In 2007, Major Hasan gave a lecture to his colleagues:
As a senior-year psychiatric resident at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan was supposed to make a presentation on a medical topic of his choosing as a culminating exercise of the residency program.
Instead, in late June 2007, he stood before his supervisors and about 25 other mental health staff members and lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting in the Muslim countries of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a copy of the presentation obtained by The Washington Post.
“It’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims,” he said in the presentation.
“It was really strange,” said one staff member who attended the presentation and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the investigation of Hasan. “The senior doctors looked really upset” at the end.
The presentation is here. Frankly, I’m unsurprised that it disturbed Major Hasan’s colleagues. It sets out, increasingly clearly, the theological basis of jihadism.
Before we start going through the presentation, it should be acknowledged that it would be impossible to talk about the mindset of an jihadist without talking about the theory underpinning that particular lifestyle choice. However, bear this in mind. Major Hasan’s topic was “The Koranic World View As It Relates To Muslims In The US Military”.
He is, in effect, talking about himself.
The presentation starts out calmly enough. Slides 1 to ten set out fairly anodyne neutral material about Islam and Muslims in the US military.
Things start to get worrying from slide 11, when Major Hasan starts to discuss the position of “Muslims in US Military”. He states:
“Fatwa my U.S. Muslim clerics are vague and ambiguous – under duress?
Non U.S. Scholars issued Fatwa clearly stating no.”
From Slide 16, the presentation picks up speed. Pretty much the whole of the rest of the presentation simply consists of the exposition of quotes from the Quran.
On Slide 25, under the title “Lack of Submission”, we find the “apes and swine” quotation.
Slides 28, 29, 30 and 31 list the Rewards promised to the believers. Slides 32, 33 and 34 list the Punishments meted out to the “unbelievers”, including:
Like boiling oil, it will boil in the bellies…like the boiling of scalding water… (It will be said) “Seize him and drag him into the midst of the blazing fire… Then pour over his head the torment of the boiling water… We shall burn them in Fire. As often as their skins are roasted through, We shall change them for other skins that they may taste the punishment. Truly Allah is Even Most Powerful, All-Wise”
By slide 35, he turns to the subject of ‘offensive jihad’ and discusses the ‘Islamic empire’. He then moves on to “defensive jihad”, which occupy slides 37, 38, 39, 40 and 41.
Hasan pauses at slide 41 and 42 to talk about the Verse of the Sword:
“I have been commanded to fight the people until they testify that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, establish the prayer and pay the Zakah.”
The presentation continues in a similar vein until a slide entitled “Offensive Islam If [sic] the Future”:
By the One in Whose hand is my soul, soon the son of Maryam will descend among you as a just judge. He will break the cross, kill the pigs and abolish the jizyah, and money will become abundant until no one will accept it.
The final slides contain some other observations:
If Muslim groups can convince Muslims that they are fighting for God against injustices of the ‘infidels’; ie: enemies of Islam, then Muslims can become a potent adversary ie: suicide bombing, etc.
We love death more then [sic] you love life!
God expects full loyalty. Promises Heaven and threatens with Hell.
Muslims may be seen as moderate (compromising) but God is not
Fighting to establish an Islamic State to please God, even by force, is condoned by the Islam
Finally, Hasan concludes:
“Department of Defense should allow Muslims [sic] Soldiers the option of being released as ‘Conscientious objectors’ to increase troop morale and decrease adverse events.”
Adverse events is the term that Hasan uses earlier in the lecture to describe other attacks by Muslim soldiers on their colleagues.
Hasan’s mentor, the jihadist cleric Anwar Al Awlaki has opined:
‘Maybe Nidal was affected by one of my lectures,'”
Yes, perhaps he was. Having viewed this presentation, it is difficult to conclude that Hasan was merely recounting, neutrally, the theoretical underpinning of jihadism. The thinking he expounds in this lecture is precisely the sort of theology that Awlaki and other jihadists preach.
Hasan was almost begging his employers to cashier him out of the army. He had a clear view of his religious duty, and explained to his colleagues precisely what it meant to him, and for them. Yet, he was ignored.
Imagine that the officer had not been a Muslim, but a Christian. Imagine that, at a medical conference, he had started to preach fire and brimstone, while quoting extensively from the Book of Revelations. Imagine that he had started to rant about fighting the New World Order, the Whore of Babylon and the Beast of the Apocalypse. Imagine that all this was delivered in the context of a series of bombings by paranoid McVeigh-types.
You’d think – “Uh oh. This man is a Survivalist, or worse!”
This lecture was a warning sign. Why was it missed?
Who knows for sure. However, I suspect that part of the problem is racism and anti-Muslim bigotry. The same people who would be horrified to find a pink skinned person raving about End Times, just expected a brown and beige skinned person to be “a bit passionate”.
This is ‘noble savagery’ at its worst.
