Time Labels Ft. Hood Shooter ‘Terrorist?’

It looks like yesterday’s Glenn Beck show, during which Beck forcefully labeled Nadil Hasan a “Muslim, extremist, terrorist. End of story” may just have been an early sign of what’s to come. This week’s Time takes a similar, if not quite as strident tone, managing to slip a question mark in at end of the ‘terrorist’ label. As everyone in the blogosphere knows too well, shocking headlines and images sell. That said, at this point, all signs do appear to be pointing towards the conclusion that this was some sort of terrorist act. From the cover story:

What a surprise it must have been when Major Nidal Malik Hasan woke up from his coma to find himself not in paradise but in Brooke Army Medical Center, deep in the heart of Texas, under security so tight that there were armed guards patrolling both the intensive-care unit and checkpoints at the nearest freeway off-ramp. This was not the finalé he had scripted when he gave away all his earthly goods — his desk lamp and air mattress, his frozen broccoli and spinach, his copies of the Koran. He had told his imam he was planning to visit his parents before deploying to Afghanistan. He did not mention that his parents had been dead for nearly 10 years.

It is also looking very much like the aftermath of Fort Hood may see the end of political correctness, at least in regards to how it’s applied in the army (and possibly the media world).

But others are convinced that his religion protected him from stronger action by the Army. “He’d have to murder the general’s wife and daughter on the parade ground at high noon in order to get a serious reprimand,” says Ralph Peters, an outspoken retired Army lieutenant colonel who now writes military books and a newspaper column. While stressing “there shouldn’t be witch hunts” against Muslims in uniform, Peters insists that “this guy got a pass because he was a Muslim, despite the Army’s claim that everybody’s green and we’re all the same.” A top Pentagon official admits there may be some truth to the charge. “We’re wondering why some of these strange encounters didn’t trigger something more formal,” he says. “I think people were overly sensitive about Muslims in the military, and that led to a reluctance to say, ‘This guy is nuts.’ The Army is going to have to review their procedures to make sure someone can raise issues like this.”

Full story here: The Fort Hood Killer: Terrified … or Terrorist?

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