Why "Major Muslim" - I mean, Nidal Hasan - did it...

And it has nothing at all to do with the fact that he's a Muslim, or that he was involved with al-Qaeda, or that he attended the same Islamic Center as two of the 9/11 hijackers, or that he handed out Korans and said "I'm going to do good work for God" before screaming "Allah Akbar!" and gunning down over a dozen unarmed American soldiers (as per the heartbreaking Washington Post story, "The Lonely Life of Number Nine").

No, you see, all of the above are dangerous distractions for the real reasons that poor Mr. Hasan went all jihad on his comrades at Ft. Drum. Anorak has done us a service and rounded up the media's top ten excuses for Nidal Hasan's slaughter of 13 American soldiers and wounding of over 30 others:

1) Compassion Fatigue
Dr. Robin Kerner, an attending psychologist who specializes in disaster anxiety at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, said it’s not uncommon for individuals who work with traumatized patients to suffer the effects of “compassion fatigue.”
“This guy was counseling people coming back from war and there is something called secondary traumatization, where the therapist gets traumatized from hearing all the terrible things that have happened to the people they counsel.”

2) He Had Been Beheaded
Sky News presenter: “There is word coming through that this man lost his head, literally”

3) Combat Stress Disorder
Thursday’s deadly rampage raises a red flag over the issue of combat stress.
(Major Nidal Malik Hasan never saw active service.)

4) Pre Traumatic Stress Disorder
The case of Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who is the primary suspect in the Fort Hood shooting spree Thursday that killed 13 people, is pointing up the enormous need to help soldiers overwhelmed by the stress – or even the prospect – of serving in wartime.

5) Stress-Avoidance Stress Disorder
Unusually for a soldier, Hasan appeared to have little taste for violence, at least up until yesterday. His cousin, Nader Hasan, said: “He was someone who did not enjoy going to the firing range.” That may have been a consequence of the stories he had heard in the hospital wards from the returning soldiers.

6) Vicarious Stress Disorder
Those who counsel trauma victims — whether they be psychiatrists, social workers or advocates — can experience an emotional toll after intensive exposure to patients’ stories of horror. Experts call this phenomenon “vicarious trauma.”
The impact of trauma on those who help the traumatized has become a subject of discussion as investigators try to piece together why Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, an Army psychiatrist at Darnall Army Medical Center, allegedly opened fire at a military processing center Thursday at Fort Hood Army Post in Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 30 others.
A second opinion:
His aunt, Noel Hasan, said her nephew had been upset by the injuries he saw at Walter Reed. “He must have snapped,” she added.
(so he created more injuries???)

7) He Came Unstuck
An apartment complex manager says the man accused of opening fire at Fort Hood, Texas recently had a religious bumper sticker torn off his car.
(“My other car’s loaded a taxi loaded with Semtex.”)

8) The Time-Bomb Bomber
Yesterday, the time-bomb exploded when Hasan killed 12 soldiers and shot 31 others in the bloodiest massacre on a US military base.

9) The Non-Suicidal Suicide
Suicides are also on the rise. Army suicides are up 37% since 2006, and the military rate is higher than the civilian rate. Since the 2003 Iraq invasion, 75 Fort Hood soldiers have killed themselves, nine this year. That prompted the base to take steps to reduce stress on soldiers, including cutting work hours and ordering them to be home in time for dinner.
(He did it to get home early and beat the traffic.)

10) Women Drove Him To It
His cousin Nader Hasan says: “He wanted a wife more religious than him,” Faizul Khan told the Daily News. “She had to pray five times a day. She had to wear the hajib. He was a young, good looking guy and a physician but he couldn’t find anybody.”

Poor, misunderstood, lonely Major Muslim Nidal Hasan. So much more deserving of sympathy than the soldiers he has killed, and so much less dangerous than those angry redneck Americans who are always on the verge of retaliating (backlash!) against those sweet, innocent followers of Islam...