"Another who was one of them.  He ate with them, worked alongside them and slept with them..."

K, he didn't do any of that.  He was a medical officer who lived off post, had never been in any kind of troop unit, had never been to Iraq or Afganistan...he was not one of them.  He was not worthy to be one of them.  He was a muslim, disloyal to his service and his country, and I agree with you whole-heartedly that he betrayed the trust he was supposed to have as an officer.  It makes me sick the way the media has soft-pedaled this whole incident, trying to blame everything on the war, the Army, the policies of the last administration and anything else they can find to point a finger at.  The political correctness that has over-run common sense in this country is what is mostly responsible for this mess.  A muslim officer in the military who claims sympathy for home-grown jihadists, rails about the unjustness of fighting against Islam, is very vocal about not wanting to go to either war and his superiors decide that the cure for all that is to take him away from the returning soldiers he was counselling and send him to a unit that is scheduled to deploy.  But we can't offend any of our muslim brethern, so we turn the other way and look what we get.  How long do you think it will be before we hear about another one just like him?

I would like to be there when he wakes up and finds that instead of 72 virgins, he is going to meet up with a jury of his peers.  Bummer, dude.

As soon as I saw his name posted on Drudge the investigation was all wrapped up for me.

That man was obviously crazy or insane and unstable - a christian with the same condition could have done the same and in fact it has happend before. I don't believe any institution or religion is to blame - what I know about amok killings (they talked about it alot after the one in Germany that happend in march) is that they are unpredictable and rare.

Political Correctness is a pain more often than not, but there is a good reason it exists and is enforced by laws. I heard about this tragedy in the news here, and I was really shocked that someone could go on and do something like that.

I get that it is frustrating and that you probably want to be there when they hang him - can you get the death penalty in a court martial? - and pull the lever yourself. But it is wrong to automatically condemn every other muslim out there for the crimes of one individual. Blowing off steam is allowed as long as it doesn't end up in a lynch mob but sadly there are many who act upong such news in that manner. I wouldn't be surprised if some retaliatory acts against muslims were to happend in the next few days.

Well he was to some extent, one of them, at least in appearance because he was counseling them.  Also from what I understand they were eating when this all took place and this guy just got up and started firing. 

My son is an officer in the AF and doesn't live on base but he works, plays (sports) and on occasion eats with enlisted, officers and civilian workers.  He hasn't been deployed either but he's still one of them. 

no, a Christian is bound by love.  Christ who is the one we follow said "the world will know you belong to me when they see the love you have for one another." 

 A Christian WOULD NOT do this.  Show me one Christian in scripture who murdered anyone.  You can SAY you're a Christian, but that doesn't make you one.  King David had ample opportunity to kill his enemy King Saul in a cave but would not even tho King Saul was looking to murder David. 

But yes, I do agree with you that he was obviously crazy, insane or unstable.   A Muslim really shouldn't be put in this situation in the first place.  You're asking a Muslim to take sides with the enemy to fight his own...even tho he's an American Muslim.  It still has to have been very conflicting for this Muslim who was very religious about his belief.   

There's nothing like being hurt from within.  From without you expect, but not from the inside.  This came totally unexpected catching everyone there off guard. 

 

I wanted to point out that religion does not automatically have to be the determining motive, and unstable people of any religion can snap. How easy is love turned into hate..that is true for all people, and also for christians who are mad and unstable and that is what I meant by my statement. K As far as I know, islam has had wars within so it isn't as if there was one unified group and theology. It isn't like if you are a muslim, democracy or the United States are automatically your enemy and murdering fundamentalist and terrorists your ally just because they are also muslim.

Christian soldiers had been in that very situation in the past, interestingly enough. The 4th crusde. Admittedly, this is not a correlating example, but the problem was the same. Crusaders usually fought against the nonbelievers and enemies of christianity aka muslims back then and other heretics, not against fellow christians. But the financing fell through and venice blocked the shipping order because the crusaders couldn't pay for it. And then the doge had this brilliant idea to kill two birds with one stone. He'd get them to the holy land via Byzantine and on the way there all they had to do was to pillage Constantinople. It went against many people's conscious and alot didn't participate, but enough had no problems with that and went on to sack a christian city and burned it to the ground, killing and raping christians on the way. Venice emerged as the global political power without its rival.

This is a very paraphrased and not very detailed account of the 4th crusade. Some soldiers have had a mercenary disposition and didn't care even though they would consider themselves devout christians, and some just couldn't do it because it went against what they believed. It is not a problem that is restricted to todays muslims in the US military but a general problem that is as old as war itself. I don't know if there is a solution but everybody took an oath to defend and protect the United States against all enemies, I would think that a very devout person would not take this oath and not mean it, or decide to join the military knowing that it would conflict with his faith. Those that do must feel as americans first. I find it a bit problematic to declare that they are unable to reconcile this because they are muslims.

Amok killings are always unexpected and unpredictable.

