NYT: Hasan Family says he was upset at being harassed. FBI points to violent internet postings

[Divine Discontent]

NYT:MSNBC ---

Disturbing postings
The Federal Bureau of Investigation had earlier become aware of Internet postings by a man who called himself Nidal Hasan, a law enforcement official said. The postings discussed suicide bombing in a favorable light, but the investigators were not clear whether the writer was Major Hasan.

In one posting on the Web site Scribd, a man named Nidal Hasan compared the heroism of a soldier who throws himself on a grenade to protect fellow soldiers to suicide bombers who sacrifice themselves to protect Muslims.

“If one suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers because they were caught off guard that would be considered a strategic victory,” the man wrote. It could not be confirmed, however, that the writer was Major Hasan.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33704314/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/
NYT: Hasan was ‘mortified’ about deployment, Relatives say he was harassed about being Muslim



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Mocking people's beliefs (about whatever) is a surefire way to start arguments and possible violence, first of all. Not to say this man was a good man at all, he may have just flipped or he knew fine and well what he was doing and was proud of his murderous and evil behavior. Big surprise that many were going to mock someone of a Muslim background in the military after the improper push for proselytizing within the troop force that we've heard about?

Then to make matters worse, this murderer appears to have felt his actions were saving the lives of other Arabs, quite possibly, if these postings are his above, from the website Scribd, that the FBI is now looking into. Yesterday was a really bad day for a lot of people. How sad. And then we find out he's still alive, I thought he was shot and killed, but apparently the lady who shot him didn't fatally wound him and he's in the hospital, stable. Glad she stopped him, who knows how many more would have died.

[Hannah Bell]

1. "violent internet postings" = "i want to do violence to x". not discussing the morality

of suicide bombing.

similar discussions have occurred here (DU), with some posters giving reasons why suicide bombings are logical a/o justified morally. perhaps they should be surveilled for their "violent posts".

but it's not "violent postings". & it's protected speech.

moreover:

"It could not be confirmed, however, that the writer was Major Hasan."

so fuck this.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

4. You shouldn't see discussions like that on DU because they are against the rules.

We will see what happened when all the facts came in. But arguing that blowing up a marketplace full of innocent civilians is justified is something that I would hope would not be that difficult a question.

[Hannah Bell]

9. against the rules? i don't think so.

abstract discussion of the logic & morality of guerilla tactics is not against the rules.

& i have seen such discussion right here.

like the excerpt in the op, they weren't "violent posts".

[SemiCharmedQuark]

11. If you are arguing that a person who straps a bomb to themselves to blow up U.S. soldiers and

civilians might be justified, I think that you would be breaking this rule:

"Do not post messages that could be construed as advocating violence or military defeat against the United States, the U.S. military, US service people, or the people of the United States. "

[Hannah Bell]

14. does that only apply to conflicts in the middle east, or to discussions of the Civil War,

Vietnam War, etc.?

if i discuss it in those contexts am i "advocating" the tactics?

if i say i understand why a starving person might steal, am i advocating theft?

if i say most conflicts of a certain type feature suicide-bombing type tactics, am i advocating them?

there's a line between advocacy & discussion. the excerpt in the op doesn't cross it. the military imo is misrepresenting the nature of that post.

i've seen people at DU "advocate" the torture of child molesters, however.

somehow they don't get banned.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

17. Well, I imagine that since no soldier from the civil war is in imminent danger at the moment

That doesn't really apply here.

Same for those soldiers in the Vietnam War

Stealing a loaf of bread to feed your family isn't really equivalent to murdering dozens of innocent people

If you say that suicide bombings are part of a particular war, that is a fact. If you say they are justified then yes, you are advocating for them.

And RE: Child Molesters, again, they are not really in danger of being tortured as they are in custody in most cases.

[Posteritatis]

21. What if we say we can see the military/etc "sense" of them while still thinking they're vile?

(Yes, I'm aware of the wackiness of using the word "sense" in that sort of context, but presumably people get what I mean.)

If that specific example's causing mental gears to seize up, which is totally understandable, substitute suicide bombings for any other morally questionable tactic in war (strategic bombardment, chemical warfare, urban sieges, concentration camps, flamethrowers, scorched earth policy, etc etc etc). The argument could be made, not pleasantly, in most of those cases. I can see how many of those would make sense in one type of conflict or another, but I also think all of them are - at best - Terrible Things That Shouldn't Happen.

That's an important distinction to make here, I think. If I believe Tactic X makes sense in a context, but also believe that Tactic X Users are cowardly vile motherfuckers or what-have-you, I'm obviously not advocating their use, even if it's still going on today.

(ObNotBeingClear disclaimer: It's 3:45am and I left my brain some time in the past. The commission of war crimes against my insomnia not only makes sense at this point, but I do advocate for it!)

