Media Chicken-Plucking Continues: "Secondary Trauma" May Be to Blame for Hasan's Mass Murder

It is now well past the time we have learned Hasan attempted to contact Al Qaeda, and was a "typical fundamentalist Muslim," and worried the Army (though not enough) with his weekly outbursts in support of jihad.

And still it continues. This time from Time.

As an army psychiatrist treating soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, Major Nidal Malik Hasan had a front row seat on the brutal toll of war. It is too early to know exactly what may have triggered his murderous shooting rampage Thursday at Fort Hood - Hasan is accused of killing 12 people and wounding 32 others before he was wounded by a police officer - but it is not uncommon for therapists treating soldiers with Post Trumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.) to be swept up in a patient's displays of war-related paranoia, helplessness and fury. (See pictures of suicide in the recruiters ranks.) In medical parlance it is known as "secondary trauma", and it can afflict the families of soldiers suffering from P.T.S.D. along with the health workers who are trying to cure them. Dr. Antonette Zeiss, Deputy Chief of Mental Health Services for Veteran Affairs, while not wishing to talk about the specific case of the Fort Hood slayings, explained to TIME that: "Anyone who works with P.T.S.D. clients and hears their stories will be profoundly affected."

Um, but what about the fact he appeared to be an Al Qaeda wannabe -- literally a wannabe, attempting to contact them, and drinking the venom spat out by Al Qaeda's favorite former Iman in America?

Oh, Time makes allowances their theory may be incomplete:

It's entirely possible that other factors may have acted as a trigger for Hasan's alleged killing spree.

It's possible. Let's go ahead and pencil in a "Get right on that" as far as these mysterious "other factors."

Jeffrey Goldberg has some thoughts on When Muslims Attack:

This is the second time this year American soldiers on American soil have been gunned down by a Muslim who was reportedly unhappy with America's wars in the Middle East (the first took place in Arkansas, to modest levels of notice). And, of course, this would not be the first instance of an American Muslim soldier killing fellow soldiers over his disagreements with American foreign policy; in 2003, Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar killed two officers and wounded fourteen others when he rolled a grenade into a tent in a homicidal protest against American policy.

I am not arguing, of course, that American Muslims, as a whole, are violently unhappy with America (I've argued the opposite, in fact). But I do think that elite makers of opinion in this country try very hard to ignore the larger meaning of violent acts when they happen to be perpetrated by Muslims. Here's a simple test: If Nidal Malik Hasan had been a devout Christian with pronounced anti-abortion views, and had he attacked, say, a Planned Parenthood office, would his religion have been considered relevant as we tried to understand the motivation and meaning of the attack? Of course. Elite opinion makers do not, as a rule, try to protect Christians and Christian belief from investigation and criticism. Quite the opposite. It would be useful to apply the same standards of inquiry and criticism to all religions.

And I can't help but think that the deadly doublethink here is having bad effects even when people aren't being murdered.

Thanks to MargaretH., DavidR., and Hot Air's headlines.

posted by Ace at 11:32 AM

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