Fort Hood: Trauma is contagious

What an irony! Psychobabble being spouted that blames a climate of war trauma rather than the psychiatrist who committed 13 murders and 30 attempted murders.

Major Hasan was afriad of having to shoot fellow Muslims if he went to Afghanistan--so he solves it by shooting dozens of fellow Americans! What a sensitive soul! Our heart goes out to him in his anguish over the idea that he might have to sit in a military hospital in Afghanistan and do individual and group counseling sessions with soldiers! Oh, the horror!

His aversion to Muslim on Muslim violence is something that is not shared by al Qaeda, which routinely bombs innocent men, women and children just to stir things up and delegitimize Muslim governments that have a hard time defending their people.

Let us make no mistake: The losers who commit mass murder can be a variety of religions and backgrounds, from Tim McVeigh to the Columbine killers to the Virginia Tech "Look Ma, I'm famous!" killer to Romanian Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. But they can also be losers who are also Muslim, like the DC Beltway Killer who is finally facing execution for his campaign to terrorize white non-Muslims.

If we are talking pop psychology, let's talk about how radical Islam, Wahabbism, Jihadism, acts as an enabler for all the worst tendencies of losers across the Arab world, in exactly the same way that Nazism enabled sociopaths among the Germans and Communism enabled sociopaths among the Russians and Chinese. These are all social networks that encourage losers and jerks to play out their most evil fantasies.

If we had a test that could identify and incarcerate all losers, that would solve the problem. Until that happens, we need to focus attention on organizations and ideologies that encourage losers to take out their inadequacies and fears on the rest of us. That includes radical Islam and its admirers like Major Hasan.

real war is good. imaginary war is also good. war on terror is good. war on mental health care professionals is also good.

Just out of curiosity, can you also get PTSD from war movies or videos? What about from talking to victims of accidents?

When psychiatrists begin to claim the affects of PTSD, I have to start worrying about the state of mental health care more than the state of mental health.

It is time to start asking the obvious question - are their religious beliefs making these Islamic terrorists mentally ill?

Cause and effect are often confused in the mind of a liberal.

This guy and this event calculate out
as a classic Islamic Terrorist Psych
Profile and Islamic Terrorist Attack.
ALL Islamic Terrorists are solitary,
disgruntled, mentally ill, morally
ambiguous, devout, psychopathological
mass murderers. Duh-uh. Healthy, well
adjusted, happy, popular, and successful
people do not pick up a gun, or strap on
a bomb and go out and kill dozens of
people. Since January of 2009, Lone
Wolf Islamic Terrorist Attacks have
been skyrocketing in Iraq, Lebanon,
Israel, Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
India, Thailand, Indonesia, Micronesia,
The Philippines, North Africa, South
America and Russia. They have attacked
people even in China and Eastern Europe.
All over the world, journalists, bureaucrats and politicians are in
denial. An 800 pound Gorilla in the room?
What 800 pound Gorilla? I don't see an
800 pound Gorilla. Just an anguished
Muslim Lad with some unresolved issues.
Our government is so far in denial, that
it knew this psycho Muslim Fanatic was
blogging about killing us Americans off,
for months and they did nothing to stop
him. The Feds just let this guy stay
lose and kill more than a dozen people
and wound another three dozen. This is
Political Correctness run amok. We the
people pay with our lives when our masters
OD on Political Correctness. Logic, Candor
and Public Safety are seriously at risk in
Obama's America. Any civilization that
knowingly harbors homicidal monsters in
its midst,who want to kill its citizens, and does nothing to protect them,is neither
sane, nor brave. We now live in a violent,
choatic, impoverished, third world techno
slum. So much for hope and change.

Latest Offerings from the Religion of Peace
"He who fights that Islam should be superior fights in Allah's cause"
Muhammad, prophet of Islam

2009.11.08 (Hodon, Somalia) - Two civilians are killed during an attack by Islamic militia.
2009.11.08 (Mattani, Pakistan) - A Fedayeen suicide bomber strikes a packed market, blasting at least a dozen innocents to death.
2009.11.07 (Helmand, Afghanistan) - Religious extremists blow up a vehicle carrying local soldiers, killing three.
2009.11.07 (Al Khubah, Yemen) - Shiite rebels reportedly shell a residential area, killing four women from the same family.
2009.11.07 (Hangu, Pakistan) - Islamic hardliners attack a local military base with rockets, killing three.
2009.11.07 (Abu Ghraib, Iraq) - An al-Qaeda bombing leaves one dead.

