Mental Health Blogs

NPR did some excellent reporting on Wednesday, which I didn’t have the stomach to write about yesterday (I needed a day away from the Fort Hood story), but some officials at Walter Reed Hospital and elsewhere in the area were concerned that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan may have been “psychotic” or “schizoid.” No one had any strong evidence of it aside from one official who is quoted as saying:

“‘Put it this way,’ says one official familiar with the conversations that took place. ‘Everybody felt that if you were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, you would not want Nidal Hasan in your foxhole.’”

Nonetheless, it sounds as if Maj. Hasan may have had some issues, but no one proceeded to order a fitness for duty evaluation, reportedly out of concern for seeming insensitive to a Muslim.

While I can appreciate that there may have been mental health issues underlying Maj. Hasan’s actions at Fort Hood, I’m sticking with the terrorist interpretation of things, partly due to what my gut tells me, partly because of Maj. Hasan’s contacts with an Al Qaeda-connected imam, and because a copy of Maj. Hasan’s business card (presumably for private practice) has turned up. On it, Maj. Hasan declares in abbreviations that he is a “soldier of God” and adds “glory to God.” Kind of odd for a doctor’s business card.

I know some readers have troubles with declaring Maj. Hasan a terrorist. Hell, yesterday, I had an argument over coffee with a friend in the neighborhood who told me that it was OK for Maj. Hasan to have contact with Al Qaeda, since the contents of the emails were allegedly benign. I argued back that Maj. Hasan was in the US Military and military personnel are expressly forbidden from having contact with the enemy (for obvious reasons) and “What part of al Qaeda is our enemy don’t you understand.”

Fun stuff!

That said, I kind of get peoples’ reluctance to label Maj. Hasan a terrorist and it has nothing to do with his being a Muslim or trying to be gentle with Muslim-Americans as a whole. In all his pictures, he seems so kind and gentle somehow and I cringe when I see them on the Internet or TV. It doesn’t change my mind about his motivations, but it does give me pause.

For those of you who think Maj. Hasan looks too nice to be a terrorist, please take a look at the pictures of his 13 murder victims. They look far too nice to be murder victims.

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Related posts:

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3. Fort Hood Shooter-Psychiatrist To Employee Insanity Defense?
4. Fort Hood Shooting: Army Psychiatrist Kills 12, Wounds 31, Fuller Torrey Silent
5. Army PTSD Psychiatrist Suspected Shooter At Ft. Hood