By now, many readers may have seen Tunku Varadarajan’s controversial column for Forbes from last week, “Going Muslim.” In it, Varadarajan coins a new term to describe Major Nidal Hasan’s rampage at Fort Hood two weeks ago. “Going Muslim” is Varadarajan’s variation of “going postal,” a phrase coined a few years ago, after a string of (non-Muslim) U.S. postal workers went on killing sprees. Here is how Varadarajan defines the term:
This phrase would describe the turn of events where a seemingly integrated Muslim-American–a friendly donut vendor in New York, say, or an officer in the U.S. Army at Fort Hood–discards his apparent integration into American society and elects to vindicate his religion in an act of messianic violence against his fellow Americans.
The most irksome part of Varadarajan’s column for me was the following paragraph:
The difference between “going postal,” in the conventional sense, and “going Muslim,” in the sense that I suggest, is that there would not necessarily be a psychological “snapping” point in the case of the imminently violent Muslim; instead, there could be a calculated discarding of camouflage–the camouflage of integration–in an act of revelatory catharsis. In spite of suggestions by some who know him that he had a history of “harassment” as a Muslim in the army, Maj. Hasan did not “snap” in the “postal” manner. He gave away his possessions on the morning of his day of murder. He even gave away–to a neighbor–a packet of frozen broccoli that he did not wish to see go to waste, even as he mapped in his mind the laying waste of lives at Fort Hood. His was a meticulous, even punctilious “departure.”
In fact, reports from Hasan’s colleagues strongly suggest a profile of a person who was borderline psychotic for several years, but who finally snapped around 2007. Yes, he gave away his broccoli on the day he went on a shooting spree. But that is in fact entirely in keeping with how psychotics behave.
What Varadarajan doesn’t realize is that the kind of paranoid argument he is making about immigrants in “camouflage” could very easily be used against any other immigrant group, including Hindus, as a pretext for mistrust or active discrimination.
Varadarajan also make a claim about “integration” into American society that is simply not supported by any facts. The diverse groups of immigrants who are Muslim have done just fine in terms of their economic performance, civil participation, etc. By coining this pernicious phrase, and by promoting an argument based self-evidently on bigotry, Varadarajan has shown us why we no longer need to take anything he says seriously.
Much of Varadarajan’s animus is really directed at affirmative action, and seems to be an extension of the post 9/11 claim he made several years ago, which Manish responded to here, that Muslims really ought to be singled out for profiling, especially in connection with mass transit. There are some unconfirmed reports that Nidal Hasan, despite signs that he was incompetent and unhinged, may have been treated with kid gloves by his superiors at Walter Reed who wanted to avoid seeming to persecute a Muslim colleague. If proven true, they would support Varadarajan’s claim, with which I agree, that political correctness ought not be a consideration in situations like Hasan’s. But I have my doubts about how significant political correctness really was; it seems as likely that the army bureaucrats supervising Hasan simply didn’t want to deal with the arduous and extended process for firing him.
Even if the political correctness claim is supported by facts that will come out of the forthcoming investigation, the focus of our concern should be the Army protocols for assessing mentally ill service members, not Muslims as a group.
Needless to say, Varadarajan’s column has caused quite a firestorm of controversy in the NYU community. You can see some of the responses, including one from the president of the university, here.
The phrase says it all, Western Islamophobia is now in vogue in the Indian community, both in South Asia and abroad.
The man is also a college professor, in a public position, where he interacts with Muslim students and faculty.
I pity his position now.
I wasn’t as insulted by Tanku’s comments since they are common.
Though Muslims are integral to South Asia and Indian society in general, casual Islamophobic comments can be seen in movies, speeches by politicians, TV programs, or conservative professors writing for a leading publication.
“Going Muslim” is unnecessarily provocative. As the misunderstood Ari Fleischer once said, Americans, “need to watch what they say…”
Can’t the man find something better to do than incite the hate?
Maybe he should go cruising for women with Salman Rushdie?
The problem is not political correctness – it is dogmatism and a failure to address realities and develop effective procedures. This applies whether the dogma come from ‘the left’ or ‘the right.’ Posing it in the divisive terms he’s posed it not only fails to properly identify the problem, but more broadly masks the issue because we will all end up regurgitating or shouting against his idiotic neologism instead of talking about real issues like discrimination, militarism, economics, psychological health of army personnel (is domestic violence ‘going male’?), and of coures the real thing – the two idiotic and destructive and murderous wars going on.
