The Texas shooting

[JimC]

Read an interesting article in the Age... this link

Reserve judgment: all we know is a man just snappedMICHAEL TOMASKY
November 8, 2009
This massacre must not taint all Muslims.

WHAT will Americans make in the coming days of the horrifying murder by Major Nidal Hassan - a Palestinian-American who was born in Virginia but whose parents migrated from near Jerusalem - of 12 of his fellow soldiers and one civilian?

We should begin by noting that there is no powerful ''anti-Muslim sentiment'' afoot - there were 156 hate-crime incidents in the US in 2006, the most recent year for which numbers were available. As a point of comparison, the UK, with less than one-fifth of America's population, had 106 such incidents in a 12-month period covering 2007-08.

Even so, the national mood, in the wake of divisive off-year elections and terrible unemployment figures, is brittle. On the day of Hassan's massacre, about 5000 right-wing ''tea partiers'' stormed Capitol hill. They're the kind of folks who call Barack Obama a ''Muslim''.

We have much to learn about Hassan before we can jump to any conclusions. A New York Times profile of him notes that this army psychiatrist, who had presumably heard many blood-curdling war stories, obsessively feared being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan.

For all most Americans know about Palestinian culture, Nidal Hassan could be as common a name as Dave Johnson. The Palestinian is an unknown person in the US. Jews are a part of the country and have been for decades, but average Americans pretty much know Palestinians only as suicide bombers. Sadly, for some Americans this event will reinforce an image of a people who resort first to mindless violence.

A Palestinian-American soldier is a strange thing to most Americans. I grew up watching Second World War-era movies about American armed units that invariably featured the following types. There was a tough guy from Brooklyn, usually with an Italian-sounding name like Joe or, better still, Vinny. There was a sturdy fellow from corn-country, who represented the no-nonsense fearlessness of your average American. There was a southerner, a bit slow-witted but lovable, who provided comic relief but came through when the chips were down. The thing they had in common was that every one of them was white.

All this changed post-Vietnam. It came to be understood that wars were actually fought by black working-class and poor people, so Hollywood embraced that. The heavy lifting in the fields of South-East Asia was typically done, in life and in film, by sons of the ghetto and what we sometimes call white trash kids. More recent filmic depictions of the grunt's life have incorporated Latinos. But a Palestinian?

We should assume, until it's proven otherwise, that Hassan was an American and a loyal one, who just snapped, as Americans of all ethnicities and backgrounds and political persuasions do. And, as is so rarely the case in these situations, he's alive, so we'll have a chance to hear him express his views some day.

He was a native-born citizen. He deserves exactly the same legal representation and presumptions as if he were a white man from corn-country.

And he deserves exactly the same amount of anger and fury and contempt from the rest of us for this unspeakable thing he did. Let him rot - because of what he did, not because of who he is.

Michael Tomasky is editor at large, Guardian America

I broadly agree with the thrust of the article, with the proviso that, deep down, this is probably another example of how the poison of religion, interacting with a stressed individual, leads in the end to violence...

[Dory]

Well said, mustn't blame it all on religion...religion is just the final outlet to your stress, and results can be deadly as witnessed. I remember when Dawkins argued with someone on the Bill Maher show about 9/11. Dawkins said "religion" she said "foreign policy", if I was there I'd be like "guys, guys. You're both right, it's the copulation of it that makes the bomb deadly. Speaking of copulation, what do you say me and you..." <snip>

Okay sorry

But totally with you

-Dory

[The Dawktor]

I'm with you Jim!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I do believe "religion" is an empowering aspect for this kind of thing. They interpret the voices in their heads as the Voice of God and off they go.