I have a few questions for you, my readers, at the end of this note.  I hope you’ll take a moment to respond with your answers as comments to this post.

Yesterday’s horrific murder of at least 12 soldiers at the Army base at Fort Hood, Texas, was reportedly committed by U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist who lived in suburban Maryland.

Hasan is an American citizen with reports varying as to whether his parents are Jordanian or Palestinian.  (The could be both, as many Palestinians became refugees in Jordan during the various wars in the region.) Some news reports are saying that Hasan was a convert to Islam (including in the video below), but it is being reported by Fox News that a cousin says he was born and raised Muslim, and was not a later-in-life convert.

In either case, it is clear that Hasan was a religious Muslim: A Washington Examiner article quotes a local Muslim leader as saying that Hasan went to prayers on a daily basis. And from a Washington Post article:

Hasan attended the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring and was “very devout,” according to Faizul Khan, a former imam at the center. Khan said Hasan attended prayers at least once a day, seven days a week, often in his Army fatigues.

Khan also said Hasan applied to an annual matrimonial seminar that matches Muslims looking for spouses. “I don’t think he ever had a match, because he had too many conditions,” Khan said.

I would love to know more about this “Community Center” to find out if it is a center for radicalism.  Hasan is described by the imam and others as not expressing radical views, but if they were feeding him radical views that is just what they would say.  (And of course they would probably say the same thing if it were true.)

Quoting further from the Examiner article: “At Fort Hood, Hasan exhibited a troubled state of mind. Retired Col. Terry Lee, who worked with Hasan at the psych ward at Fort Hood, told Fox News that about six months ago he heard Hasan say, “Maybe the Muslims should rise up and fight against the aggressor,” in Iraq and Afghanistan – referring to the U.S. Army.”

Here’s some video of an interview with Col. Lee:

It is also being reported that Major Hasan received a poor job review while working at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (a poor review generally being a death sentence to any advancement in the military) as well as that Hasan had been harrassed in the military for being Muslim.

Unless Hasan left a note, we may never know his true motivation. According to ABC News, “Hasan’s cousin Nader Hasan said that she believed it was his upcoming deployment combined with the wartime horror stories he heard from his patients that set him off. Hasan had recently hired an attorney to help him get out of the military.”

American Muslim groups are issuing condemnations of the murders, knowing that Hasan’s attack will increase, at least temporarily, fear of and anger towards Muslims.

So here are my questions for you:

Is it rational for this horror to increase someone’s distrust of an American Muslim, particularly one who seems quite religious?  Are Thursday’s events likely to have that effect on you?

Do you believe that Americans who are or who become religious Muslims are likely to put a higher value on their religion than on their nation?  If so, do you believe it is more true of religions Muslims than of devout people of other religions?

Do you think the American military could legally do anything to more closely surveil its Muslim members, and if they could do you think they should?

Do you believe CAIR when they condemn Hasan’s murderous attack?