This list is dangerously incomplete. We need to talk about religious jingoism first and foremost, since it is this characteristic within Muslim cultures that is the root cause of these problems. While we’re at it, it wouldn’t hurt to talk about some of the violent rhetoric, 911 conspiracy theories, and antisemitism emanating from the anti-war movement. it isn’t just the teabaggers who create a climate where this violence seems acceptable, especially to the mentally unstable, as Nancy Pelosi recently argued.
This is the 3rd act of political violance on US soil against our military in the last year alone.
I would suggest everyone email him with their views. My personal view “Going Varadarajan -> Writing like a fool”
tvaradar@stern.nyu.edu
The comment from Stern’s dean was pretty lol-worthy too. Are MBAs imminently clueless?
I am probably leaning towards the idea that NYU shouldn’t censor him or fire him b/c of tenure, blah blah blah, but they should show some respect and care for their students by not allowing him to teach any required or heavily suscribed classes. NYU students should have the right to go about their business without having to take instruction from someone who writes like this. He has displayed something far less than the minimum of respect for a number of his students, and no longer deserves the privilege of teaching them. Doesn’t sound like the kind of guy who would mind, anyway—I’m sure he’d prefer to have some little elective seminar populated just by sycophants who thrill at these sorts of ideas.
an obligation for piety that is more extensive than in other schemes.
Does he know what piety means? He keeps using that word. I do not think that words means what he thinks it means.
[Obama] lost credibility with people who cannot stand civic piety in the face of the murderous kind.
Yeah, I’m sure Obama really had a lot of credibility with the vigilante justice lynch brigade. WTF does this sentence even mean?
No, just currently liberal when it comes to academic freedom.
Could we please stick to the moral arguments against Uncle Tunku, rather than attempting to appeal to naked self-interest? After the next big terrorist attack in the US, if they “round up the Muslims” those Muslims will include Black Africans, White Bosniacs, “East Asian”-looking Indonesians, and yes, Desis, in addition to Arabs. Yet there’s no more reason for this belly-button stud wearing Hindu to be conflated with the Muslims than for a stiletto-wearing Serb. (Yes, I know that observant male Sikhs have a problem here, but that has to do with the construction of Sikh visual identity, which is tied to why Punjabi Hindu families were donating one male child to the Sikhs.)
Tunku is one of the few republican apologists I tolerate because he sometimes addresses India and Hindu related issues orthogonally, stepping off the Right-Left explanans. There is much that he gets wrong, being an apologist for the reactionary outlook and thinking models of the party he favors. But on the subject of India and Hindu concerns he displays none of the contempt, malice or inexactitude that some feted “liberals” are famous for. This time he’s lost me. Forget that the reports of Maj.Malik shouting “A-o-A” are not even hearsay, just based on a say-so, and the fact that the US Army opted to tolerate this guy for years and confine his duties, because of the complicated procedures that must be followed to dismiss an officer for his behavior. Procedures that must be followed in the case of any officer or soldier. So Tunku suggests the Pentagon frame a set of guidelines that singles out Muslims for scrutiny that must be passed into law breaking every precedent and constitutional principle. And then the US government is going to follow suit in respect of the larger population of Muslims in the US? How shall we start? Let’s first go for all the temporarily admitted aliens (OK we did that before with special registration for Muslims from some countries) and then we go for the permanent residents, then the naturalized (Fareed you are next) and then finally the Muslims born here – OK your turn now Keith Ellison. For a man who works at a business school, Tunku displays such poverty of imagination (maybe that Hoover Institution thing, deprives you of any ability to think, and increases your ability to parrot shopworn obscurantist maxims). Yes, you fight a threat with the law, you also find out what the times are doing to people, you also revisit your every move and policy. All civilized nations do this constantly and that is how they hold together. Tunku, how many Muslims do you know and which ones are you willing to let be profiled the next time you are going to catch a plane?
Um, what is wrong with this definition of “going Muslim”? He is distinguishing it from the psychological snapping, and there are people who would fit this definition, for instance the Headley-Rana duo caught in Chicago. He interprets Hassan’s case as fitting this definition, and the army’s narrative supports that case. If you think it was more psychological snapping, you can argue that case.
