“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four,” writes George Orwell’s protagonist Winston Smith
in 1984. “If that is granted, all else follows.”

At around 2:30 pm Eastern Standard Time, Maj. Malik Nidal Hasan (alternately given as Nidal Malik Hasan) entered the Soldier Readiness Center at Fort Hood, and allegedly opened fire with two handguns killing thirteen, and wounding about thirty.

Around 4:33 pm Eastern Standard Time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation declared that terrorism was apparently not a factor.

Sometime after 5:00 pm Eastern Standard Time, ABC News announced Hasan as having been identified as the suspect, shot by a policewoman at the site of the rampage.

My TV was set to Fox News at the time. I watched, intensely interested, until almost 6:00pm, as the anchorman spoke in coded language, tip-toeing around a fact he was already aware of but was steadfastly refusing to share with his audience, the attacker’s name. He went so far as to say (and I paraphrase) that while he would not reveal the name of the attacker, revealing the name he said, “would be very significant.”

Indeed.

Less than twenty-four hours after the attack, a portrait has emerged of just who Malik Nidal Hasan was. It is known that he was born in Arlington, VA, but listed his nationality as “Palestinian,” for a program at a Silver Spring, MD Mosque he attended. It is known that he was once disciplined for inappropriately “proselytizing” among patients. It is known that he’d taken to wearing traditional Muslim attire, as shown on a convenience store surveillance video. It is known that six months prior to the attack, federal authorities were looking into an apparent internet web posting by a “NidalHasan” that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who jump on grenades to save the lives of their squadmates. It is reported by witnesses at the scene of the attack that Hasan yelled out “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is Great” while he opened fire. A former colleague of Hasan’s reported that Hasan had stated, “Muslims had a right to rise up and attack Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan.” According to NPR, Hasan allegedly had given a lecture during rounds in which he suggested that the Koran instructed that nonbelievers be beheaded.

What is NOT known, at least to most media outlets, is the “motive” of the attack. TIME magazine’s headline opines “For Hasan, Stresses at Fort Hood Were Likely Intense.” The Washington Post’s headline asks whether Hasan’s being in the military might have played a roll, with their headline, “Ft. Hood: Crime in the Military. What Motive?”
2+2=?

It is not that they don’t know, mind you. It’s that they simply refuse to state the truth. Which, from the available statements and facts, is that Major Malik Nidal Hasan, of Arlington, VA, was almost certainly a homegrown, self-radicalized jihadist.

The NYPD Intelligence Report, “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,” suggests a four-stage process by which radicalization occurs: Pre-radicalization, Self-Identification, Indoctrination, and Jihadization.

The report suggests the candidates for radicalization are typically Muslim males, between the ages of 15 and 35, who are second or third generation residents of a Western country, well-educated, of middle-class background, with “ordinary” lives and jobs, and with little, if any, criminal history. With the exception of being slightly above the age range Malik Nidal Hasan’s background appears to fit this criteria.

Self-identification occurs when the candidate for radicalization makes the decision to explore Islamist (usually Salafist) ideology and redefines their identity, typically after some kind of crisis, whether the loss of a job or loved one or, in some cases, by being confronted by political conflicts, such as a growing awareness of international conflicts involving Muslims. Hasan’s growing agitation and statements regarding the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq would seem to fit this stage. During this stage, candidates for radicalization typically begin seeking out a more Salafist mosque. According to Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, Hasan worshipped at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001. Dar al-Hijrah is notable as the same mosque attended by 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour.

It is not yet known how Hasan progressed from the indoctrination to the jihadization phase or whether he purchased the two firearms used in the attack only a short while before the attack or had owned them for some time. What does seem clear is that Hasan had certainly premeditated the attack, going so far as to give away personal items (including a Koran) to neighbors and leaving farewell voicemail messages.

As shocking and disturbing as the events at Fort Hood were, they should not be viewed in isolation. In 2003, Sgt. Hasan Karim Akbar attacked his own comrades and officers using grenades and his M4 carbine. After being arrested, he reportedly said, “You guys [the U.S Army] are coming into our countries, and you’re going to rape our women and kill our children.” In 2006, Naveed Afzal Haq opened fire on a Seattle Jewish Federation shouting, “I’m a Muslim American; I’m angry at Israel,” killing one and injuring several. Also in 2006, Mohammed Taheri-azar used a rented Jeep Cherokee in an attempt to run over as many UNC-Chapel Hill students as possible, injuring nine.
After the attack, he blamed the United States government’s actions against Muslims as his motivation.

Middle East expert Daniel Pipes calls these events, and those like them, “Sudden Jihad Syndrome,” to describe lone wolf, homegrown acts of terrorism. In January of last year, a Texas Public Safety Department Bureau of Information Analysis report used this phrase to describe the phenomenon and added:

“Oftentimes, these attackers are dismissed as suffering from mental health issues, but their own words and writings reveal an affiliation with Islamic supremacy or an affinity for Islamic extremism,”. “As a result, law enforcement should not be too quick to judge their attacks as having no nexus to terrorism.”

Yet the Federal Bureau of Investigation stated, within two hours of the event occurring and before the Texas army base had even been secured and searched, and the crime scene established, that Major Malik Nadal Hasan’s alleged actions had “no terrorism nexus.”

2+2=5.

The media has followed their lead. TV anchormen have discussed “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” as a possible cause. Hasan, however, has never been deployed to a combat zone, and would not have engaged in combat even if he had deployed to Afghanistan as intended, and so could not possibly be suffering from PTSD.

Denial of the reality that even within our tolerant, pluralist democracy there are homegrown, radicalized Jihadists who wish to do us harm serves no purpose. As any twelve-stepper will tell you, the first step is admitting you have a problem. Covering up the motivations of this terrorist does nothing to help law enforcement and intelligence officials learn from this tragedy and take steps to prevent future Fort Hoods. And it does nothing to help the small but active groups of moderate Muslims who work to expose and correct radicalization and extremism in their communities.

What is the value of this self-censorship then? The refusal to state facts that would be “very significant,” the search for alternative motives while ignoring the obvious one? Whether it is out of the desire to be politically correct, or to appear tolerant, it cannot change reality.

We will not be able to free ourselves from horrors like the one perpetuated at Fort Hood, until we free ourselves to speak the truth and describe the reality of the threat we face. Otherwise, we will never win the War on Terror unless we can do that, but, “if that is granted, all else follows.”

Tags: Homegrown Jihad, Islamism, Sharia