I'm not sure you really understand what it means to be a Christian (more than name only).  For a Christian to murder another it has to be a very rare, rare thing.  I'm sure it can happen like you said but what we have, unlike any other religion is "Christ in us."  When one becomes a believer the Holy Spirit indwells a believer.  I wish I had a dime for everyone who said "before I became a Christian I thought I could see but now I can really see." 

That's why you see so many radical changes when one comes to Christ.  Many may even say about a new believer..."he's not the same person he was."  There's a change that comes over one dedicated to Christ.  It's called a "new birth."   It's only done by the power of the Holy Spirit overcoming a believer. 

It's been a while since I looked at the 4th crusade..would have to brush up on my history but again, just because they said they were Christians doesn't mean they were.  Much that happened in those crusades were anything but Christian.  To be a Christian means to be "other minded."  We are to be selfless not selfish.  Much about what I remember about the crusades was about greed, money and power.  That's certainly not the Christian way.   

Faith in the middle ages was different than from today. First of all, they didn't believe you could have "Christ in us" independant from the catholic church. If they cast you out, your soul was lost and you couldn't be saved. The comparison is difficult. People knew less, were educated less and were alot more superstitious. Many believed crusading, freeing the holy land, was their holy duty as christians. It is difficult to comprehend from todays perspective.You are correct about the fact that crusades also had alot to do with money and political power. Many went on crusades because it was good for their resume.

The 1st crusade was a big success and the crusaders errected states or little kingdoms there, the Levante. The orient was important for trade, luxurious fabric like silk and spices, jewlery etc. that arrived via the trade/mercant roads from India, Africa, China and South Asia. Historic pipelines if you will and just as coveted as oil pipelines today.

The 4th is really interesting because you could already see superpower politics at work. Venetian history is fascinating.  The venetians took advantage of the situation and used it  to get rid of their political and economic rival. It was very agressive and almost modern in that respect. The lure of money to be made from pillaging Constantinople was stronger than religion - greed is powerful, back then and today.

 

KFC:  There is a huge difference between the medical corps and the rest of the Army...and Air Force, too.  I am not sure where you got your version of events but that isn't the way it was being reported in the stories I saw.  Who knows what really happened?!  Bottom line:  he is a Muslim, he didn't like the war, he allegedly railed against the USA's "war on Islam", he brought a couple of handguns into the processing center where a graduation ceremony was about to take place and began shooting people.  Now thirteen are dead and more than twenty wounded.  These are the facts and they are not in dispute.  I will leave the whys and wherefores to brainier folks than me.  But I do have some opinions and insights based on 26 years of active duty and they are founded in experience and wisdom obtained up close and personal with soldiers of all ilks.  

As for him being exempt from fighting other Muslims, phooey.  There were dead Christians all over the fields of Europe half a century ago...they wore several different uniforms and fought to preserve several different countries.  We didn't exempt Roman Catholics when we invaded Sicily and Anzio.  There are provisions for people who conscientiously object to serving in combat for one reason or another.  There are other means available other than shooting up the processing center.  I am not disagreeing that it was an awful act, a betrayal of his oath or that it shouldn't be counted as a point for Al quaeda.  My objection is the comparing him to soldiers of the line, he wasn't; doesn't deserve that distinction and IMHO, is no better than the folks who landed their flights in the Twin Towers.

U:  Yes, you can get the death penalty in a court martial but I don't believe it has been done since near the end of WWII.  

I see. The trial will be interesting.

BFD...you bring up some very good points.  Much has come out since I first wrote what I did here.  The fact that there are now 13 dead instead of the 12 that I wrote for one thing. 

I got my first version of the story from a young soldier that was interviewed on GMA.  I must have misunderstood him as I thought he said something about eating (as in a mess hall) and how this guy just got up out of nowhere and started shooting. 

Obviously this guy has some big issues with the whole fighting of his beloved Muslim brothers not remembering the oat he swore when he first joined our military.  He swore to protect and defend us and instead after years of medical training and taking from our military he bit the hand that fed him and for that I am angry. 

I also understand that the laws that are meant to protect in this instance failed us.  Many knew this guy was a bit "off" but nobody dared put in a complaint against his "muslim" heritage and how he was behaving because it might smack of discrimination.  The discrimination laws  that were meant to protect  individuals, in this case,  did not and instead 13 young soldiers are dead as a result.   All because we were protecting one religious fanatic...can't discriminate afterall. 

We are getting this sort of thing from all sorts of diff angles.  We don't dare speak out against any minorities, muslims, blacks or gays for fear of retaliation in the form of messing with descriminatory laws. 

So who is really being protected here? 

 

There is a fine line between "freedom of speech" and sedition.  This individual, in my opinion, crossed that line at a full gallop.  But apparently not in the judgement of some of his leaders.  Which calls into question the wisdom of continuing to pay those leaders the big bucks for their less than valuable judgement.  A leader has to evaluate his troops and make corrections when necessary.  That obviously didn't happen so nobody was protected.  And why is it that the stories of the soldiers in the kill zone who did marvelously brave and selfless things to help their fallen comrades are just now leaking out in dribs and drabs?  

Overall, I'm with you, K...it makes me sick...all of it.