If this story from the Telegraph pans out, it places religious fanaticism at the very center of the Fort Hood massacre. And if it's true, it's pretty amazing no news organization had previously come across it. To have an army psychiatrist giving talks on Jihad in a military context and not have anyone call him on it, or take measures to monitor him, or challenge him is ... mind-blowing. It's p.c. at its most lethal.
Update: this story was indeed reported but I missed it. Here is the NPR piece. Money quote:
The psychiatrist [who worked alongside Hasan] says that he was very proud and upfront about being Muslim. And the psychiatrist hastened to say, and nobody minded that. But he seemed almost belligerent about being Muslim, and he gave a lecture one day that really freaked a lot of doctors out.
They have grand rounds, right? They, you know, dozens of medical staff come into an auditorium, and somebody stands at the podium at the front and gives a lecture about some academic issue, you know, what drugs to prescribe for what condition. But instead of that, he - Hasan apparently gave a long lecture on the Koran and talked about how if you don't believe, you are condemned to hell. Your head is cut off. You're set on fire. Burning oil is burned down your throat.
And I said to the psychiatrist, but this could be a very interesting informational session, right? Where he's educating everybody about the Koran. He said but what disturbed everybody was that Hasan seemed to believe these things. And actually, a Muslim in the audience, a psychiatrist, raised his hand and said, excuse me. But I'm a Muslim and I do not believe these things in the Koran, and then I don't believe what you say the Koran says. And then Hasan didn't say, well, I'm just giving you one point of view. He basically just stared the guy down.
So he was actually challenged on these grounds in public and yet no one monitored him or disciplined him for this. He may not have been in any way connected to al Qaeda. But the point is: he didn't have to be. This kind of Jihad requires no sleeper cell - just a murderous, fundamentalist psyche.