On November 5, 2009, the son of Palestinian immigrants, Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan randomly fired into a crowd at a processing center at Fort Hood, the largest active-duty military post in the country (Army Major kills, n.d.). One would be hard pressed to find a larger military stage to conduct such blatant murder. Despite the Major shouting ‘God is great’ in Arabic, “Allahu Akbar”, just before he opened fire on soldiers who were either returning from deployment, or getting ready to be deployed, there was a denial by the government to officially label the shooting as an act of terror (Army Major kills, n.d.). For years the government danced around any manner of tying this attack to terrorism. This paper will examine both sides of the issue, after which the totality of the evidence will make it clear this was indeed a blatant terroristic attack.
“WORKPLACE VIOLENCE”:
The President indirectly related this shooting to terrorism in a counter-terrorist speech in 2013. He referred to the threat posed by “radicalized individuals” who were inspired by conceptual jihads, stating the “‘pull towards extremism appears to have led to the shooting at Fort Hood and the bombing of the Boston Marathon.’” (Fernandez and Blinder, 2014). The problem being that he had already declared the Boston Marathon bombing to be an act of terror (Fernandez and Blinder, 2014). So by tying the two events he was walking a fine line playing semantics dodge ball. This is further illustrated by a reference by the senior uniformed attorney, Lt. Gen. Dana K. Chipman, that declared all evidence in the shooting pointed towards it being the criminal work of a single individual and not the work of international terrorism (Fernandez and Blinder, 2014). Reading between the lines it seems clear the government was doing its best to separate the Fort Hood shooting from having any direct ties or help from an international terrorist group.
There is further motive for the government to maintain the shootings as a random act of a single person within the work place. By denying the act to be one of terrorism, meant that those wounded and killed did not suffer their fate in ‘the line of duty’, which further meant that the government was not liable for covering their medical services as well as the service men losing benefits provided to veterans injured in combat (Rothman, 2015). This also denied those killed from receiving the Purple Heart. Remarkably the victims and their families went to the extent of filing a suit in 2012 against the Department of Defense for the benefits they believed was theirs to receive. Within the context of the legal proceeding the DOD in 2013 explained its side two-fold, giving the Purple Heart would “‘irrevocably alter the fundamental character of this time-honored decoration’” and further “‘undermine the prosecution of Major Nidal Hasan [the alleged Fort Hood shooter] by materially and directly compromising Major Hasan’s ability to receive a fair trial.’”(Rothman, 2015). It would take the Congressional legislation and the reclassification of the shooting in 2015 to rectify this extreme oversight (Rothman, 2015).
EXTREMIST TERRORISM:
During the preliminaries of his trial, Major Hasan told a mental health panel that he believed his shootings of soldiers about to be deployed were justified because they were “‘going against the Islamic Empire.’” (Fernandez and Blinder, 2104). He further clarified that his action was an attempt to protect Taliban leaders in Afghanistan from American troops (Fernandez and Blinder, 2104). In support of this position during the trial, Major Hasan illuminated that before the shooting he had switched sides and had become a guerilla fighter defending the Taliban (Hennessy-Fiske, 2014). It is evident he believed his actions to be an extension of protecting those with whom he shared a fervent bond.
After his sentencing while on military death row at Fort Leavenworth, Major Hasan provided his legal representative, attorney John Galligan with a handwritten letter that was addressed to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi, expressing his desire to become a part of the Islamic State. In the letter which was released exclusively to Fox News, Hasan stated, “‘It would be an honor for any believer to be an obedient citizen soldier’” (Hennessy-Fiske, 2014). Galligan believed this sentiment to be a true representation of the religious fervor that has been a part of Hasan’s makeup (Hennessy-Fiske, 2014).
CONCLUSION
The evidence from his beliefs to his actions all point to Major Nidal Hasan as being a true believer, not just in Islam but in the radical arms of Islamic fundamentalism. The problem would then lie in the definition of extremist terrorism. Does it need to be conducted by a group or by an individual in collusion with a terrorist group? The U.S. government pushed long and hard making it clear the shootings were the criminal act of a single individual, this was despite a 2011 Senate investigative report that called it “‘the deadliest terrorist attack within the United States since September 11, 2001.’” (Goodenough, 2015). Military benefits and the awarding of the Purple Heart demanded that such action comes at the hand of an individual acting “‘at the direction’ of foreign terrorist organization” (Goodenough, 2015). It took Congressional legislation and an official Pentagon review of the event to declare that Hasan’s pre-shooting actions had established enough of a tie to demonstrate that his actions were inspired by a foreign terrorist organization (Goodenough, 2015). This action finally, in 2015, allowed the victims of this act of terror to obtain the benefits and acknowledgment that were 6 years coming to them. Despite the obvious common sense evidence, in the end, it came down to semantics and the definition of terrorism. The reluctance of the use of the word represents the cultural tight rope we walk in our country today regarding terrorism and its ties to Islam. Since indeed many terrorists are Islamic but not all members of Islam are terrorists, the government goes to great length when dealing with these shootings within our own borders to attempt to not let people jump to an idea of their being terrorists within our population. Was this then an act of extreme terrorism or a mass casualty shooting? This did not happen in a mall by some random deranged person. The 2009 shootings at Fort Hood took place on a military base by a man of Palestinian descent with ties to Islam against innocent soldiers about to be deployed to Afghanistan. Perhaps one could argue over the definition of terrorism, but it is clear it was more than a mass casualty shooting, it was an act of terrorism carried out against the soldiers representing our country.
References
Army major kills 13 people in Fort Hood shooting spree. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/army-major-kills-13-people-in-fort-hood- shooting-spree.
Fernandez, M. & Blinder, A. (2014, April 8). At Fort Hood, Wrestling with the Label of Terrorism. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/09/us/at-fort-hood-wrestling-with-label-of- terrorism.html.
Fisk-Hennessy, M. (2014, August 30). From death row, Ft. Hood shooter requests to join Islamic State. The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-fort-hood-shooter-islamic-state- 20140830-story.html.
Goodenough, P. (2015, December, 7). Six Years Later: Obama Finally Calls Fort Hood a Terrorist Attack. Retrieved from http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/obama-six-years-later-calls- fort-hood-terrorist-attack.
McGarry, B. (2016.). New Documentary Explores What Drove Fort Hood Shooter to Extremism. Retrieved from http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/02/06/documentary-explores- what-drove-fort-hood-shooter-to-extremism.html.
Obama's Response to Fort Hood Shooting Under Scrutiny. (n.d.) Retrieved from
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/06/obamas-response-fort-hood-shooting- scrutiny.htm.
Roth, Noah. (2015, February 6). Victims of ‘workplace violence’ incident at Fort Hood to finally receive Purple Heart. Retrieved from http://hotair.com/archives/2015/02/06/victims-of-workplace-violence-incident-at-fort- hood-to-finally-receive-purple-heart.
