Scapegoats at Fort Hood

The extremely tragic massacre at Fort Hood carried out by Army Psychiatrist Major Nadal Malik Hasan has shaken American citizens recently, and rightly so. Killing enemies in combat is one thing, but someone violently killing members of their own crew is very different and unsettling. American agencies and individuals seem to want someone besides Hasan to blame.

According to The New York Times, last year an FBI-run terrorism task force had found out about some e-mails between Hasan, who is Muslim, and Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Islamic leader who has been linked to the Sept. 11 attacks. After some investigating, the task force concluded that Hasan was asking purely religious questions to Awlaki and was not himself linked to terrorism. The matter was dropped.

Congress and President Obama want to fault someone involved in this investigation for missing some sign and, in turn, for what happened at Fort Hood. According to The Associated Press, President Obama has ordered a full review of all intelligence related to Major Hasan and whether it was properly handled, so we will know the government’s version of the truth soon. The first results of the White House review are due by Nov. 30.

It makes the public feel better in these situations to find someone else to blame, even though it doesn’t change what happened or help the families who, terribly, lost loved ones get them back. We as a population seem to need some sort of closure by naming a scapegoat and finding some false rational explanation for an irrational behavior.

When it comes down to it, the blame should mostly be on Major Hasan himself, and his reasons are undoubtedly complicated. He pulled the trigger all by himself. Whatever the outside circumstances were, it is his fault, and he should not have done it.

The man is obviously beyond disturbed, and perhaps, being around so much violent combat is also part of the problem. They used to call it shell shock, now they call it post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and it is definitely not the only psychological problem attributed to the violent effects of war.

For those of us lifelong civilians, we can’t imagine such a culture of killing that soldiers experience in war, and it must have a wide range of impacts on the human psyche. Those impacts don’t stop with the military individual, either. Their families are affected too. According to The New York Times, Fort Hood and the surrounding community has seen a huge rise in suicide, domestic abuse and other violent crime since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began.

Major Hasan’s violent rampage at Fort Hood is a deep and complicated issue that cannot be neatly categorized or reasoned about. Whether he had PTSD or a religious conflict with the war is pretty irrelevant at this point, since the damage is done.

This incident is one of many tragic effects that can happen because of war. Many veterans do return to live relatively normal lives, but many of them have trauma and consequences for years. Hopefully, our veterans can receive the psychological help they need to prevent as much suffering as possible.

Maybe someone missed warning signs or didn’t take the right action to try and prevent this from happening, but there is no crystal ball. In hindsight many ordinary things can be considered warning signs. If an agency missed something that could have prevented this, hopefully a lesson can be learned, and hopefully this is the reason for any investigation. Blame and hate among American politicians, agencies and citizens will not change what happened and will only divide us further—arguably, what radical American-hating terrorists would want.

We have enough divide within our government and country. Everything that happens now seems to grow that divide among American politicians and, in turn, the citizens, perhaps even more so. Obviously, no one wanted this to happen and didn’t purposefully let this maniac kill innocent people. There may be a few American extremists who would believe such a conspiracy existed, but let’s not let their paranoia divide us any further.

Let’s remember and sympathize with these victims of the Fort Hood tragedy and all victims of war. Let’s hate the effects of war and violence, not blame and hate each other.