Fort Hood 11/5/09

Yesterday a man serving as a major in the United States Army opened fire at Ft. Hood, Texas, killing 13 people and injuring 30 -- most of them young soldiers getting ready to deploy to a war zone in the Middle East.

Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, was serving as a psychiatrist, and was scheduled to deploy soon. According to reports, he took 2 handguns and began firing without warning into a group of largely unarmed soldiers, before he was shot several times by security officers.

According to interviews with Hasan's friends and family, he was a "devout Muslim" who had retained a lawyer to try to avoid being deployed, largely because he did not agree with the U.S. war. Hasan joined the Army straight out of high school -- well before the terrorist attacks of 9/11 destined our country to conflict with Muslims.

Although Hasan was born and raised in the United States, his parents were immigrants from Jordan, and he was raised as a Muslim, probably strongly influenced by his parents' experience in the volatile Middle East.

Who is at fault for the terrible tragedy that occurred at Ft. Hood yesterday? Was it the U.S. government for not weeding out this man when he began to argue (and post on the Internet) his sympathies for Islamic suicide bombers? Was it the Army for not reassigning a man who obviously did not want to be deployed to a war zone, or perhaps for not allowing soldiers in garrison to be armed -- and so better able to defend themselves?

As the details of the Ft. Hood massacre began to flash through the mass media, and all the nation was riveted to the TV, the radio and the Internet, we were notified that Barack Obama would make a statement in a press conference. But those who tuned in to see what the president had to say, were grieved and disgusted as Obama proceeded to carry on with his previously scheduled press conference, as if nothing of importance had happened. He laughed and exchanged pleasantries with the friendly crowd of participants in a Native American seminar just completed. He even gave a "shout-out" to a dignitary that he recognized in the crowd.

Horrified Americans watched anxiously, beginning to think that maybe the network had mistakenly played the wrong news clip....But wasn't this supposed to be "live"? What about the shooting in Fort Hood?

Nearly halfway through -- 2 minutes and 27 seconds into Obama's remarks -- he finally makes a statement about Ft. Hood.

What grief, what shame, what anxiety for the families of the fallen. They are worried enough, faced with the prospect of their children, spouses, parents going off to war and possibly not coming back. Now they have to worry about insane Islamists attacking from within their own ranks.

How can we keep our soldiers safe? How can we "weed out" those who mean us harm without hurting those faithful Americans who might be called by the same ethnic label? (I.e., not all Muslims in the U.S. are bad.)

Ultimately, the blame for what happened at Ft. Hood rests with Maj. Hasan. He did it. He should be punished. But the questions remain.

Troubling questions. I would have more faith in our ability to find answers to them if we had leaders we could trust. The man at the top right now is an "iceman" with whom I can not identify. And somehow I think he can not identify with us.