Harold's Left:

The massacre of 12 young men and women who were off to continue serving their country overseas by a maniac is hard to make a political one. However, both sides have done this successfully in about 24 hours flat. Leave it to the intolerant among us to make assumptions and drive the cause of bigotry after a terrible incident such as this one. Was Major Hasan a Muslim? Clearly. Was it a part of his twisted decision to kill his fellow soldiers? Possibly. Does it mean that all Muslim soldiers need to be "debriefed"? Uh no. In fact its pretty silly to even iterate such nonsense (leave it to Fox News of course).

Quick personal story. My only real friend that I keep in contact with from basic training was a Muslim soldier. I think we bonded because we had to. We both took ample amounts of disdain from the rest of the platoon. Him for being of Jordanian decent (he was born in Portland, OR) and me for being black. He had a masters degree when he entered the Army, and joined for the same reasons most of us did; to serve his country. He has since gone on to become a Green Beret, one America's most elite fighting units, and served all over the world in the interests of his nation. Does a soldier like this need to be debriefed? It's almost laughable to think so.

In predictable fashion some on the far-right have already blasted Muslim soldiers. World Net Daily has published a false report that Major Hasan was part of President Obama's transition team. Yup, it didn't even take a full day for some of the radicals to try and tie Hasan to Obama.

Shepard Smith of Fox News commented that "the name tells us alot" in an Op-Ed post on FoxNews.com. I suppose it tells us about as much as the soldier who gunned down five of his own in Baghdad earlier this year or Timothy McVeigh when he bombed the government building in Oklahoma City.

Fox and Friends has already stated that there should be "special debriefings" for all Muslim soldiers in the military, presumably all 10,000 of them.

Sgt. Fahad Kamal pictured above, who worships at the same Mosque in which Hasan has frequented in the last few months, commented "I want to believe it was the individual, and not the religion, that made him do what he did... It’s an awful thing. I feel let down. We’re better than this.” Kamal understands, I believe, as many others do who are a minority in America, that the actions of one are tied to the ethnic group at large in a way that is just not done with the majority.

All of this being said, I have little to no sympathy for Major Hasan's excuse that he did this presumably because he did not believe in going overseas to potentially fight other Muslims. First of all, a soldier's personal conviction about any conflict in which he is ordered to serve should have no bearing on how that soldier executes any mission. I certainly and unequivocally disagreed with the Iraq War, yet I spent twelve months of my life serving there. Not as a psychiatrist behind the "wire" either, as a grunt on the ground in the actual fight. Secondly, when you raise your hand and take an oath as a soldier to support and defend the Constitution, you do so voluntarily. You also do so knowing that you may be asked to fight against people who look like you or share your religious beliefs. This is not an excuse for not carrying out your duty. If I was asked to carry out missions against Africans who look like me, or Christians who believe like me, I would not see that as in any way paramount to my allegiance to America. Period.

Sgt. Kamal is right, Major Hasan is a disgrace, but not just to Muslims, to all of us.

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