All Islamic terrorists are insane, but that does not save their victims from a violent ideology.

Sane people don't blow themselves up on buses and trains.

Dingbat...this dude was an Islamo-facist terrorist, plain and simple. who at WaPo hires these idiots to write columns?

It is breath-taking to reflect where the U.S. is now, because George W. Bush jumped headfirst, like a damned fool, into war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Oh, of course, they say he was responding to the suicide attacks in New York City. Interesting logic that tens of times those lost in 9/11, and still counting, are pouring their blood into the revenge. And, what a revenge, that we attacked whole nations for the actions of a handful of nation-less, pathetic men who offended us!

Is our American blood so precious, indeed, as to have warranted these wars? We are wasting far more of it in civil conflicts we created in Afghanistan and Iraq, with peoples who had nothing to do with the tragedy of 9/11!

There is a logic here that George W. Bush was willing to create and nurture an Enemy just to defeat Him in glory. When, in the predictable course of events, He is, as a matter of fact, defeating us!

Stress?
He praised suicide bombers on his blob. He targeted military personel. He used his Muslim religion to "ramp him up" for this deed.

This was terrorism. Period.

RRRRIGHT ... YOU KOOL AID DRINKERS GO AHEAD AND PRETEND THIS JUST A NICE LITTLE VIOLENT ATTACK ( as Pelosipigs call it)

The MUSLIM TERRORIST hollered

((( ALAHHU AKBAR ))) !!!!

before he fired 100 rounds into a crowd on the BIGGEST

MILITARY BASE IN THE WORLD ...

...JUST LIKE A MUSLIM TERRORIST IS TAUGHT TO DO ...
...AND as they do... out of obedience.... all over the world

... and the vegetable writhing this Libidiot article swears he's just STRESSED and having a bad day ¿
♒♒
!•¿•! ⚡⚡
◢ ͡ ◣♆
⚡ ▮▬▮
⚡ ◢ ◣
⚡
⚡⚡⚡ GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY YOU HAG ! ⚡⚡⚡

GEORGE CARLIN SAYS IT BEST IN HIS VIDEO:

FATIGUE-IS NICER THAN SHOCK. SHELL SHOCK.

CHECK IT OUT... we keep changing the name for shell shock.. post traumatic stress syndrome... as if it is a disease and one is afflicted.....army fatige.. hmmmmmm

Today on the Sunday talk shows General Casey appeared so ideologically insulated from reality, his judgment seemed impaired. An Islamic traitor in his own Army has killed 13 of his soldiers and wounded 30 more and the General states that he is "worried" about some backlash against Muslims. Is he kidding? If he is not kidding, he needs to explain immediately what his worries are based upon.

Frankly , I do not really blame Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan for doing what Islamic soldiers around the world are doing to their American enemies since 1983. Hasan may be a traitor to his country. He may be a craven coward. Nevertheless, he is anything but crazy. The Major was only using what he and his brother Islamic soldiers have always used in their holy jihad against America. Their weapons include treachery, deceit, intimidation, and the shameless slaughter of innocent human beings. Because the Islamic world lacks B2 bombers, nuclear weapons(-Pakistan), and M1 tanks, they are forced to rely upon what is left at their disposal. Hence, we get 9-11, Ft. Hood, and a slew of suicide bombers.

At some point, however, we become responsible for defending ourselves against an Islamic enemy that does not hide who they are and what methods they are prepared to use to defeat us. In the end, preventing future 9-11s and Ft. Hoods are our responsibility, not the Islamic soldiers who are desperately trying to replicate their evil deeds.

Personally, I'd fire Casey immediately. I would do it because he does not seem to grasp who our enemy is right now and whose lives he is responsible for protecting from these enemies.

God help us all.

I read with sadness:

The author of the article is a pacifist with a misunderstanding of evil.  I pray that she never has to consider the trauma state of the perpetrator if her head is slowly being sliced off.

