MAJOR Nidal Malik Hasan, the gunman who killed 13 at America’s Fort Hood military base, once gave a lecture to other doctors in which he said non-believers should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their necks.
Nidal Malik Hasan
According to a report in the Telegraph today, he also told colleagues at America’s top military hospital that non-Muslims were infidels condemned to hell and that they should be set on fire.
The outburst came during an hour-long talk Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, gave on the Koran in front of dozens of other doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington DC, where he worked for six years before arriving at Fort Hood in July.
Colleagues had expected a discussion on a medical issue but were instead given an extremist interpretation of the Koran, which Hasan appeared to believe.
It was the latest in a series of “red flags” about his state of mind that have emerged since the massacre at Fort Hood, America’s largest military installation, last Thursday.
Hasan, armed with two handguns including a semi-automatic pistol, walked into a processing centre for soldiers deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan, where he killed 13 and injured more than 30.
Fellow doctors have recounted how they were repeatedly harangued by Hasan about religion and that he openly claimed to be:
Muslim first and American second.
One Army doctor who knew him said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim soldier had stopped fellow officers from filing formal complaints.
Another, Dr Val Finnell, who took a course with him in 2007 at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Maryland, did complain about Hasan’s “anti-American rants.” He said:
The system is not doing what it’s supposed to do. He at least should have been confronted about these beliefs, told to cease and desist, and to shape up or ship out. I really questioned his loyalty.
Selena Coppa, an activist for Iraq Veterans Against the War, said:
This man was a psychiatrist and was working with other psychiatrists every day and they failed to notice how deeply disturbed someone right in their midst was.
Senator Joe Lieberman, who chairs the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security, said there had been “strong warning signs” that Hasan was an “Islamist extremist”.
The committee would ask
Whether the Army missed warning signs that should have led them to essentially discharge him.
He added:
The US Army has to have zero tolerance. He should have been gone.
But General George Casey, the Army’s Chief of Staff, said it was “speculation” that military authorities failed to pick up on warning signs.
I don’t want to say that we missed it. We have to go back and look at ourselves, and ask ourselves the hard questions. Are we doing the right things? We will learn from this.
It’s too early to draw conclusions but we will ask ourselves the hard questions about what we are doing and the changes we should make as a result of this.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
November 9th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
No, it’s them jinn what did it, honest. After all, it couldn’t possibly have been gin.
It makes you wonder, though – a psychiatrist who (we must assume) believes in demonic possession. Does that place him half way between conventional psychiatry and the scientologists? Xenu, tell us! Do scientologists also believe in jinn?
November 9th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
At the least it has to make you wonder about the diagnostic ability of the psychiatrists employed in the U.S. Military.
Apart from aegis of religion, paranoid schizophrenia would come to mind. But then, you are able to find protection for similar apparent clinical conditions much closer to home.
November 9th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Have any of you people come across the site Bare Naked Islam before?
http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/
If not, have a look at it and see what you think. I found some of it too disturbing to watch personally, but we know it is happening!
November 9th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Gen. George Casey reportedly says: “I don’t want to say that we missed it”, thus reinforcing in one brief sentence all the stereotypes about army top brass who wouldn’t be able to walk and chew gum at the same time!
November 10th, 2009 at 12:04 am
A reason why “extreme Islam” might not be considered a red flag: someone is bound to point out the extremist Christians who would raise as big an alarm. (Probably small in number, but also probably many more than extremist Muslims just by the fact that there are many more Christians …)
November 10th, 2009 at 12:12 am
You won’t see any Christians doing anything like that. Other than McVey, and the KKK, and the guy that shot that doctor, and those others. Christians-GOOD. Muslims-BAD.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:32 am
@barriejohn
That Naked Islam site is a nightmare. Well up to the standards of the Christian lunatic fringe with their love of html fancies. In fact, if I could still read it now that my glasses have melted, I might conclude that it’s a lunatic Christan site.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
November 10th, 2009 at 12:43 am
It’s a weird site all right, Brian!
November 10th, 2009 at 12:52 am
This just another sad turn of events of how religion can be blown way out of the means for which it is intended. What this solder did was by no means right, but it is was happens to a person who is mentally weak and susceptible. If it wasn’t this, it would be something else. It isn’t a judgment of his psychiatric ability, as I am sure for most of the time he was able to conceal his true agenda. His ability to fake being normal with the occasional outbursts wouldn’t have given off any red flags to those who live at Fort Hood. Having lived Killeen (the city next door) while my father was enlisted, I can say that the people didn’t deserve what befell them as they they are generally understanding, good people.
November 10th, 2009 at 1:28 am
Strange how similar these extremists are regardless of their religions? Wait, they believe in the same God!
November 10th, 2009 at 6:54 am
Its easy enough to identify the enemy when he is pointing a gun at you. Not so easy when he is in the same fatigues climing to be on your side. That said the big give away was when he said all non muslims should be be-headed. Religion really is a vile practice.
November 10th, 2009 at 6:56 am
My only worry is that this will draw attention from the real danger in the U.S. military.
The gays!!
November 10th, 2009 at 8:19 am
I have always had doubts about the diagnostic ability of psychiatrists. Psychiatry is mostly based on common sense and common sense is mostly based on nothing at all.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:29 am
One would have thought that the Army, where he could be kept an eye on, was a better place than the civilian realm where he could have plotted more extravagant horrors.
Is islam specially designed for these unstable types or are these unstable types specially attracted to islam I wonder?
November 10th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Ah. I thought that he’d been shot dead.
Apparently he was in a coma, but is now coming around:
http://www.ptinews.com/news/36.....ut-of-coma
I look forward with interest to what he has to say about the incident.
BTW, unrelated, does anyone have a link to video of George Bush Senior’s “Atheists should not be considered citizens” quote? I’ve seen it, but can’t find it anywhere…
November 10th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
I wonder will he get the death penalty, or spend the rest of his life in military prison? Not that I believe in the death penalty, but in this case being alive to suffer the consequences of his actions seems the harsher punishment.
November 10th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Thomas Szasz has been trying to tell the brainwashed ignoranti for forty years that the only difference between a psychiatrist and a bartender is that the bartender does not delude himself that his sympathetic listening is a form of medicine.
November 10th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Why did he not avoid this internal conflict by not joining the army in the first place? I mean, joining the army does generally carry the risk that you will have to go to a foreign land and kill foreigners for your country. If he sees himself as a Muslim first and an American second was he really not bright enough to work out that that might become a problem?
Every so often I come across an accusation that atheists arrogantly claim to be more intelligent than theists. Well, I am constantly being bombarded with examples of theistic stupidity so am I really being arrogant if I start to think that way?
November 11th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Stonyground, it may have been that when he joined he wasn’t so very religious and more patriotic, and he became more religious and less patriotic at some point after he joined. This would explain why he had been recently try to get honorably discharged.
Adn think this incipent shows a good case for being more lenient with solders who want to retire before their contract is up. Perhaps you can let anyone who wants to leave early leave early, but make them pay some sort of military tax for the duration of they thy should have in in according to their contract.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Excuses seem to be being made for this guy on the grounds of his “state of mind”. The real problem is that he is a believer in islam. He is not an extremist, islam is extremist therefore his beliefs seem extreme to us whereas in fact he is just a proper muslim.
The only problem with his mind is that it is locked into the same state as a certain vile 7th century retard.