As for the term “going Muslim”, he is just using the leading exemplar to name this particular event sequence, would “going immigrant” be better? I am sure postal workers don’t appreciate “going postal”, but that’s how the chips fall.
Varadarajan seems to have discarded the concept of distinction between a religon, a fundamentalist form of a religion, and a crazy person. Did Maj. Hasan even have to do with a fundamentalist movement to begin with or did he just go off the deep end with no apparent purpose?
I mean, seriously, conflating a crazy person with a fundamentalist movement that has already been wrongly conflated with an entire religion is going to continue to exacerbate the discrimination that all the normal Muslims of the world are facing to a greater and greater extent.
I wonder if the post man who originally shot people up was Christian… I suppose using Varadarajan’s thought process we shouldn’t being calling that “going postal” at all, but rather “going Christian”?
But. . . certain commentors on this very blog routinely suggest that right-leaning Hindus, though well integrated and Americanized secretly support nefarious organizations throughout India. This has been the standard liberal tack against anyone who implies any support for the BJP on this site for as long as I’ve been reading it.
So far as the shooting goes, I just remember when I first heard the news about the shooter I thought “At least we can finally have a serious discussion about mental health counseling for PTSD.” And then I saw his name and rolled my eyes. Way to set your brothers back douche. My impression is that he didn’t want to be deployed and came up with any specious excuse he could to get out of it. The political climate these days is such that people find themselves able to rationalize any sociopathic behavior as long as it means they’re striking out against “The Man!” Whether “The Man” is a secret Zionist/Kenyan/Islamo-fascist conspiracy to make America a socialist Muslim country or a secret Zionist conspiracy to destroy Islam and Nazify America it all works out the same way.
Perhaps the modernist penchant for glorifying the rebel and the iconoclast has gone a bit too far?
This is not the first Hasan to have killed fellow soldiers. And for the same reasons as this latest incident.
Apparently towards the end he started hanging his hat on the idea that Muslims are entitled to be conscientious objectors to being deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan because it’s forbidden in the Koran for them to make war upon other Muslims. It was a horseshit rationalization that serves only to disparage those Muslims who do take up arms for their country as not being real Muslims. The Army was absolutely right in ignoring it. The good major, however, didn’t see it that way and became increasingly fretful about having to be deployed.
So it strikes me not as fundamentalism so much as either selfishness or cowardice being disguised as piety. I guess we can make our argument there. While all fundies are selfish cowards disguising their douchebaggery as piety, not all those who disguise their douchebaggery as piety are fundies.
While I feel Tunku took a deliberately provocative stance, I believe it was justified in the context of the walking-on-eggshells responses to this tragedy. Being PC is such a requirement today that stating something against conventional wisdom is automatically labeled as inciting hate.
Ah, so it’s not “Going Muslim.” It’s “Going Hasan.” Maybe we should institute a policy of only recruiting Karims then?
Tunku may be angling for a TV spot on Fox News to air his ‘tolerant’ views.
Having said that, can the moderate majority of Muslims do something to neuter the militant minority ? I mean, every major religion has its share of extremists and violence-mongers, but public perception seems to made the generalization that the militants speak for all Islam.
I can thank Tunku for breaking ranks with his fellow sophisticates on this issue, just as I reject his call to aggressively profile Muslims in the US.
Tunku Varadarajan looks rather Muslim.
Is it any different with the Christian Right? Frankly, much of the Left is either hostile towards or ignorant of mainline religious believers regardless of what religion that is. The only religious beliefs that really get traction with lefties is a kind of wishy-washy, self-defined Universalism which doesn’t really gel with people who value traditions and customs.
Meanwhile, most of the Right is batshit crazy. What is a politically active religious person to do? The people who presume to speak for you are nuts and the people you might be inclined to side with are intent on either ostracizing your or talking down to you.
Exactly. I’m glad some people are waking up to how it works.
One of the commenters at DailyKos nailed it with a series of rhetorical questions in response to Tunku:
“Klebold and Harris “went Muslim”? And Jiverly Wong? And Charley Starkweather? And George Hennard? And James Oliver Huberty? And Seung-Hui Cho? And Charles Whitman? And Kip Kinkel? And Ronald Gene Simmons? And Andrew Kehoe?
Really?”
