Fort Hood shooter used as excuse to scapegoat Muslims, Arabs

November 6, 6:43 PMSonoma County Civil Rights ExaminerMegan Coffey

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Alleged shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.  AP/USUHS

As soon as the name of the shooter at Fort Hood who killed 13 people and wounded 29—Nidal Malik Hasan—was known, reporters and bloggers began jumping to conclusions about his heritage and his motive.

Fox News Channel’s Shepard Smith said “the name tells us a lot,” and an op-ed column on FoxNews.com suggested the shooting spree was “the largest terror act since 9/11.”  Later, Fox and Friends hosts suggested that the military should conduct "special debriefings" for all Muslim officers.

Commentators at the Jihad Watch blog immediately labeled Hasan a “jihadi” and called for a “war on Islam.”

World Net Daily’s headline trumpeted “Fort Hood triggerman: Muslim, shrink, officer,” implying that Hasan’s religion was his most relevant attribute.

CBSNews.com decried an immediate “anti-Muslim backlash” that included at least one threatening call to the Arab-American Institute. However, the news website then poured fuel on the fire itself with its title for a videotaped interview with Ft. Hood Base Commander Lt. Gen Bob Cone: although Cone repeatedly emphasized the bravery and rapid response of the soldiers at the scene and made only a passing reference to “unconfirmed reports” that Hasan said “Allah Akbar” while shooting, CBS titled the video “Fort Hood Suspect: ‘Allahu Akbar’.”

Fearful of reprisals, local mosques have stepped up security, and relatives of Hasan issued a statement of their love for America; also, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) held a press conference denouncing the violence as unjustified by any religious ideology.

Lest you think that given Hasan’s name and religion, the backlash against Arabs and Muslims is only natural, recall that when Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people in 1995, no one raised alarms about his Catholic upbringing or his Irish heritage. And when it was discovered that Seung-hui Cho had compared himself to Jesus Christ before killing 32 people and himself at Virginia Tech in 2007, no one called for a “war" on either Christians or Korean-Americans.

Come to think of it, Ft. Hood shooter Nidal Hasan went to Virginia Tech himself…so why isn’t anyone inciting a “war on Virginia Tech”?

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