Monday, November 9, 2009

Pre Traumatic Stress Disorder?

I hate to say this, but the U.S. mainstream media really can't die quickly enough. This is the money quote from the most recent Time magazine essay on the Fort Hood murders:

As an army psychiatrist treating soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, Major Nidal Malik Hasan had a front row seat on the brutal toll of war. It is too early to know exactly what may have triggered his murderous shooting rampage Thursday at Fort Hood — Hasan is accused of killing 12 people and wounding 32 others before he was wounded by a police officer — but it is not uncommon for therapists treating soldiers with Post Trumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.) to be swept up in a patient's displays of war-related paranoia, helplessness and fury.

There you have it: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder By Proxy. It is "not uncommon".

Thank God for the Brits. Why do I spend more and more time reading British and Australian accounts of our political events? Here's The Telegraph (U.K.):

Fort Hood gunman had told US military colleagues that infidels should have their throats cut
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the gunman who killed 13 at America's Fort Hood military base, once gave a lecture to other doctors in which he said non-believers should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats.
He also told colleagues at America's top military hospital that non-Muslims were infidels condemned to hell who should be set on fire. The outburst came during an hour-long talk Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, gave on the Koran in front of dozens of other doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington DC, where he worked for six years before arriving at Fort Hood in July.

Colleagues had expected a discussion on a medical issue but were instead given an extremist interpretation of the Koran, which Hasan appeared to believe.

Fort Hood killer linked to September 11 terrorists.... It was the latest in a series of "red flags" about his state of mind that have emerged since the massacre at Fort Hood, America's largest military installation, on Thursday....


Red Flags? Nobody has lifted that many Red Flags since Chairman Mao died. Good Lord, for the past year Hasan did everything but behead some infidels in the mess hall, and he still got promoted to major. But I digress....

Here's someone named Jeffrey Goldberg, on the special status given to Muslims in the U.S. media:

Here's a simple test: If Nidal Malik Hasan had been a devout Christian with pronounced anti-abortion views, and had he attacked, say, a Planned Parenthood office, would his religion have been considered relevant as we tried to understand the motivation and meaning of the attack? Of course. Elite opinion makers do not, as a rule, try to protect Christians and Christian belief from investigation and criticism. Quite the opposite. It would be useful to apply the same standards of inquiry and criticism to all religions.

Here's a hint for Time magazine. If someone runs around shooting people while yelling Allahu Akbar (God Is Greatest), his religion might have something to do with the murders.

Hit that link to read about the eyewitnesses to Hasan yelling "Allahu Akbar". It'll take you to an excellent account that appeared in, uhmm, The Guardian (U.K.)

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

And here I thought that PTSD stood for POST (not PRE) Traumatic Stress Disorder.

And as for that major load of BS (pun intended) that a Dr has a front row seat to the horrors of war, I doubt it. Everything they see is second-hand. Tell that to the soldiers in the outposts & on patrol. Then be prepared for either an anger backlash, or derisive laughter of large proportions.

B Woodman
SSG (Ret) US Army
III-per

Harper said...

Whited, your link to the Guardian is broken.

I am about to come unhinged. Every single media outlet, even your U.K. sources, is now qualifying their descriptions of Hasan. He isn't the shooter or the gunman anymore, he is the ALLEGED shooter, the SUSPECT.

How many flippin' eyewitnesses does it take to call it like it is?

Gar said...

I was in Italy when this happened. You get a whole different news story in Europe than you do here (even the televised variety).

It's rather irritating really.

You did some good research.

The Whited Sepulchre said...

Dear all,

When i wrote this last night, I thought I was being original and clever with the term "Pre Traumatic Stress Disorder".
Well, I was driving down I-20 today, flipping channels, and heard Rush Limbaugh using the same term.
If you're a blogger, this is a GREAT day to be in the top 3 Google search results for the term "Pre Traumatic Stress Disorder". (Not to take anything away from the horrific situation at Fort Hood. It's just strange how a term can appear to several people at once. Time magazine was trying to be serious and P.C. and I bet within two weeks, businessmen going into difficult meetings will joke about feeling Pre Traumatic Stress Disorder.) We live on a weird planet.

Harper,
I'll try to fix the link.

Fester said...

I think his religion only mattered because it may have been a catalyst of sorts, like being an anti-war libertarian might feel if in the army and being sent to Iraq. I think the bigger issues are that he was treated like a slave by the army and was marginalized and discriminated against by more of the rank and file because of being middle eastern in an environment where everyone's being taught that middle eastern Muslims are to be looked at as the enemy and are not to be trusted.

The Whited Sepulchre said...

Fester,
He wasn't drafted, he volunteered.
He was given an education (doctorate) on your nickel.
He was promoted to Major.

On the other hand, he put radical Islamic statements on Jihadist message boards, he bewildered the shit out of a group of M.D.'s by digressing on the role of the Koran when the doctors came to hear him lecture on psychiatry. And he was screaming "God Is Great" while he shot people.

When you hear thundering hoofbeats in the distance, don't think "Zebras?" It's probably horses.

Either way, good to hear from you again, sir ! ! !

Dr Ralph said...

Having a 24/7 news cycle is a great impediment to anything approaching accuracy, much less truth. It's why I've given up on watching or listening to the news. It's much easier to see (and avoid) bullshit when it's the written word.

By the way, leaving aside for the moment whatever demons inhabit Nidal Hasan's skull, I can't say that having Rush Limbaugh squawking the same clever phrase you put together is something I'd actually brag about online.

Dr Ralph said...

BTW, to follow up on Fester's point, just because he volunteered doesn't mean he couldn't be marginalized and discriminated against by the rank and file.

Fester said...

He may have volunteered to join, but he was treated as a slave in the way that they refused to let him leave. They were sending him to Iraq against his explicit wishes. If he wanted to leave the army, I think he should have been free to do so, if he needed to repay his education that is something that could have been worked out.

This guy is a libertarian who volunteered for the military, but then had a change of heart over the years and he documents his trial and tribulations here:

http://www.warisimmoral.org/