It doesn’t help us understand Timothy McVeigh. The profile of someone who snaps is someone who snaps – the profile of a suicide bomber is a suicide bomber. On a personal level, it’s not to do with a particular faith or belief system – anarchism, Indian nationalism, being a luddite, U.S. policy against Libya, White supremacy, homophobia, and a desire to impress Jodi Foster have all generated acts of individual violence for particular ends.
By tying it to a particular faith, it’s not just grotesquely insulting to the 99.9999% of the people that hold that faith that don’t participate in this kind of idiocy, but you fail to develop effective tools for actually dealing with these problems – preferably before they get to the point where someone actually snaps. You also marginalise every other incident of violence in which the ideology is different – do we not want to pay attention to the kinds of things that lead to Columbine style shootings or the kinds of things that lead to the Unabomber or the anthrax mailer because they’re not perpetrated by Muslims?
From Christopher Hitchens’ latest article:
SEVEN SALIENT FACTS ABOUT MAJOR HASAN:
1) Hasan had been in direct correspondence with a notorious preacher of violence, Anwar al-Awlaki, whose enthusiasm for the teachings and actions of al-Qaida has long been well-known to researchers and intelligence agencies.
2) He bought weapons for himself well in advance of a murderous assault on unarmed soldiers awaiting treatment at a clinic—people to whom, in addition to his responsibilities as a human being, he also owed, as a physician, a sworn duty of care.
3) As he unleashed his volleys, he yelled the universal cry of jihad, “Allahu akbar!” or “God is great!” (The eyewitnesses on this point, originally doubted, are especially convincing since some of them didn’t understand the meaning of the words and only sought to reproduce them phonetically.) On his business card, he described himself described as “SOA” or “slave,” or possibly, “soldier of Allah.” Neither would be especially reassuring in this context.
4) He had attracted considerable attention by repeatedly using his postgraduate classes at the Uniformed Service University in Bethesda, Md., for the purpose of Islamic proselytizing, for a version of Islam that, to say the least, did not overemphasize it as a “religion of peace.”
5) He had, in spoken and written communications, demonstrated a fascination with the love of death and the concept of suicide martyrdom (better described as suicide murder) that is the central concept of Bin Ladenism.
6) Though he may have been upset by the harrowing stories of returned soldiers—as many, many of us have been, incidentally—his overwhelming and reiterated objection to the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and al-Qaida in Iraq, is that it is “a war on Islam.” It might be worth noting that this means that the Taliban does represent Islam, whereas the current governments of Iraq and Afghanistan somehow do not—a core belief of the Islamic purists who use the dogma of takfir to excommunicate such Muslims and render them liable, along with many other kind of infidel, to holy slaughter.
7) He seems to have been especially obsessed with the Quranic injunction that forbids devout Muslims to make alliances with Christians and Jews.
ArchanaP:
Could we please stick to the moral arguments against Uncle Tunku, rather than attempting to appeal to naked self-interest?
Actually, the reason I made that statement wasn’t self-interest. Rather, I was trying to show a logical fallacy in what he was saying: someone could use the same kinds of “camouflage” arguments against him, and not necessarily in response to terrorism.
In general, I dislike paranoid reasoning (people are not what they seem, conspiracies, master plans, etc.), because once you start, there’s no end to it.
Yoga Fire:
But. . . certain commentors on this very blog routinely suggest that right-leaning Hindus, though well integrated and Americanized secretly support nefarious organizations throughout India.
Yes, but I got in a big fight with some of my left-leaning friends over just this issue last fall, over Sonal Shah. I felt they were using paranoid reasoning then, and opposed it.
I am a Muslim, of the Shia branch, which is a minority. Most radical Islam emanates from the Sunni belief in the caliphate (a utopian notion of a supra-Muslim state that would stretch from Morocco to Indonesia). The notion of the caliphate has been more fantasy and has no basis in the Qur’an, if anything, when Islam became an imperial/triumphal faith toppling the Sassanian Persian empire and taking away various provinces of the Byzantine empire, the Arab rulers of the early Muslim period claimed their political legitimacy on faith and Islam.
This is nothing more than the Muslim version of the “divine right of kings” or “enlightened despots.”
Islam is like Christianity, fractured into various competing denominations and voices.
As for Islam’s introduction in the Sindh, it was one of conquest.
