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Elmer Smith: Pointless search for Fort Hood massacre's 'real reason'

By Elmer Smith
Philadelphia Daily News

Daily News Opinion Columnist

A CONGRESSIONAL

committee has joined that posse searching for the "real reason" that Nidal Malik Hassan went berserk and allegedly killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex.

Expect them to come up with something. They always do.

In fact, Sen. Joe Lieberman's Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is already onto something. Turns out that Hassan used to pray at the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center, in Falls Church, Va.

The center, dubbed by the New York Daily News as "The Mosque of Evil," is the place where two of the 9/11 hijackers prayed. One of them, Hani Hanjour, may have been a regular at the mosque at the same time as Hassan and members of Hassan's family.

Anwar al Awlaki, the radical former imam at the center, made a blog post yesterday praising Hassan as "a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction that many Muslims brush aside."

He bore it long enough for the U.S. Army to pay for his medical training. He'd still be bearing it, I suspect, if he hadn't gotten orders to report to the war zone in Afghanistan. So much for "conscience."

If U.S. soldiers were his enemy, he had been giving aid and comfort to the enemy for years. So what made him suddenly see the light from the East?

The posse is still pursuing the answers to that question.

"There are very, very strong warning signs," Sen. Lieberman said Sunday, "that Dr. Hassan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act."

There is little evidence that Hassan and the two 9/11 terrorists had been seen together at the Falls Church mosque or that they ever had spoken with each other or had ever conspired to do anything except pray facing the East.

It happens to be the biggest Islamic center on the East Coast. Thousands of worshippers pray there. Most of them understand that they can't get to heaven by shooting unarmed people or by setting off a bomb in a marketplace where most shoppers are also Muslim.

That trail will go cold. The committee will find only the most tenuous connections between Hassan and any terrorist affiliations just as it has found no terrorist links on his computers.

But it will issue a detailed report. Its findings will be preserved in the annotated archives of mass murder and draw dust until the next spring-loaded nut job spins out of control and starts mowing down innocent bystanders.

We can always come up with something from the catalog of homicidal motivations to rationalize the irrational. Was it a family feud or a money dispute?

But there is no "real reason" for a psychopath to make himself the arbiter of life and death.

I was in Killeen, Texas, in October 1991, a few hours after George Hennard drove his truck through the plate-glass window at the Luby's Cafeteria, then got out and methodically started shooting people.

He reloaded calmly and fired again and again until 14 women and eight men were dead and 18 others were wounded. He was still firing when police arrived. He apparently killed himself before police could.

This happened on Route 190, a few miles from the Fort Hood main gate. It all came back to me as I processed this latest insane incident.

Aside from the magnitude of this carnage, what I remember most is a police spokesman named Mike DeHart who was briefing reporters when I pulled up.

"There is nothing in the way of motives yet," he told us.

By the next day, they were telling us that Hennard, who was 35, had been upset by his parents' divorce. That's not much to offer as a cause of 22 deaths. There won't be much to offer this time either.

In reality, the carnage is as random and remorseless as a whirlwind that skips over an open field then slams into a schoolyard at recess.

The posse will keep searching for "real reasons." But nothing it turns up would have saved a single life at Virginia Tech in 2007, in Luby's Cafeteria in 1991 or in Fort Hood last week.

Or wherever the next storm touches down.

Send e-mail to smithel@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2512. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/smith

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Comments

Posted 07:27 AM, 11/10/2009

PhillySteve21

When an Islamic man of middle eastern heritage yells "allahu Akbar" as he is slaughtering Americans (or any non-Muslims) it IS an act of terrorism. His purpose was to kill the enemy and create shock and fear through the populace (terror). It is no worse than Killeen, TX, Virginia Tech, or Oklahoma City...but it IS scarier because there are very likely many many more sleepr-cell Islamic extremists in this country, waiting to awaken...don't deny that fact. We ARE at war - and the enemy absolutely IS Islamic extremists. Wake up and prepare yourself for more incidents just like this one.

