Free Essay Sample on Hassan's Motivation for the Attack

Introduction

On the 5th of November 2009, a U.S Army officer went on a shooting rampage that resulted in the death of 13 innocent soldiers and more than 30 individuals nursing injuries. The event took place in central Texas at Fort Hood. Major Nidal Malik Hassan, who, during the time of the shooting, was an army psychiatrist who led the deadly assault. It is termed as amongst the worst murder scenario since it took place at a military installation. On that dreadful afternoon, Hassan, who was 39 years old, took a semi-automatic firearm and shouted Arabic words before starting his killing spree. He shouted, “God is great” in Arabic, which is “Allahu Akbar” (Kenber, 2013). As soon as he finished saying the words, he opened fire to the people who were present at Fort Hood. The place was a processing center for soldiers since it hosted the ones who were listed to be deployed overseas or had returned from outside the country to receive medical checkups.

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The massacre was conducted within 10 minutes, and it left different people from various departments injured and dead. It was stopped after a civilian officer shot Hassan and then, he was dragged for custody. From reviews that followed the aftermath, they showed that, despite Hassan’s superiors being informed about his changing behavior, they continued promoting him. The motivation behind the attack was that he had become a potentially and radically violent Islamic extremist (Kenber, 2013). While in custody, he explained how America’s war on terrorism was oriented to Islam alone; it was a war against Islamic individuals. Hassan claimed he went from the wrong side, the military, to the right one, defending the Muslim world.

How the Event Is Terrorism

Terrorism is termed as any activity that entails acts of endangering human lives. These acts violate the criminal laws and are done to coerce or intimidate the population of civilians alongside influencing government policies (Kenber, 2013). It is divided into international and domestic terrorism. The event is considered to be domestic terrorism. The event led to the murder of 13 citizens, together with harming 32 others (Kenber, 2013). While being tried by the military court, he admitted to being the shooter before demanding to be his attorney. Through this, he could not link insanity to have led him to kill the innocents. He was found sane enough to participate in his defense. Also, the event is termed to be terrorism since there existed evidence of plotting, planning, and slaughter of innocents (Kenber, 2013). Hassan opened up to a jury that he killed the soldiers who were to be deployed to Afghanistan to kill Taliban leaders. Hence he saw the effort as protecting Muslims. However, through that, he intimidated government policies of fighting against Taliban leaders. In 2013, he was found guilty of 45 counts of attempted and premeditated murder; hence he was sentenced to death (Kenber, 2013).

Conclusion

The Department of Defense (DoD) and the FBI were at the forefront to investigate the event. They both classified the scenario as type III—Worker on Worker category of workplace violence. Before the shooting, Hassan gave views concerning being anti-American. The turn of events led to death and injuries being experienced by colleagues. The incidence differed with other workplace violence since they did not end up with murder or harming of colleagues. An example of an incident was when I disagreed with my IT supervisor after yelling at an intern. The event was settled through the employment of different conflict resolution strategies such as talking with the supervisor and using a mediator like a department manager; it did not end with deaths and injuries like the Fort Hood event.

Reference

Kenber, B. (2013). Nidal Hasan sentenced to death for Fort Hood shooting rampage. The Washington Post. https://www.hws.edu/about/pdfs/platoni_hasan.pdf.