Liberals Fiddle While Fort Hood Burns

David C. Stolinsky, MD
Nov. 9, 2009

We only win when we play on the road. We lose when it's a home game.
– Oliver North, “The Assassins,” discussing terrorism

Sometimes events occur that not only are important in themselves, but also reveal a pattern − if we are wise enough to see it.

The Attack.

Nidal Malik Hasan, MD, MPH was born in Arlington, Virginia, the location of our most honored national cemetery. His parents were from Ramallah on the West Bank. They owned a small grocery store in Roanoke, Virginia.

Hasan volunteered for the Army and went through medical school at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences. Instead of graduating with burdensome debts, like most young doctors, he graduated free of debt − that is, free of financial debt. But he did have a debt to the nation that financed his education, and to the Army that provided it.

Whether he was aware of this obligation is another matter. And speaking of obligations, what about the Oath for Commissioned Officers and the Hippocratic Oath?

Hasan completed a psychiatry residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, thereby accumulating more obligation. He then completed a fellowship in disaster and military psychiatry and a master’s degree in public health at taxpayers’ expense, adding still more obligation. He was promoted to major and assigned to Fort Hood, Texas in June.

Except for patients seen during his training, Hasan has actually worked for four or five months, hardly enough time to repay his obligation. How he did repay it soon became obvious.

His parents were said to be nonobservant. His family states that he did not learn hatred at home. Then where did he learn it? The public library? The local Starbuck’s? Oh, wait. After his parents died, he became religious and prayed at the mosque daily. Might that be significant?

He believed he was being discriminated against because of his Muslim faith. Whether this belief was factual is a question. But there is no question that a feeling of victimhood is often used as an excuse for terrible crimes.

The 39-year-old Hasan was to be deployed to Afghanistan. He armed himself with two privately owned pistols, one a 5.7 mm designed to defeat body armor. He went to an area where soldiers were preparing to deploy overseas. He shouted “Allahu akbar!” and shot as many unarmed soldiers and civilians as he could, repeatedly reloading with spare magazines stored in his fatigues.

He was seen shooting down at wounded victims and pursuing others. Finally he was shot by a petite civilian police officer, Sgt. Kimberly Munley, and her partner, Sgt. Mark Todd. Hasan was seriously wounded. He shot Munley twice in the legs, but she is expected to recover.

Hasan murdered 13, including a pregnant woman but not including her unborn child, and wounded about 30. If it were not for the heroic actions of the police officers and others, the toll would have been higher. Look at the photos of the slain, then imagine the hatred required to shoot them at close range − in a place where they felt safe among brothers and sisters.

For at least two years, Hasan expressed opposition to U.S. Middle East policy, at one point praising suicide bombers as equivalent to soldiers who throw themselves on grenades to save their buddies. He reportedly attempted to proselytize patients − a serious breach of professional ethics. Colleagues discussed these red flags, but whether they reported the problem to their superiors, and what the superiors did about it, remains to be seen. Clearly, nobody did enough.

Outsiders assume that soldiers are brave and resourceful, and that physicians are self-directed and independent. But in a bureaucracy, nothing could be further from the truth. People with careers often think of their careers first, their professions second, and those dependent on them hardly at all. If you want to be promoted, you must not appear to be “Islamophobic.” Even in an armed service, being politically correct may be more important for your career than being a warrior − or even being effective at your job.

How destructive political correctness has been we may now finally realize. Or we may not − and allow the destruction to continue.

The response.

The mainstream media downplayed the fact that Hasan is a Muslim. A Los Angeles Times headline described him as a psychiatrist. What difference would it make if he were a proctologist? The key point is not what end of the body he treated, but what was the source of his homicidal hate. As with many prior attacks, the mainstream media may claim that the motive is a “mystery.” But anything is a mystery if we refuse to see the answer.

One network stated that sometimes Hasan wore “traditional” clothing. Really? Did he wear the kilt of a Scot? Did he wear the lederhosen of a Bavarian? Oh, he wore traditional Muslim clothing. Why didn’t you say so?

Meanwhile, Hollywood released another in its long series of films depicting the U.S. military as both dangerous and ridiculous. The film was titled, “Men Who Stare at Goats.” But it was made by men who stare at themselves − and see only their own leftist agenda. As a result, there were 30 people in a theater seating 696. But Hollywood loves its leftist agenda even more than it loves money. As the film opened, the wounded were still hospitalized, and the dead were not buried. Watching the film was painful.

And then director Roland Emmerich admitted that his film “2012” will depict the destruction of the White House, the Sistine Chapel, Saint Peter’s Basilica and the Christ of the Andes − but not the Kaaba in Mecca. He fears death threats, as well as being politically incorrect. When even a computerized special effect is omitted for fear of reprisals, in what sense are we still free? We have trouble handling the truth. Now we can’t even handle fiction.

President Obama warned, “We don’t know all the answers yet, and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.” But being imperfect human beings, we can never know all the answers and have all the facts. Taken literally, the president’s warning means that we should never reach a conclusion.

The purpose of an open mind is that eventually it will close on something. A mind that remains perpetually open remains empty.

As a lawyer, the president should know that people are convicted of crimes if they are found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, not beyond all doubt. To demand that we know all the answers and have all the facts is to demand that we sit immobile, denying the obvious − while the world goes to hell around us.

At some point, a demand for certainty becomes an excuse for inaction. As a doctor, I learned to act on the best information I could get in a reasonable time, especially when lives were at stake. They are now.

It is too late for the dead and wounded at Fort Hood. It is not too late for the victims of future attacks, which will surely come − unless we open our eyes to see reality, open our mouths to speak the truth, then act like responsible adults and deal with the problem.

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Author’s Note: I use the term “wounded,” as is proper when one is hurt by an enemy in wartime, rather than “injured,” as when one is hurt in a fall in the shower. We are at war. Hasan defected to the enemy. The wounded and the dead should receive Purple Hearts, and the rescuers should receive decorations for valor in the presence of an armed enemy.

We say we honor our veterans on Veterans Day, November 11. A good place to start would be to honor those who are serving now, risking their lives to defend our freedom. Come to think of it, a good place to start would be to honor freedom.

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Dr. Stolinsky writes on political and social issues. He can be contacted at dstol@prodigy.net.

www.stolinsky.com