Evil is the very topic.  So many are willing to turn away from a study of evil, and drug themselves with media-nugget memes of predigested thought.  Thousands of hours of television drama have taught us how to "recognize evil" - it's the music and makeup.  Except that in reality, it never is so.

Christianity, in fact, is a most powerful bulwark against evil.  But real Christianity, not some watered-down sort of ethically-void pabulum that many Americans use to justify their own lack of conscience.  The powerful stories of the Samaritan, the energetic denunciation of the Pharisees, the warning to the rich man, the very character of Jesus Christ - acknowledged as a wise teacher and prophet by Islam, as well.  Heed his words.

Kristallnacht, for example.  The Anniversary of Kristallnacht is tomorrow night.  Seventy-one years ago, the Jews were burnt out of Germany.

Let those who are without sin, throw the first stone.

The author of the article is a pacifist with a misunderstanding of evil.
I pray that she never has to consider the trauma state of the perpetrator if her head is slowly being sliced off.

The author of the article is a pacifist with a misunderstanding of evil.
I pray that she never has to consider the trauma state of the perpetrator if her head is slowly being sliced off.

This is an utterly stupid column- PTSD is not contagious. Spare us the whining from the "everybody-is-a-victim" crowd.

Only those who have truly been in combat, and a handful of other cases, can really claim PTSD.

But hey, if you're broke, claim PTSD and shoot for disability. Some moronic social worker, shrink, or psychologist will surely tell you what you want to hear. It beats working, and you can go around talking about "my PTSD disability" and what a victim you are.

So... everyone is a victim.

"I came from a non-hugging family! Waaah! I have PTSD! It's not my fault if I shoot other people! Give me a disability check!"

Pathetic.

Is there any atrocity a Muslim American could commit which Ms. Thistlethwaite COULD recognise as treason, rather than attempt to excuse away?

Being Muslim means never having to say you're sorry.

The author is clearly not in touch with the real world.

This article is foolish. I'm tired of these excuses for murder. Hasan was a Muslim, that's his distinguishing characteristic. The only PTSD he had was caused by trying to act like a regular person while being full of Muslim homocidal rage inside.

If you think US troops have PTSD, just imagine what the Iraqi and Afghan people have been left with..... these wars are evil, and evil begets evil.

I am shocked that too many people seem to be more preoccupied with the author of this crime then with the victims and starting from the very top.
The conclusions are obvious and nothing can change them, beside making them even worse in the case of more people being involved.
Imagine if a Jew would - G-d forbid - do anything similar all Jews would be guilty, and no questions asked. In this case, we deal with a Muslim criminal, and the whole government is trying to soothe the Muslim world, why? Because the USA are broken and need cheap oil and money, and think that the Arabs will give it to them, and have therefore sold their soul and morale.

The lady has no idea what she talks about.
Hasan was a loser, pure and simple. The fault is his alone. It doesn't belong to anyone else, or any organization, and no one's failure to help/fix/intervene for this guy is a contributing factor.

A moderate Muslim is one who ran out of ammunition.

Perhaps, dear lady, "A Moderate Muslim" is a fellow who is wearing the uniform of the US Military, is scared, six thousand miles from home, cold and hungry, humping a ten-ton backpack or sitting watch while his buddies sleep - and damn funny, they've never asked each other whether they're Presbyterian or Jewish or Catholic or whatever, and it doesn't matter anyway, these are the guys who keep you alive.

And you're sitting over here sipping your latté and bad-mouthing him?  And there's ten-thousand guys like him for every one insane guy in Fort Hood?

I hope to God, lady, you're wrong - and that he's not out of ammunition, and every Christian and Muslim and Jewish mother's son wearing the uniform of the US Military gets home safely.

Why do you hate the troops?

I agree somewhat with JJ Crockett.  The author, SB Thistlewaite, has offered her observations cloaked in the language of the clinic, perhaps to bring forth the profundity and seriousness of the issue.

I, a physician, however, believe that the language to be used in this matter is not of the clinic, but rather, the sacristy.  It is entirely possible that evil cannot command in a person without some sort of mental illness.  However, the vast majority of people with mental illness are remarkably untouched by evil.  Very little is of interest what the Major's psychological wellness was; of compelling interest to society is where his evil came from.

