NPR Asks: Was Hasan Psychotic?

Kudos to the usually leftist NPR for taking a rather honest look into the Islamic fundamentalist murderer Major Malik Nidal Hasan, who "allegedly" gunned down thirteen and wounded dozens more.

From the article:

Starting in the spring of 2008, key officials from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences held a series of meetings and conversations, in part about Maj. Nidal Hasan, the man accused of killing 13 people and wounding dozens of others last week during a shooting spree at Fort Hood. One of the questions they pondered: Was Hasan psychotic?

"Put it this way," says one official familiar with the conversations that took place. "Everybody felt that if you were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, you would not want Nidal Hasan in your foxhole."[...] Hasan had been a trouble spot on officials' radar since he started training at Walter Reed, six years earlier. Several officials confirm that supervisors had repeatedly given him poor evaluations and warned him that he was doing substandard work.

Both fellow students and faculty were deeply troubled by Hasan's behavior — which they variously called disconnected, aloof, paranoid, belligerent, and schizoid. The officials say he antagonized some students and faculty by espousing what they perceived to be extremist Islamic views. His supervisors at Walter Reed had even reprimanded him for telling at least one patient that "Islam can save your soul."

[...] One official involved in the conversations had reportedly told colleagues that he worried that if Hasan deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, he might leak secret military information to Islamic extremists. Another official reportedly wondered aloud to colleagues whether Hasan might be capable of committing fratricide, like the Muslim U.S. Army sergeant who, in 2003, killed two fellow soldiers and injured 14 others by setting off grenades at a base in Kuwait.

[...] some of Hasan's supervisors and instructors had told colleagues that they repeatedly bent over backward to support and encourage him, because they didn't have clear evidence that he was unstable, and they worried they might be "discriminating" against Hasan because of his seemingly extremist Islamic beliefs.

There is a small degree of what I would call leftist excuse making in this article, but I was happy to find NPR honest enough to at least discuss the idea that many saw him as a Islamic extremist. It almost appears as if the writer wanted to find mental instability as the foundation of Hasan's motives, but at every turn found Islamic fundamentalism instead.

Additionally, I found it very entertaining to read through a few of the comments. This article was linked on Drudge Report, and the left-leaning NPR regulars clearly do not appreciate points of view that do not meet their own.

Read the complete story here.