Modern Indian culture is shaped by Islamic contributions in its history, from modifications to the sari with the introduction of the petticoat, to bridal wear for men, to henna which was introduced to India by Muslims from the Middle East, to even Mughal architecture which has influenced even the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the introduction of the dome in Indian architectural vernacular, to miniature paintings and calligraphy by way of Persian Muslims, to even the countless words in modern Hindi which lay witness to the Muslim contributions to this Sanskrit-based language.
Thanks is shukriya which comes from the Arabic word “shukran.”
Words like alim (learned) come from Arabic as well and are part of modern Hindi.
Hasan was motivated by his interpretation of Islam.
Islam was introduced to South Asia via the sword and conquest. But Muslims were not the first people to enter the subcontinent from the West, the Persians and Greeks left their mark on India’s history and civilization.
Alexander the Great introduced opium to Afghanistan, my ancestral homeland.
There are certainly more radical forms of Islam in vogue today. These forms of Islam are present in any South Asian community outside the subcontinent be it London, Birmingham, or NYC.
I have witnessed it personally and I find it alarming.
The appeal to radical Islam among people in my age cohort is due to the failures of secularism, nationalism, and socialism to deliver for the Muslim world.
The Muslim world, as exemplified by Pakistan, is a failure. Pakistan and India had equal footing during the Cold War, now it is apparent that India’s secular pan-Indianism has been more successful in producing progress and wealth than Pakistan’s move away from secularism to Islamicization.
I am a secularists, whose family has been uprooted from Afghanistan. The country that is now Afghanistan is unrecognizable to me. The level of extremism that has tainted my people like a cancerous tumor needs to be extracted.
I served in the US Navy and was called a “traitor” by some Muslims, but in my Afghan heritage, to fight in the spirit of “watandara” (love of country) is one of the most admirable traits you can possess.
So does Islam as interpreted by some, play a role in this man’s mental illness, of course!
What do his possible religious motivations have anything to do with this? Are we going to start flagging down every Muslim in the Army now?
What this really brings out is that terrorism should be treated as a criminal act by deranged individuals, not as some act of war by an organized foe, which requires a full-blown war, kangaroo courts, etc. Spending a trillion dollars in Iraq didn’t help prevents tragedies like this, and spending another trillion in Afghanistan will not help either.
not to mention the very name itself. i guess mr. v just wants an excuse to pretend his anal cavity searches were involuntary.
who is to say he does? maybe v uncle is the republican equivalent of nidal malik hasan.
The joke’s on you. DailyKos has the best on the ground reporting and stays well ahead of the trad media news cycle. The reactionaries have tried to build an alternative and failed on all fronts – technology, news, and revenue. If you imagine StormFront is the reactionary counterpart of DK, we will need a separate thread to process you.
Fort Hood is in the vicinity of Killeen, Tx., which was the scene of a deadlier shooter rampage in 1991, when George Hennard crashed his pickup into a diner and shot 23 people dead. Maj.Hasan too went to Va.Tech., years before Seung-Hui Cho (who claimed to be following Jesus) murdered >30 on campus. 75 soldiers have committed suicide at Ft.Hood, 10 of them in 2009. And yes there was a shooting at Ft.Hood last year too, when Sgt.Jody Michael Wirawan shot his lieutenant and then turned the gun on himself as the police shot him down. Killeen witnessed another soldier killing earlier this year, when a local police officer shot down a soldier off Ft.Hood after violence broke out during a traffic stop. For us for whom war means, a chyron streaming at the bottom of the TV screen as we watch the evening news, or a chirpy discussion among sexed up news anchors who look like they have just stepped out of Casting Central, all this violence surely comes as a shock. But the war does awful things to people, PTSD is a real thing, killing people, especially for WMDs that aren’t there, and sinking trillions into a war just to keep war profiteers well fed, rips the soul out of every soldier. There has been a long stream of lies and half truths that stand in contrast to the truly committed people who have gone to war. The reactionary gutter press represented by the likes of harridans, banshees and vampires like Coulter, Beck, Limbaugh, and Malkin, themselves utterly lacking in any courage, but not ones to miss any opportunity to drive the war economy and fool the committed into martyrdom, serves up dishonest tripe. The case of Pat Tillman is one of those. Killed by friendly fire during a botched operation, the military leadership tried to cover up its incompetence by ascribing Tillman’s death to enemy action. The gutter press played the story up without botehring to ascertain the facts. Until an enquiry revealed the true story. It’s some time since Obama was voted in and the war-profiteers continue unencumbered.
