The man who slaughtered 13 unarmed people in Fort Hood, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was clearly mentally ill, and should have been treated and cared for before he snapped and went on a rampage. Unfortunately, there's another factor that seems to be getting minimized in the press accounts: he was also a member of an Abrahamic death cult. Ibn Warraq has come out with a strong statement on the Islamic terrorism that motivated the attacks.
It is time to abandon apologetics, and political correctness. Not all Muslims are terrorists. Not all Muslims are implicated in the horrendous events of September 11, 2001 -- or of November 5, 2009. However, to pretend that Islam has nothing to do with 9/11 or the Fort Hood massacre is willfully to ignore the obvious. To leave Islam out of the equation means to forever misinterpret events. Without Islam, the long-term strategy and individual acts of violence by Osama bin Laden and his followers make little sense. Without Islam, the West will go on being incapable of understanding our terrorist enemies, and hence will be incapable to deal with them. Without Islam, neither is it possible to comprehend the barbarism of the Taliban, the position of women and non-Muslims in Islamic countries, or -- now-- the murders attributed to Major Hasan.
Religion is not a mitigating factor. It is not an excuse or a defense. it is not a sacred principle that must not be questioned. Too often, it has a complex causal relationship to evil.