In asking the question of what happened, I offer a very powerful few thoughts from a philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, whose ideas may have spawned as much wickedness in the world, as good:

Er lange genug mit Monstern kämpft, soll aufpassen, dass er nicht selbst zum Monster wird;

Wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.

The conventional translation offers:

Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

I believe that this nears the mark.  Encounter with evil is as much of an occupational hazard for psychiatrists as it is for ministers.  Wherever hate, self-righteousness, conscienceless and rage gather, is the Devil's harvest; and war is certain to keep the crops coming in.  Psychiatrists who treat those who have gone to war should indeed be wary of becoming a monster themselves.

When you stare into the Devil's eyes, realize, that the Devil's eyes are staring at you.

Apparently he was a devout Muslim. A moderate Muslim is one who ran out of ammunition.

It's no accident but when we (some of us, anyway) attend our respective religious services or religious schools and learn to put "priorities in order, they come out with God on top and family or country fighting hard for second place.

Incuriously, our military chaplaincy has always equated the interests of God with the interests of our country. They were one and the same and don't dare dispute that (openly, anyway). And that's how it is. Oh, wait... sometimes it isn’t... for our service members who find our country's ideals and objectives diametrically opposed to those of their co-religionists on whom we are making war. Their god is telling them that we are wrong!

These service members are fighting an identity war within themselves. None of this excuses Hasem's actions but it does help to explain them.

IMHO, if our military doesn't address this type of identity war with an appropriate fix, e.g. recruitment, duty or assignment limitation, this incident may not remain "isolated." That is the real danger.

This position is pure unadulterated psychobabble!!

I spent a year in Vietnam, and the biggest psychological situation is not being at war, but coming home a changed person, while the world back home hasn't changed a bit! After Vietnam we were told to take off our uniforms and forget about it! You never forget and you never seem to find anyone else who understands accept those who were there too! Every PTSD Psychologist should have been at war too!!

Hasan didn't have a clue!!

It is true that war is hell, both in the battle zones, and in the hearts of those many who are affected, wherever they be.

But it is a stretch to rationalize the killing rampage of this man as one who "ran amok" as a result of the stresses of war. And even if the horrors of war were to cause a soldier to go berserk, where is the logic of exterminating your brothers in that war, and not the enemy?

Maybe his stress was a different sort: a battle over identity, and over his soul. He was confronting both a real war and a cultural conflict between the U.S. and Islam--some might say radical Islam. Which helped define and strengthen his own identity as a Muslim, in a hostile country. Certainly it involved the culture of religion. And that seems not to be unusual.

I sadly note on these pages, that the Devil never wants for volunteers.

I read from M. Poniatowski:

This is what we get for not treating devout Islam for what it is, a sickness.

Our friends in the late Soviet Union treated a number of "sufferers" like Andrei Sakharov for his "Anti-Soviet Sickness."  Our country has a predisposition for pathologizing into mental illness things which are not mental illness.

Many leap into blind rage, and say - it's all the enemy!  The Liberals!  The Republicans!  Michael Moore!  George W. Bush!  Good, good onya, the Devil would say.  You're as much as saying - Major Hasan's only mistake was improper target acquisition.  Everything else was good work, eh?  If only he had shot a bunch of Liberal agitators - or abortion doctors - or a handful of Jews - or Keith Olberman - keep going with that thought, and stoke that self-righteous rage!  the Devil might say, rolling on his back in glee. 

Hasan is now down and out of the picture - we need more infernal volunteers, yes!  Self-righteousness, hate and fear!  The Final Solution for the Jews will be only a footnote to our Final Solution for Islam!

When the solution is - we hae not exterminated enough of the Wicked in the name of the Good - that is when Hell is ready to rock.  Bring it on.

Is this for real? What a load of apologist hogwash. Nidal Hissan is what we get for our tolerance. Devout Islam destroys the higher reasoning capacity of the human brain, their God is above country, above family (because, you know, women are chattel), above loyalty, above intelligence, above reality, above reason. This is what we get for not treating devout Islam for what it is, a sickness.

I notice a tremendous outpouring of certainty from all sides on this matter; a certainty which, beg pardon, is almost completely wrong.

The closest poster to the mark was ZZIM, who wrote

This event has no deep meaning. An antisocial loner went off the deep end and killed some innocent bystanders. No different from the guy in the Holocaust Museum, except that he was more successful at it.

