Hasan Seeks Pentagon Help for Martyrdom

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright August 13, 2013
All Rights Reserved.                                      

             Puzzled by Fort Hood’s al-Qaeda proxy terrorist 42-year-old former Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan’s statements to mental health experts that he “would be a martyr” if given a lethal injection, the Army still hasn’t accepted that Hasan isn’t fit to stand trial or represent himself.  When he shouted “Allahu Akbar” Nov. 5, 2009 before gunning down 13 soldiers and injured 30, the Army’s concluded Hasan was mentally fit to stand trial for “workplace violence.”  While the legal system likes black-or-white motives, Hasan’s long history of mental health problems should have raised red flags during his days at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.  Now that he’s tried for murder, his long, unstable track record isn’t considered relevant history.  His recruitment and conversion by the late U.S.-born al-Qadea Yemen terror leader Anwar al-Awlaki is well documented.

             While there’s a great need for some justice for the victims’ families, had Hasan gone down in a blaze-of-glory or, for that matter, a simple bullet to the head, the families’ wouldn’t get their day in court.  Given Hasan’s psychotic personality, it’s disgraceful that Judge Col. Tara Osborn allowed the deranged psychiatrist to fire his defense team and represent himself.  Hasan’s fate shouldn’t be decided based on his twisted logic or the court’s failure to discern that he’s unfit to stand trial or represent himself.  No jury in their right mind can honor Hasan’s request for the death penalty for the kind of oddity that Hasan represents.  CIA and FBI profilers would have relished the opportunity to interrogate Boston Marathon co-bomber 30-year-old Tamelan Tzarnaev.  U.S. authorities were lucky to save Dzhokhar so he could be studied over what’s left of his lifetime to better understand the terrorist mind.

             Terrorism experts often say that “winning the hearts-and-minds” of wayward youth would go along way in preventing the kinds of attacks—whether big or small—that plays havoc on the U.S. at home and abroad.  Hasan reportedly told military mental health experts he wished he would have been killed in his Nov. 5 rampage because it would have meant God chose him for martyrdom.  Until civilian and military officials get that mentally ill misanthropes gravitate to terror groups, criminal gangs and other types of religious and secular cults, they won’t get a handle on where mental illness infects the thinking of what looks like otherwise normal individuals.  “I’m a paraplegic and could be in jail for the rest of my life,” Hasan told mental health interrogators.  “However, if I died by lethal injection, I would still be a martyr.  Deprogrammers need to spend more time to find out how Hasan became a Manchurian candidate.

             Whether or not Hasan meets the legal definition of “insanity,” he’s a deeply troubled psychotic, incapable of discerning reality from fantasy.  His well-documented rambling e-mails to al-Awlaki discussing meeting up in the afterlife show how far gone the Army psychiatrist had gone over into terrorist brainwashing.  If Judge Osborn can’t see the farce and see fit to declare a mistrial, she should at least take the death penalty off the table.  Hasan’s own attorneys have told the judge they believe his feeble defense was a strategy to complete his attempt at martyrdom.  No matter how farfetched that seems, Hasan should not be allowed to manipulate the military justice system for his sick agenda.  Whatever the military “sanity” board concluded about Hasan’s fitness to stand trial, there are too many moving parts dealing with mental illness and terrorist brainwashing to let him defend himself.

             Refusing to cross-examine witnesses, Hasan has already made a mockery out of his murder trial.  Judge Osborn, at the very least, should instruct the jury that the defendant’s refusal to cross-examiner concedes he’s thrown in the towel trying to defend himself.  Hinting at the extent of Hasan’s brainwashing, he told the “sanity” panel that he had no remorse for the killings because the soldiers he killed were “going against the Islamic Empire.”  Multiple statements contained in the panel’s 49-page report clearly indicate Hasan was converted by al-Awlaki into a jihadist waging “holy war” against the United States.  While it’s tempting to see that as a legitimate motive, an otherwise highly-trained army psychiatrist went over the deep end.  Unlike a 20-something-year-old, Hasan had his Army medical career well in hand when he was converted to radical Islam before transferring to Fort Hood.

            Before Hasan’s trial is etched into annals of embarrassing military farces, Judge Osborn should stop the circus, discus options with lead prosecutor Col. Mike Mulligan and declare a mistrial.  Giving Hasan any forum to spew his terrorist nonsense or make some feeble attempt to get the death penalty, the Pentagon should consider the damage Hasan’s trial does to U.S. credibility.  Trying Hasan for “workplace violence” because the Uniform Code of the Military has no other way to try terrorists doesn’t apply appropriate justice.  Anyone watching Hasan’s courtroom antics sees firsthand a grossly deteriorated shell of his once functional self.  “I don’t think what I did was wrong because it was the greater cause of helping my Muslim brothers,” Hasan told the “sanity” panel, proving, if nothing else, that their belief that he’s fit to stand trial or defend himself needs a second look.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.