[spence]

Originally Posted by detbuch

His Leadership could have seen his relative incompetence as a reason for demotion but not as a threat to go Jihadist on the guys. Deeper exploration into his incompetence would seem a bit extreme and not only expend inordinate hours of analysis over a simple, obvious trait, but would, ipso facto, be cause for such useless analysis of many thousand other less than highly competent personnel.

So deteriorating mental health that impacts job function wouldn't be of concern to his leadership? I thought the military actually paid very close attention to this.

The only other issues that I'm aware of are the conflict between his religious views and his military duties. I don't think that those conflicts are a cause for psycho-analysis unless one is to believe that religious views, per se, are psychotic.

The source of the conflict is irrelevant if it has a negative impact to his duty.

The fact that "all" other . . . (I'm sure the "all" is just an exageration as there have been other such "incidents" in the military) . . . the fact that many other Muslim soldiers don't seem to have "this" problem may, and I hope it's so, is that they are of a reformed view of Islam.

Like most things this falls on a spectrum. I'm sure there are many Muslim soldiers who are conflicted but stay true to their duty to serve. The fanatics obviously would consider them infidels, but it's not necessarily either / or, the right push and you could find yourself on the other side. This looks to be what may have happened to Hasan.

The Holy War Jihadist, I believe, is a throwback view that is in dire need of reformation, as was Christianaity centuries ago. To be a partner with the rest of the world rather than a master, the "convert or die" mentality, along with many other rules, customs, and beliefs of Islam need reformation.

The difficulty is that to some the Sharia is seen as a highly refined legal and moral system. Hence, no need for any "Enlightenment". To the many Muslims detached from the mainstream, this may appear to provide more comfort. Just like how people will send their kids to a Madrassa as it's the only place to get an "education".

The "bad" Muslims--those that more loosely follow their faith like their counter-part Christians and Jews, are the "good" citizens and soldiers. The really "good" Muslims, of the fundamentalist persuasion, see the rest of the world as not just a threat, but an underclass that, at best, is merely allowed to exist, or worse.

Speaking of good and bad, there's a pretty interesting read called "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim."

I believe the reformation needs to, quickly, come from within the faith, and little perfunctory "condemnations" of radical Islamist violence is not going to do it. It is a faith that is very susceptible to crackdown from the higher-ups. They could could change this so-called minority behavior in a nano-second, if they truly wished to do so.

Definitely agree that reform needs to come from the inside, but I'm not so sure change is just a matter of free will. In fact a lot of Western behavior works against the very people who might seek reform.

Perhaps we should start dropping Ayn Rand books instead of bombs

Would the military be allowed to deeply explore such issues with Hasan? Again, the only other "facts" that I'm aware of in this case that might, in any way, indicate what he was about to do, stem from his conflict between his faith and his military duty (not to mention how that faith, as he viewed it, would impact his view of American culture and law--not enough facts to conjecture). And if the military were allowed to explore his inner conflict, could they find cause to remove him. I think there would be, dare I say, a politically correct objection to that.

The military is a regimented organization, and I'd be surprised, if what was starting to look like a clear dereliction of duty, wouldn't be cause for his removal from service.

Again regarding PC, he was promoted despite his performance simply because of a need for more psychiatrists. This would seems to trump any simple speculation that they were afraid of confronting a religious issue.

I do think some heads will roll once this is investigated.

-spence