The first sentence is the key. If this man was just a crazed, antisocial loner who went off - let's all move along, nothing to see here. Societies, to a greater or lesser extent, can be measured by their ability to protect their people from harm from within. In America, we have reached a consensus of ignorance - we no longer attend to it.

It was not always so. The Klutter murders of Kansas were so shocking to the nation in the 1950's as to draw forth the book, In Cold Blood, which analyzed the origins of such a horror. The Richard Speck murders of Chicago in the same time drew forth a flood of self-reflection and concern.

But now - it's just a blurb in the news, and forget about it. The story's already getting a little tattered around the edges - by Advent season, it will be "Yawn-Old News."

These matters really DO belong on the religion and spirituality pages - for they illustrate as catastrophic a breakdown in a society's spiritual and civil defenses, as the Ardenne Forest represented to France's Wall in 1940.

For those whose religious beliefs allow such a question, I ask - "How did the Devil come to walk in Texas on a November afternoon?"  For the Devil cannot pick up a weapon, not on this earth.  It needs human hands to do so.

The real sadness here is that some readers will actually believe this - before all of the facts are determined. We haven't even heard Major Hasan's side of the story yet.

Can't we at least wait to hear his own justification? What if he says it had nothing to do with "contagious war trauma? What if he says his actions were ideologically, politically, or religiously motivated? Then what?

Just too soon to be jumping to conclusions like this woman.

The guy was a radical before the war started. He didn't like working with women, he preached to patients, he spoke hatefully of Americans, and advocated suicide bombing.

He did not have PTSD. He was a radical who joined the Army to learn how to kill people. To make him a victim is BS.

As a major, if anyone actually called him "camel jockey" he could have them courtmartialed. He made this up to get out of doing his job.

He is not a victim, so don't encourage copycats who might want your pity and commit these acts.

Catching PSTD and you have not been deployed. Your leadership refused to send you patients because you proselytize to your patients instead of providing counseling.

The Army did an audit of their forces about three years ago to find members of the force that had not been deployed. Hasad's number came up. He did not want to go and he wanted out. He had received OER evaluation and this was his last chance to improve his status. He attended the same Mosque as the 9/11 Islamic Terrorists in the Suburbs of MD. He shouted "Allah Akbar" as he was gunning down his fellow soldiers. The majority were young enlisted soldiers.

He was not suffering PSTD. He is and was an Islamic Terrorist that should have been kicked out the US Army.

The Army will kick you for being gay, fat, belonging to gangs or hate groups but will not kick out an Islamic Terrorist.

Go figure!!! Fort Hood was terrorism mixed in with revenge pure and simple.

The Leftist media wants to create a story that the war is responsible for this terrorist action at Ft. Hood. Here's a guy who conducted pre-meditated murder on a large scale for religious reasons. In their mind, it has to be George Bush's fault. Everything else is.

It's a sad excuse for journalism.

I think "wehutson" made a good list of some the things that are not very helpful in treating PTSD.

It's not like it's cancer, and it's not an addiction either. The thing about this disorder is that people can get over it and move on with their lives. That to me is the only good news about toxic outcomes of trauma.

One of the ways to deal with trauma is by making choices to make better situations for others. I suspect that has something to do with 2 rounds of any war.

What an utterly idiotic article. "Contagious" stress, as defined herein, applies to any all stress from any and all causes, anywhere, anytime. In other words, this is a pointless exercise in sloppy thinking.

Hasan is a standard issue shooter, the usual oddball "recluse" who happened to be wearing a military uniform instead of a hoodie. The insipid over-analysis of this tragedy continues.

Ms. Thistlethwaite is wrong, PTSD is NOT contagious. I could just as easily, and with the same lack of evidence, conclude that Hasan's time spent in DC traffic jams made him homicidal. He is a muslim terrorist. Period.

Yes, everyone is a VICTIM and PTSD can spread from sneezing!!

What utter BS. PTSD is so easy to fake, it has become the national trendy disease. You can ALWAYS find some gullible, validation-seeking shrink, psychologist (gag), or social worker (double gag) to give you a diagnosis, as long as you claim that you have nightmares.

