Unfriendly fire.

I am probably the millionth blogger to comment on Major Hasan's alleged massacre of 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, and I'm sure it won't stop there. I have to say, though, that the rhetoric I've been hearing over the past week has made it impossible for me not to toss my screed onto the growing pile. Commentators pretty much across the mainstream spectrum of opinion have latched onto this idea that Hasan was given the chance to do this heinous act by virtue of a culture of "political correctness" within the military, i.e. the Army being over-sensitive to Muslims within their ranks and overlooking Hasan's failings. This strikes me as wildly off the mark and - worse - an attempt to utilize an unspeakable act of murder to make political points. It's also part of the very common practice of mainstream commentators to avoid the elephant in the room when discussing matters related to our two simultaneous wars; namely, the true costs of such extended conflicts on those who fight in them, and the unwillingness of so many of the rest of us to share that burden in any meaningful sense.

One point few will disagree with - Hasan is a nut job who could have done a lot of things other than shoot up a roomful of people to express his rage. And his superiors obviously ignored many warning signs. But I think there's a better explanation for this than "political correctness", and it's (wait for it): resourcing a major overseas deployment without conscription. They need trained professionals, and they sure as hell can't draft them, so they take what they can get, even if they are severely incompetent. And homicidal maniacs? Who knows... perhaps they get waved through, as well. We are sending them over to kill people, among other things. But in a nation run by politicians who would rather bankrupt us all than institute something as deeply unpopular as a military draft, the military must take the bad with the good in order to fulfill the demands of our seemingly endless wars. And even then, we're talking about multiple deployments (some brigades on their fifth), reservists tapped, national guard troops sent overseas, the works.

So here's this army psychologist tasked with counseling soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan - individuals who are having severe problems, no doubt. They are coming back from Iraq with stories of the kind heard in detail during the Winter Soldier hearings of a couple of years ago - telling them to a devout Muslim with fundamentalist leanings. This Major Hasan has a skinful of this stuff and is taking abuse about being a Muslim himself. He is told he is to be shipped overseas for the first time and is working on getting himself out of the military entirely. Like so many instances in the modern military, this was another atrocity-producing situation in the making. But the fact that this very screwed-up guy got as far as he did speaks volumes about how thinly stretched our armed forces are, particularly with 120,000 troops still in Iraq and major influxes planned for Afghanistan (it appears).

Not to worry, America - Joe Lieberman is going to investigate. Civilization is saved. I'm sure we can rely on him to get to the bottom of this issue, in a manner of speaking.

luv u,

jp