.
The radical Islamic worldview is quite similar. This viewpoint has motivated many in my community to strap TNT to their abdomens, go into Lahore, Islamabad, Jakarta, Mumbai, New Delhi, NYC, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Najaf, etc. and detonate themselves while killing innocent bystanders.
The intellectual Godfather of Islamic militancy was an Egyptian man named Qutb who was executed by the Arab nationalist Nasser who made peace with Israel in exchange for US foreign aid as a “carrot stick.”
I have studied Islamic militancy and even visited US and UK based websites, interacting with Muslim men who condone such acts as being Islamic.
They always welcomed me with suspicion and were unsettled by my secular ways, Western appearance since I can pass to be “white” and perhaps thought I was gay, but Muslim etiquette would prevent them from asking me such a personal question. Sexuality is generally a taboo subject.
Actually – No. Fort Hood massacre may be a random act by a deranged individual but most of the acts of terrorism involve planning, logistics, training and funding. Just read up about Mumbai massacre (26/11).
Wow. Thanks for posting this Amardeep. I had somehow missed this whole thing. Again: Wow. I knew Tunku was economically and socially conservative, which is fine and all, but didn’t realize he had succumbed so deeply to paranoia, bigotry, and idiotic right-wing “anti-PC” talking point regurgitation, not to mention American “way of life” jingoism. Oh and also sophistry and intellectual flaccidity. This brother is a disgrace on a Dinesh D’Souza level!
when should we have taken him seriously? the man, such as he is, has always been a right-wing ideologue, whose marginally tolerable moments come when he decides to ramble on about enjoying a cricket game with scones and crumpets. i wonder if he stops enjoying it the moment nasser hussain or zaheer khan or the pathan brothers step on to the field.
anyways, he should be proud of this kind of action by the not-so-politically-correct wing of the army.
Maybe “going Wahabi” would’ve been more appropriate. How about “going Laden”, or “going Taleban”, or “going “Jehadi”? Though none of these captures the “throwing off the cloak of integration” point, because all these terms refer to people who defy integration openly.
Let’s forget Hasan for a moment, and say the Headley_Rana duo were not captured, and one fine morning they went on a cold-blooded rampage in downtown Chicago, like the terrorists did in Mumbai. This would be a clear instance of “throwing off the cloak/veil of integration”. Tunku thinks all Muslims are like Headley and Rana, not integrated with the west in the “true” sense (as Tunku dear is, even before coming to the US), but only putting on a show.
This might be true, but only if you take Tunku and Dinesh D’souza as the benchmarks of integration. But if you use other benchmarks, such as Canadians and French people in the US, who don’t really integrate that well with the US culture, then the lack of “true” integration of Muslims may be within the norm. Even if we assume integration is only a cloak, it doesn’t mean all Muslims are waiting to throw it off at an opportune moment. There will be lots of reasons to keep the cloak, like greed and creature comforts, for instance. But the cloak may come off when these reasons run out, like in a bad economy, or if there is ghettoisation and there are enough radicals in the ghetto etc. Maybe Tunku (what a name! Makes me think of him in a body suit, wearing bunny shoes) should’ve kept the label for a time when more Muslims have thrown off the cloak.
well, for a press secretary, whose one job is to be clearly understood…. but what else can you expect from the presidency that specialized in rank incompetence when it wasnt indulging in malice?
Vijay Prashad has responded to him over here: http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad11132009.html.
Man, is this some sort of insider site written in coded messages ? Who is this Tunku, who is this Manish, why this Manish responding to Tunku, why NYU President suddenly responding to either/both ? I mean kya ho raha hai yahaan pe ? Few days back I read Hasan killing some 20 people in Texas. Rest all is a blur. Please put some name tag, designation etc so rest of Indian bhai behen can also understand no ya ? We are not all firstname basis with tunku manish etc etc.
popatlal, who are you?
More on Vijay Prashad
In other words a Left wing nut. Depending on the context, he seems to write a lot like Tunku.
Thanks for these posts.
For Tunku Varadarajan:
(1) What was his motivation? (only he knows)
(2) Given his background, does he realize the negative impact of his article? (of course, I’m sure he read it at least once before sending it to forbes)
(3) Could he have tackled these subjects in a more tactful manner? Yes
Will the “world score board” be +1 or -1 with this article? He’s earned a -1.