Waaah! I'm a victim! Give me disability! Waaaah!

Compared to the number who claim to have it, there are a few that truly do. Articles like this only encourage fakers and posers.

It was not a question of war, but of the army organisation. The army made a big failure to not let him go. It was against his honor to kill muslims. Thats perfectly ok. The chief of the army should go.

The most bizarre event was that the FBI did care aboutr his comparison of so called suicide bombers with kamikaze. That he dug them. The ultimate sacrifice. It is not the business of the FBI to support the DoD propaganda!

This not only hogwash but terribly insulting to the professionalo soldier in general and the Army Medical Department in particular. This happened cause this man is the enemy. We need to get over our PC BS and accept who the enemy is and where they come from. If we handled the Bundt the way we handle jihadists today gow knows where we would have ended up. It is truly amazing how many admin troops have PTSD and how many combat arms soldiers are quietly going about their post military lives. Quite frankly I am tired of the assumption that because I served I must be ill, this sterotype pisses me off to no end. In the case of the very few of my colleauges I know personally who are ill, deployments didn't screw them up. Coming home to this society did.

This article is tripe.

Just a coincidence that the shooter was a Muslim shouting "god is great." Like the shooter in Afghanistan who killed 5 British soldiers earlier in the week.

From the Wikipedia article on the dodo: As with many animals that have evolved in isolation from significant predators, the dodo was entirely fearless of people, and this, in combination with its flightlessness, made it easy prey for humans.

From Wikipedia circa 2050: As with many civilized human beings that have lived in isolation from savages, people in the West were entirely fearless of jihadists, and this, in combination with their political correctness, made them easy prey for Muslims. The last confirmed sighting of a Western dodo was in 2045 when one Susan Thistlethwaite was stoned to death by an irate mob while giving a speech titled "Islam: the religion of peace". Allah-hu-akbar!

One of the writers above, WEHUTSON, made a superbe comment about the stimulaton of mental disease by mental health care providers. I am in total accord. Please forgive me for making one addition. Mental health care providers do this to increase their income and employment. The more mental disease, the more billable hours. In this perhaps unconscious act psychiatrists et.al. behave exactly like lawyers at the pig trough. When I left Viet Nam, I had a mild and self-limited form of PTSD. No big deal. There were very few cases of severe PTSD and most were quickly diagnosed and treated by the military physicians in a timely and professional fashion. In my opinion, this writer is unprofessional, uninformed, and engaging in the usual anti-American, Marxist, WaPo propoganda.

This is an excellent piece of analysis by Thistlethwaite and anyone who has worked with people who are less fortunate than themselves, will know that it is very easy to come to identify with those people and suffer for them. It's hard to imagine what possessed Major Hasan to react the way he did and I'm sure we'll find out soon enough. As Thistlethwaite points out, there's a lot about war that has damaging consequences for soldiers, victims and those who are not even close to the war zone.

Republicans on this blog just show a complete lack of understanding of what is going on. Sometimes, I wonder whether if the war did come to America, whether it would finally open their eyes to what war really is. For so many of them, it seems as though war is just a game, like some sick form of computer game. Maybe, they need a reality check.

There is a great deal to be said on this matter, which badly needs distance, an evaluation in the round.

Why, then, does an academic write this garbage?
And she does it week after week after week.

This is the kind of event that generates a lot of fear and frenzy, accusation and blame. Let's hope and pray that all the actual facts come out eventually, but meantime, knowing the divisions in the American public, it would be helpful to withold judgment and not use the event to stir up more hatred.

A good professional article. I should add:
1- When shall the politicians, Journalists and the educated in America understand that war is the ultimate terror. Killing and torturing people is not an option in a civilized society. Justifying war by "just war" ,"war of necessity" and all such nonsence must stop. Defending your community if you are attacked against the attackers (or if you are driven out of your home by force) are the only cases where you can use violence with some restrictions. Bush has started two wars with the support of most politicians and the support of the main media as if the US is void of people who can think of the consequences also for their own people.
2- The US has to stop the wars , reform the education system to get rid of the culture of violence and introduce restrictive gun control.

Here is how the Marxist press see it:
7 November 2009
"The mayhem at Fort Hood in Texas, which has left 13 men and women dead and 30 injured, is a byproduct of the brutal wars in the Middle East and Central Asia. It is a form of “collateral damage” for which the American political and military establishment is ultimately responsible...

