Professional incompetence and the making of a terrorist

You have to wonder how much of Hasan’s twisted perspective
came from professional resentment and plain old insecurity. If so, shouldn’t we
hold as partly accountable those who passed him along through his psychiatric
training and beyond?

If the professional criticism is warranted, this guy was
already very likely doing serious damage to his patients without even leaving
his office. Fortunately, he seems to have seen far fewer patients than most of
his peers — only 10 percent of the norm when he worked at Walter Reed,
according to sources contacted there by National Public Radio.

It’s easy to imagine someone with minimal proficiency in his
profession shifting blame for his incompetence to the system that employs him.
And how much easier on his own psyche — and nobler-seeming, all around — to
claim that his failure to garner professional approval was due to his religious
beliefs.

Fill this vacuum with the approval, from some extremist
quarters, that he presumably hoped to gain by the atrocities he is said to have
committed, and you’ve got a pretty good recipe for a violent outburst.

The long and short of it is that anything that motivates a
human being to do what Hasan purportedly did is going to be complicated. The
vast majority of Arab-Americans and American Muslims are quick to acknowledge
their gratitude to a society that, while far from perfect, has offered them an
equal shot at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Let’s not write off
the tragic case of Nidal Hasan as Y.A.M.T. (Yet Another Muslim Terrorist).