In August 2013 Hasan was convicted of thirteen counts of premeditated murder, dishonorably discharged, and sentenced to death. In the immediate aftermath, as rumors circulated about Hasan being troubled by his imminent deployment to Afghanistan, President Obama urged Americans to avoid making premature conclusions about the nature of the crime, for which he received much criticism.32 Despite the FBI’s conclusion that Hasan had no significant ties to terrorist groups, the shooting is widely referred to as an act of homegrown terrorism.
The DHS definition of homegrown terrorism places focus on those who work “in furtherance of political or social objectives promoted by a foreign terrorist organization, but [are] acting independently of direction by a foreign terrorist organization.” Thus, Hasan’s status as a “lone wolf” acting outside of official structures of command or control, that is, his lack of material ties did not preclude the application of the terror label. In lieu of these—and before it became public knowledge that Hasan had contacted Anwar al-Awlaki—identity markers were used to substantiate his ties, however nonmaterial, to a foreign interest. (The contents of those emails would become known only later; those and Hasan’s own later statements regarding his motive I address in the next section.)
Within hours of the shooting, media pundits, politicians, and readers were quick to jump on what was for them the neat realization of their racialized fears of terrorism. “I think the name Malik Nidal Hasan might give you a clue,” stated one New York Times reader referring to the debate about the nature of the incident.33 Others stressed Hasan’s “heritage” or “roots” (i.e., he was born to Palestinian parents) over his American birth. His faith, illustrated by his dress and beard (which was later forcibly shaved), was a key focal point of speculation.34 His search for and ultimate failure to find a “pious” wife rendered him a childless bachelor, which was in turn construed as a failure in fulfilling his religious duty. Implied here is that, emasculated in the eyes of his god, Hasan found another way to assert his masculinity and satisfy his religious obligations. Even his good deeds, such as forgiving his neighbors who often taunted him and vandalized his car, were taken as indicators of a dangerous piety. One reader put it most plainly, “He wasn’t connected with a ‘terrorist’ group! Actually, he was—it is called Islam.”35 All this was made even more troubling given that his parents were reported to be not particularly devout, signaling a purposeful move to the “other side” of the existential conflict in which America is embroiled.
Yet, for the Webster Commission, tasked with reviewing FBI procedure after the attack,
Nidal Malik Hasan’s transformation into a killer underscores the dilemma confronting the FBI. Hasan was a licensed psychiatrist and a U.S. Army Major with fifteen years of military service. He was a member of two professional communities—mental health and defense—whose missions include protection against violence. He worked at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other facilities in close and constant contact with other U.S. military personnel, including fellow psychiatrists. He was a religious person. He had no known foreign travel. Other than his eighteen communications with Anwar al-Aulaqi, he had no known contact and no known relationships with criminal elements, agents of foreign powers, or potential terrorists.36
In the cases of McGowan and Page, the brown-Arab-Muslim-other was invoked in order to communicate that within familiar visages exists a threat of such severity that it justifies the label of terrorism. The form that the discourse of the Double takes in the Hasan case presents the inverse: of the threatening other hiding in plain sight, disguised as it were in military fatigues. Reinforced by notions of Islam as an inherently political and violent system of beliefs and laws, doubt was placed on whether a Muslim could faithfully serve in the US military. “A Muslim American soldier kills American soldiers. I’m shocked. Shocked,” one reader wrote sarcastically, while another framed it in a matter-of-fact tone: “What a split identity_-[sic] Arab (Muslim) American soldier (combatant). Talk about a person in a job for which they were not suited.”37 For those on the conspiratorial right—pundits who believe that the Oklahoma City bombing was carried out with Saddam Hussein’s help, that Obama is secretly Muslim, and that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated all levels of the US government—it was clear that Hasan’s allegiances lay with sharia law, which dictated “that the faithful must engage in jihad.”38 Hasan’s refusal to shave his beard was, in effect, an indicator of his militancy, of his extremism, and of where he placed his loyalty. (And, surely, the insistence to forcibly shave it at trial was an impotent gesture of asserting control—that even the other must follow protocol.) The implication here being that admitting Muslims into the military provides lone wolves with sheep’s clothing. For many, Hasan’s identity was proof enough that “the western civilized countries of the world … [must take] realistic approaches to the condition of cancer, Muslimism, existing in the world.” Framed as a matter of “self preservation,” at stake is no less than the “future of the republic.”39
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The coding of all three men as terrorists did not go uncontested. In the immediate aftermath of the Fort Hood shooting voices in the media and its readership avidly rejected the application of reductive stereotypes to Hasan. For instance, in response to the reader (quoted above) who suggested that Hasan’s name indicated that he was in fact a terrorist, another retorted, “Does the name Timothy McVeigh give you a clue? Or how about Theodore Kaczynski?” Still another reader pointed out the racialized character of terrorism discourse: “When a white guy shoots up a post office, they call that going postal.… But when a Muslim does it, they call it jihad.”40 Here, Hasan’s “torn psyche” is attributable not to some inherent incompatibility between Islam and serving in the American military, but rather to the racism Hasan experienced while in the service. In efforts to vilify one’s enemy, epithets such as “camel jockey,” “haaji,” and “raghead” had become part of soldiers’ everyday lexicon. Because Hasan experienced this firsthand, some saw the incident as a tragedy remedied only by more inclusivity rather than as a betrayal that warranted a purge.
There were also questions of mental illness, in both the Fort Hood and Sikh temple attacks. In Page’s case, media reports pried into his economic and relationship woes (the latter framed differently than those of Hasan). In the years leading up to his violent attack, his home—already once refinanced—went into foreclosure. After a move to Milwaukee, his girlfriend broke off their relationship. Soon after, Page stopped showing up for work. In the same vein, his violent act was repeatedly and widely referred to as a case of mistaken identity (which, of course, insinuates that violence against Muslims is somehow more understandable). This led those within the white supremacist movement to reject Page as “sick” or an idiot on the fringe of the movement.41 A thread started the day of Page’s rampage on the white supremacist site Stormfront captured the movement’s sentiments:
Let me guess, the story will be that he went to a Sikh temple to get revenge for 9/11, thinking that it was a Mosque.
Just as I thought when I heard the news: some low IQ White who doesn’t know the difference between Sikhs and Muslims.42
Some members even suggested collecting money for the victims. The label that represented his band also distanced itself from Page. Claiming it strove to promote a positive image, it removed his band’s merchandise from its website because it did not want to profit from the tragedy (which suggests that it could readily have done so). Here, either explicitly or otherwise, Page was placed on the fringe, either mentally ill or deficient.
The morning after the Fort Hood shooting, the New York Times’ Bob Herbert penned an op-ed, “Stress Beyond Belief,” in which he argued that breakdowns like Hasan’s were a sign of an overstretched and overworked military, with some troops serving multiple tours and little being done to address the resulting psychological effects.43 Despite the fact that Hasan had not yet been deployed, it was thought that his imminent deployment terrified him, particularly after counseling so many others who returned with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other afflictions. Readers commented that Hasan’s break was a sign of the unsustainability of US neo-imperialism, a foreign policy structured around