Not only is there no end in sight in either case, there is the prospect of the wars’ expansion into Pakistan, with bloodier and more disastrous consequences. The invasions have already led to the devastation of Iraqi and Afghan society, the deaths of as many as a million Iraqis alone, and thousands of Americans killed, or maimed.

The wars are not about democracy, overthrowing tyrants, or protecting the American people from terrorism. The US ruling elite is waging these interventions to seize control of critical energy supplies, to strengthen its position vis à vis its rivals in Europe and Asia, to gain global hegemony through its military superiority.

The impact of these neo-colonial wars, including the moral impact of the enormous gulf between the “official story” and harsh reality, must find expression within sections of the US military itself. To fight an unpopular war against a hostile population is a demoralizing and inevitably brutalizing experience.

The media is already harping on one of its favorite themes whenever a mass shooting takes place in America: how did the authorities miss the “warning signs”? Indeed, there seem to have been numerous such signs in this case, including Hasan’s alleged web site postings in defense of suicide bombers, and his frantic anxiety about deployment to Afghanistan.

3, two days before the Fort Hood killings, that 16 US soldiers killed themselves in October, “an unusually high monthly toll that is fueling concerns about the mental health of the nation’s military personnel after more than eight years of continuous warfare.”

The Journal notes that 134 active-duty soldiers had taken their lives so far in 2009, putting “the Army on pace to break last year’s record of 140. … The number of Army suicides has risen by 37% since 2006, and last year, the suicide rate surpassed that of the US population for the first time.” More soldiers killed themselves in 2008 than at any time since the Pentagon began keeping track nearly three decades ago...

An article in the September 2009 issue of Management Science notes that the tempo of deployment cycles in Iraq is higher than for any war since World War II and that survey data suggests that the rate of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder among Iraq war veterans may be as high as 35 percent.

Endless war is wreaking havoc on American society. The Fort Hood shootings emerge almost inevitably out of this horror and confusion."

SEE David Walsh http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/pers-n07.shtml

Second hand PTSD? PTSD by Proxy? Is the author is proposing a new DSM diagnosis or just making stuff up? This pop-psychology tripe is not only crazy in its own right but insults the memory of those just gunned down in the most horrendous case of Islamic terrorism on our soil since 9/11. Why are otherwise educated people afraid to call this event what it is? Maj Hasan is a fundamentalist Islamist murderer who acted in a premeditated way exactly as those involved on 9/11. Everyone who has strapped on a suicide vest, blown themselves up, or screamed “Allah Akbar” and shot up a wedding ceremony are obviously not of sound mind. Let's stop medicalizing murder. If this had been a fundamentalist Jewish terrorist like Yigal Amir or a Christian a la Timothy McVeigh, left wingers and the press would waste no time using the “T” word. Until our country (particularly our President) stops sugarcoating Islamic terrorism and the hateful fundamentalist ideology that gives it life, these events will continue. Calling a spade a spade says nothing derogatory about the millions of Moslems who don’t subscribe to these reprehensible beliefs. Americans are smart enough to know the difference between Moslems who believe in peace and those who don’t. There are orthodox zealots in every religion, unfortunately at the present time the ones who read the Koran and practice Jihad are most numerous and dangerous. We do them and ourselves no favors by failing to have a frank discussion about Islamic fundamentalism and using every power available from an educational and law enforcement standpoint to destroy this pernicious religious hatred. Given his heritage, President Obama is in a unique position to open a dialogue with the Muslim world to force much of it out of the Middle Ages and be an agent of change and understanding. So far, he chooses political correctness over truth.

This article is virtually all psychobabble.

What seems more plausible is this: Methods of counseling psychology and psychiatry can actually cause mental problems to become more severe, more elaborated, and more intractable. Iatrogenic (doctor-induced) problems in the area of mental health are well known. It's the dirty little secret in the field of mental health.