Posted 07:37 AM, 11/10/2009

cblank

Yo, Elmer, open your eyes! You don't connect the dots, because you're unwilling to do so. You and millions of other Americans will continue to hide your heads in the sand and pretend that reality isn't happening.

Comment removed.

Posted 09:19 AM, 11/10/2009

Imagine

Dude went crazy that is why he did what he did. He was feed up with life and was about to be deployed to a war with no end. The fact that he is muslin has little to do with what he did. Otherwise he would have killed his neighbor instead of giving her most of his worldy goods. Consider he never spoke to her until he gave her his stuff.

Posted 09:28 AM, 11/10/2009

billreilly

This column is indefensible. The FBI (not a Posse) uncovers one extremist link after another and this creep of a writer sees this as a"random" act. Hasan is a self radicalized, home grown terrorist. He specifically targeted American Soldiers coming or going to a War Zone. The Army needs to answer some questions. Like, why was this Terrorist promoted to Major after negative performance reviews at Walter Reed. President Obama, who is the Sheriff of this POSSE, needs to proceed with this Investigation as he would if a White Supremacist had shot up a black church. Elmer needs to head back to his sand dune..

Posted 09:42 AM, 11/10/2009

Delco Tom

Mensaman, careful, your sheet is showing...

Posted 09:52 AM, 11/10/2009

billreilly

imagine: you are brilliant DUDE. . The Muslim Terrorist was yelling "allahu Akbar" while murdering American Soldiers. You and Elmer should meet for drinks...

Posted 09:55 AM, 11/10/2009

lefty

Elmer, I, too, feel that the "trail will go cold," however, I don't believe you're analogy of the Killeen tragedy is quite the same, other than the carnage at Hood may wind up with a similar finding of being a random act. At Hood, the shooter shouted "Alluha akbar," now an Islamic terrorist's battle cry. Second, an extremist imam(somewhat redundant), Anwar al Awlaki, professed Hassan a hero. The present danger isn't thet Hassan's barbarous act was part of a terrorist cell; instead, its about what is now perceived as a clear and present danger, a message being perpetrated by international terrorists and one that muslims abroad subscribe. Third, the muslim population around the globe has done next to nothing to temper the rhetoric of their lunatic fringe brotherhood. If the muslim world were really sincere about the evils of terrorist behavior and its effects on perceptions of Islam, it would run major media campaigns denouncing the perpetrators. So, Elmer, until we begin to see acts of humanity and not shouts of "God is great" pronouncements by non-terrorist muslims cheering on their terrorist brethen, I refuse to take your road of accommodation.

Comment removed.

Posted 10:45 AM, 11/10/2009

lefty

Delco Tom>>> "...your sheet is showing.." Elmer, "Imagine, you and the other lefties who contribute comments on these threads give new meaning to the expression, "SLEEPER CELL." Simply put, your somnambulance limits your abilities to recognize events which occur in real time. Hunanist liberals lack the electrical synapses that permit others to see the gestalt. For you, actions don't beget other actions. Instead, they are always isolated occurrencies that can only be tied to historic events which vicariously assist you in alleviating subconscious guilt. "GUILT" is the mantra that propels liberals and limits their abilities to see things for what they are.

Posted 11:12 AM, 11/10/2009

bill at

People are dying, and Elmer's priority is providing cover for a terrorist. Pass the pipe.

Posted 11:52 AM, 11/10/2009

philly68

Smith raises a legitmate possibility: the killer was simply a self-serving individual who did not want to be near combat. Smith also makes a good point of reminding us that there have been many, many unexplained mass murders in US history. The "reasons" are generally not clear.

Posted 12:15 PM, 11/10/2009

positiveinfluence

sometimes this comment section confuses me. I read this article earlier and there were way more comments than this. One in particular that I felt was well written by cleanupphilly that is now not up anymore what's up with that?