[Hannah Bell]

25. yes, that's the kind of thing i mean. also things like saying it's "understandable"

that, e.g., jews in a concentration camp or indians in a government stockade or iraqis under military occupation would fight back "by any means necessary" - even though, of course, killing someone is never justified.

even though, of course, our tax dollars are used to kill people every day, & most of us rarely protest *those* innocent deaths.

because murders by the state are ok, but murders by individuals preempt the state's exclusive right to murder & are thus beyond the pale.

[Hannah Bell]

24. my discussion of military tactics at DU doesn't endanger servicepeople.

it's not advocacy. advocacy = "I will do that, you should do that, they deserve it, they're not human."

open advocacy ("they should be tortured," "I would torture them,") of extrajudicial torture & murder of child molesters *does* create a social climate that condones & normalizes the possibility.

& the history of guerilla tactics in the past can easily be used to advocate for the use of similar tactics in the present.

& if your criteria is "the death of innocents" then we'd better ban any pro-war, pro-"peacekeeping" discussion here too. because they all involve the deaths of innocents.

you're wrong. there's a line between advocacy ("go kill") & discussions of morality & tactics.

the military is on its way to painting this guy as advocating violence. the evidence presented so far doesn't support that.

[Posteritatis]

20. People really need to figure out the difference between discussion and advocacy

As you rightly point out, there's a whole hell of a lot of things out there that can be discussed without being actually called for. The confusion of the two, the idea that so much as describing a perspective is just the same as advocating it, is behind a whole hell of a lot of attempted censorship and worse - and I'm certainly not just talking about DU there.

In any case, citizens of a country that was founded by a drawn-out guerilla war should get some leeway to discuss these sorts of things. ;)

[Hannah Bell]

26. yes, the glorious murders in the name of our special revolution were different.

[stray cat]

29. Some DUers don't care about certain types of murders and others think some are justified

[Egnever]

22. I agree that quote does not cross the line

I am quite sure you can find similar postings in the israel/palestine forum.

[Hannah Bell]

27. thank you, my point exactly. so why is the military labeling this as

"violent internet postings"?

it's michael parenti's "loner"!

All these shooters - they're all crazy "loners," even when they're not.

http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/30114

funny speech starts at 13 minutes.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

2. Many mass murderers think they are doing great things.

It doesn't change what they are. How does the murder of other people help his deployment situation or his harassment situation?

[Divine Discontent]

6. he reminds me of a school shooter

(based on what we know). and frankly, he was a little too old to let people bother him because they didn't like his religion. you gotta be the bigger person and ignore people if they tease you - and my goodness - get some help if you're writing crazy shit like he did - oh, and maybe see a psychologist? irony of ironies.

[depakid]

13. Second generation immigrant- undergrad degree was from Virginia Tech...

[Divine Discontent]

15. thanks, didn't know his full background.

these are all things that do matter.

[depakid]

18. Not sure of course whether it's salient or simply a coincidence.

[Divine Discontent]

19. I don't believe in coincidences, generally speaking. bumping into someone in a store, then bumping

into them 2 hours later at a Taco Bell - sure, coincidence. But, on deeper subjects, it's hard not to use that ol' Occam's Razor theory thingy, or what a scientist named Leibniz called, the "identity of observables".

God help those who are suffering still in the hospitals... what a vicious and horribly terror filled day for them.

[LostInAnomie]

3. Beliefs aren't entitled to respect just because someone believes them.

If Hasan was spouting off bullshit about the heroism of suicide bombers or trying to proselytize others, people were perfectly within their rights to tell him to fuck off.

[Arctic Dave]

12. So what if someone talks about the heroism of US troops killing Muslims?

Are we allowed to tell them to piss off?

[LostInAnomie]

16. Fuck yes!

If beliefs are bigoted, racist, or immoral, we are not compelled to respect them and shouldn't hesitate to call people out. If someone believes suicide bombing is heroic they are a piece of shit. If someone feels that it is heroic to kill Muslims because they are Muslim they are equally a piece of shit.

[Hannah Bell]

28. they should be banned for advocating violence. lol.

[proteus_lives]

5. Harassment doesn't justify murder.

He's a murderer and at least deserves to spend the rest of his life in a military prison.

[Divine Discontent]

7. I wonder if

he'll even make it?

[proteus_lives]

8. Meaning?

I was under the impression he was in a hospital in stable condition.

[Divine Discontent]

10. I read one military official talking about how he was shot 4 times & how they didn't think he'd make

it (even though we heard he's stable in a report), and, if some military guy doesn't enact vigilante justice.

[proteus_lives]

23. Last I heard, he was stable.

And as for vigilante justice, the brass will keep him under lock and key till the trial. I would imagine that they want this done publicly. After an incident like this, they'll want to avoid any fuck-ups.

[stray cat]

30. What if it was someone killing 12 abortion doctors - would DU be as sympathetic

about the poor shooter?