Hasan: A Good Muslim

This article sums up exactly why Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is a good and pious Muslim, and not a psychotic murderer.  Islam is what drove him to commit murder in the name of Jihad. 

FROM FAMILYSECURITYMATTERS.ORG:

Hasan: A Good Muslim
Bill Siegel 

Nationally syndicated talk radio host Monica Crowley once asked the team of psychiatrists at the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility to describe the difference between psychological disorder and committed Jihadism. They had no answer.  

Much of the mainstream media has, at least subtly if not directly, attempted to distinguish Dr. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan as mentally ill as opposed to being a Jihadi, a radical Muslim committing a terrorist act in living out his Muslim calling. The presuppositions here are essentially that (1) it is prejudice alone that leads one to blame Hasan’s behavior on his Muslim background and (2) most Muslims are, like the rest of us, “good” people. What makes one commit such heinous acts is independent of being a Muslim. Rather, if placed under enough stress, we are all capable of “losing it” or “snapping.” Hence, psychological imbalance is what distinguishes Hasan from the rest of us and from “good Muslims.”  

For every psychological theory there is at least another that can discredit it. And psychology is still far from an empirical science despite the intentions of its most ardent practitioners. Nonetheless, some general principles seem to long hold center stage. Most neurotic disorders can be described as resulting from conflicting deeply held beliefs. A series of conflicts creates a tension that has greater control over the subject’s life than the subject desires. Psychosis, of course, involves, among other things, more extreme forms of conflicts in which the beliefs themselves often do not match those fundamental to the surrounding society. The more severe the conflict, the greater the disorder and difficulty in bringing about change.  

All of this, of course, relates to the underlying values of the culture in which the subject lives. In the West, we believe in certain fundamental values such that killing – except in the case of self defense – is strictly forbidden. It is presumed, then, that anyone who engages in such behavior must have some severe conflict that “drives” him to such act. In our criminal system, in certain usually rare circumstances, the insanity defense may be applicable. But even if a defendant is deemed to have fully understood the consequences of his acts, he is still considered psychologically impaired simply by virtue of his committing the act.  

And that is the simple issue. The West has become so accustomed to imputing some psychological disorder whenever a severely inappropriate act is committed that it has difficulty letting go of the habit in the face of other explanations.  

Yet Islam is an entirely different animal, so to speak. There are an estimated billion plus Muslims worldwide. Political correctness requires every non-Muslim to state each time he speaks of Islam that “most Muslims are peaceful people.” No one, however, has ever shown the evidence for such a statement or clarified exactly what “peaceful” means in these circumstances. There is much startling data showing how widespread supposed “radical Islam” is, including a 2006 poll in Britain showing 40 percent of the Muslims considered themselves such, up from 15 percent in 2001. And this is in Britain, a non-Muslim controlled country. Yet even 15 percent of 1.2 billion radical Muslims is a large number of adherents (more than half the population of the U.S.) who want the West destroyed.  
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