted long before he acted. The fact that he wasn’t means that the army didn’t want to deal with him.

“re 2 -- Hegelian? I do that before breakfast, but apart from the referential riposte, in what way is it not convincing? You just say it isn't but don't elaborate. And even if it is an Hegelian move, why is that wrong?”

Well, it’s not a question of turning of quantifying an issue of quality. The problem even by your own estimate is one of the number of Muslims that we would have to keep track.

“re 3 -- I wasn't in the military myself but I worked for several years as a civilian with the army (JAG). That said,…”

I was and there is no way that people acting weirdly could escape notice. When you are in the military you are constantly under surveillance. Soldiers are always being looked at, tested, and evaluated. It is the original panopticon. You don’t need to institute any special surveillance program to keep track of a group of soldiers.

“I agree that the Israeli military offers some very interesting lessons -- but what are they? Noga or ginzy may know.”

Ok let’s ask them.

Finally, are you saying that because this is such a difficult problem we shouldn't do anything about it, Irony?

JD,

re 1 -- I think the problem is that he WAS spotted (the email exchanges with the imam in Yemen were picked up), but it was determined it wasn't worth following up. I already said earlier that regular surveillance that points to an individual (as opposed to individually targeted surveillance) is perfectly legitimate data.

re 2 -- I'm just saying that finding the moment of radicalization can lead to all sorts of things being identified as that due to oversimplified criteria. After all, in this case, more witness are saying "Hasan was a kind of weird loner" than are saying "Hasan was a radical Muslim." Btw, it now turns out that over most of the last two years Hasan wasn't even counselling soldiers coming back from the war but was on a graduate psychiatric education program. So much for one theory -- I'd say others are going to bite the dust also in time.

re 3 -- I defer to your experience in the services. However, your comment, while I take your point, seems to fall down somewhat when it comes to a medic and and an officer like Hasan, who had been looked at, tested, and evaluated -- but not in a real sense grasped.

Finally -- no I'm not saying that (could anyone read my posts and ask that question seriously? Come on!). I'm saying exactly the opposite, that we need to investigate this BUT without too many preconceptions of what we're going to find. Preconceptions are not helpful.

Here is how you make your case without being a bigot - Hitchens always underscores the limits of Marty.

http://www.slate.com/id/2235760/

Wandreycer1 excellent piece by Hitchins and thanks for the link.

Of course, though, to note that Hitchins always underscores the limits of Peretz is like saying Anne Carson always underscores the limits of Dorothy Livesay, whose own poetry is estimable but has its limits or is like saying the blues of Robert Johnson always underscores the limits of the good Johnny Shines (who actually ran for a while with the great man) and so on.

p.s. And to make that sort of obvious point is to pay Peretz a general compliment.

You're right of course Basman!

Hitchens says: "I wrote some years ago that the three most salient characteristics of the Muslim death-squad type were self-righteousness, self-pity, and self-hatred."

Hitchens is re-formulating more directly and lucidly what Martin Amis loquaciously and novelistically said in the excerpt I quoted earlier from his article, and what Marty has been saying here. It is well advised to recall that Islamophobia is rooted not in any recordable history of fear inspiring activities and preachings associated with a certain ideology, but in imagined anxiety which has no basis whatsoever in reality.

It is interesting that there is no such thing as Naziphobia, in spite of the fact that there is quite a commonality between certain sentiments and practices in Islamic teachings and Nazi ideology, at least as far as Jews are concerned. Perhaps Marty, being Jewish, is more attuned to these loud voices in Islam and expresses them in an anxious way which immediately exposes him to the charge of bigotry. Hitchens does not suffer from any such strain of Jewish anxiety which is why he is congratulated by WandreyCer.

About Muslims in the IDF, I wondered about it myself as I do not have any recollection of any similar incident taking place in the history of the IDF. Googling brought up this entry, which provides a few useful links.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090401093751AAzfeLW

And there is this case:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3198013,00.html

I wonder what people here think about it. Should the young hopeful be allowed to join the ranks of the IAF as a fighter pilot?

My own instinct says that if he has gone to such public effort to recommend himself, he should be be trusted. Or at least offered an equally challenging alternative, suitable to his exceptional talents. To be a paratrooper when you are clearly qualified to be a pilot can be quite a let down.