Here's how it works. Fluctuating emotions and feelings, worries, fleeting images become the "stuff" of counseling sessions. That's what gets endlessly talked about. Doctors encourage patients to not just talk about their emotions but actually to feel them again and again (and re-live them through repeated verbalizations). but critically these emotions quickly become more than emotions they become thoughts and ideas. And the doctor, through meandering talk, encourages these new thoughts...a new reality...to become anchored in the entire history of the person. All aspects of their life (beliefs, physical history, life background, intellect, relations, sexuality, etc.) become tied to these "new facts". Emotions become an ever more concrete reality than what they were before counseling began. Over time these new "facts" become ever more elaborated on and become quite nested and higlighted into the patient's makeup.

It's no wonder why these mental health fields have such dismal success rates.

This Army major had some issues to begin with..and I suspect with each new patient he was building his new disturbing reality.

Emotions need to be treated as though they were "dogs". Dogs make messes if they are not owned by the mind and the will. They otherwise make messes wherever they go. They need to be led; they need boundaries. Make no mistake emotions are good things...but they need to be controlled and trained.

It's commonsense, but we've allowed ourselves to over-focus on emotions as if they were our real "inner" soul. The mind and the will are our soul.

Theologians and people pretending to come from a faith background need to purge themselves of 90% of modern mental health concepts.

fwiw, I have had 2 combat tours in Iraq.

We are cautioned not to rush to judgment concerning Maj. Hasan's religion by several of the panelists, but Susan Thistlewaite has no problem rushing to a complex diagnosis on very little data.

If you want to get into the armchair psychology business, look at a common thread connecting many of these murderous losers, Atta, McVeigh, the Unabomber and others, their inability to connect with women.

As a mental health professional, the perpetrator himself should have recognized the signs that he was going off the deep end and talked to a counselor at work or he could have sought to talk to his Iman at the mosque he went to every day. His mosque released statements condemning his actions so surely the place he sought spiritual sustenance every day could have guided him towards a positive solution.

I have PTSD and find violence abhorrent. Trauma can be toxic to others, I don't tell people the things that have happened to me because of that. I pay doctors in part to maintain a professional distance from the things I need to work on. It's a grim business, and I don't like it much, but you play what you're dealt. Weapons have no place in dealing with this disorder, other than to get over being bothered by them.

Having PTSD is no reason to do what he did. Having PTSD means managing your risks with an awareness that precludes falling so far away from help that you lash out violently. It means choosing not to be alone and full of anger and hatred, whenever those things start to hold sway inappropriately.

This question has not been raised much and even though others may down play it, I have read about counsellors helping different categories of victims getting overwhelmed and even affected by it. It's also possible that the Nidal somehow started to identify with the people in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is sad that his problems were not dealt with early enough. This might have been prevented.

Susan, grind your political axes elsewhere.

This event has no deep meaning. An antisocial loner went off the deep end and killed some innocent bystanders. No different from the guy in the Holocaust Museum, except that he was more successful at it.

People with certain mental disorders tend to be attracted to ideologies that make them feel grandiose and powerful. So instead of perceiving himself for what he really was - a stupid destructive selfish loser - he imagined himself a heroic shining martyr to a grand cause, cut down in battle while defending his people against their natural enemies.

What a loser. Just like the other guy.

Of course, Susan has to come along and grind her personal political axe on the corpses of those same innocent bystanders. She says "See what happens when you don't listen to me? Terrible things!"

Pathetic.

Susan,
Are you actually saying having never been in combat this guy "caught" PTSD from returning soldiers, then did what the soliders who actually had PTSD have not done, go out and kill fell soldiers? I think its a stretch.

I think its becoming clear. The guy got a free ticket to med school and didn't mind working in the military, in the safe USA, to meet his commitment. But when he was told he was going overseas his easy world collapsed. He was going to have to work in a dangerous place. Not as dangerous as other situations mind you. He would not be on the front lines, he was a doctor after all, behind the lines well protected. But he could not take it and decided to commit suicide, possibly killing others as his religion describes as the way to paradise.

The question that I do not hear being asked is why this dangerous guy was missed. Its already been reported that he made some chilling remarks long before. At some point the military will need to do a major review of its screening of personnel that weeds out those who might be ready to do something crazy. My guess is that this guy, not being a rifle carrying soldier but part of a base support group, a doctor to boot, was not to be worried about since it was very unlikely he would see any action. But first the mourning must take place before we start kick ourselves for possibly not seeing it coming.