Karmically, this may result in Tunku being stopped at many airports, before he gets into cabs, when buying a deli sandwich . . .
My co-workers love Tunku. The like to say, “All terrorists are Muslim. Therefore, all Muslims are terrorists.” Flawed logic but. . . Thanks, Tunku.
Hey, don’t forget the Tamil gangster part of his name.
Tunku’s known for his thoughtless writing since from his Hindu Taliban days. Open cabinet, file under diarrhea.
Has the Marxists split personality with their Maoist cousins finally gotten to him? In what way was a Taliban ruled Afghanistan not a threat to the United States?
Sigh…
The problem here is that there isn’t enough information, nor does anyone in the media really have all data points to accurately portray what the root cause of Hasan murdering his fellow Soldiers was. Army procedures for sure are in question as there are continual evaluations of a Soldier’s performance and effectiveness. Anyone making a definitive claim to “knowing” what happened, or spinning it to support their quick analysis and [insert theory here] are blowing smoke.
Honestly, any media pundit needs to wait a bit and let the picture fill in before pulling out the “jump to conclusions mat”.
There may be multiple factors at play here from the impressionable mind seeking validation via reaching out to radical elements and slowly replacing the “family” of the Army with one of radical Islam (Marc Sageman’s hypothesis), to psychotic individual that slowly lost grip of reality and acted out under the guise of being an islamist. MORE INFORMATION IS NEEDED to validate any theory.
Along these lines, the Last Psychiatrist Blog has one about media spin on this issue (and a balanced view, not leaning either way).
To note, Hassan wasn’t an infantry soldier facing imminent death, going hand to hand in combat or to be deployed in such a situation. Hearing stories may have impacted his psyche, but most certainly it would need certain conditions to fit PTSD and PTSD has a very specific definition based upon DSM IV Every soldier’s soul isn’t being ripped apart by the hyperbole filled statement of yours, unless you can speak for every soldier with data to back it up. I agree, PTSD IS AN ISSUE among many others. I have colleagues and friends with PTSD, but they most certainly (at least the ones I know) have never stated because it was due to some political reason or are being ripped apart by it. They are functional, continue to get treatment, and in many cases successfully moving beyond their situation moving forward. The military due to the nature of the job has a higher chance of being exposed traumatic events where fear of life exists, in war and peacetime.
US MILITARY CASUALTY DATA including some historical data.
Many troops have pre-existing psychological conditions that fly under the radar (like regular people) but are functional, others actually get treatment (like regular people), some get a discharge from the military once a condition is recognized, and some don’t get the right attention until it is too late for them and others.
There is quality discussion that can be had on these topics, but it means not getting caught up in the propaganda of the right or left op-ed idiots. But to speak FOR the DoD to support one’s political view point (right/left) seems always kosher in the media.
Want to learn more about the military? Talk to as many military members, past/present, you can and read first person accounts of troops in their words. They’re a diverse group, just like this country, and have a multitude of opinions that can’t be pigeon holed into any caricature.
My 2 cents…
Tunku sucks but calling Hassan as psychotic will not address the bigger problem of religious fundamentalism. Event though it is not correct, I think it is in the best interest of US army to not to recruit Muslims since they will be fighting most of the time against Islamic countries. Indian army is doing this for a long time, Sikhs & Hindus are in more numbers compared to very small portion of Muslims. You can read more about this here Since India fights most of the time with Pakistan I can understand why the Indian army chooses to do so.
Seconding what Dr Amonymous wrote. Also, Varadarajan’s “definition” implies that all Muslims in this country (or any non-Muslim-majority country, I guess) are secretly capable of mass violence. Every single Muslim person, born here or elsewhere, no matter how devout or casual in their religion, is capable of throwing off “the camouflage of integration” and committing mass murder. This is straight-up bullshit — he’s implying that any signs of integration (whatever that means) into U.S. society a Muslim person might exhibit cannot possibly be genuine, but is only a cover, easily discarded, for potential violence.
He is feeding paranoia about the millions of Muslims living in the U.S. who are just as horrified as non-Muslims at these crimes, and ignoring the non-religious aspects of the Ft. Hood shootings, as well as what they have in common with other mass shootings that do not have an obvious religious angle. It’s sloppy analysis and bigoted besides.
Yeah, lot of junk in the Tunk.