On November 5, 2009, Nidal Malik Hasan of the United States Army entered the Soldier Readiness Center at the Fort Hood military base in Texas and opened fire on his fellow citizens.  He killed 13 people and injured over 30 others before he was taken down by petite (but tough as nails) Kimberly Munley.  He was seriously wounded and rushed to the hospital.

As with any tragedy, everyone wants to know WHY?  We can’t get inside of Hasan’s thoughts, but there are clues to lead us to a conclusion about the reason for his horrific and unpatriotic attack on American lives and our country itself.  So far, all arrows point to radical Islam.  Granted, everyone makes mistakes, and isolated incidents don’t usually represent the whole of a person.  But when a person shows their true self over and over, maybe we shouldn’t excuse that person’s violent extremism in the name of political correctness.

Within the last few months, Hasan had attempted to contact the terrorist group al Queada.

He was in contact with militant preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, and he frequently visited radical Islamic websites.

During his senior-year psych residency in 2007, Hasan gave a presentation about the difficulty “for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims.”

He thought suicide bombers were the bomb, and lavished praise upon their actions.

Just before opening fire, Hasan shouted, “Allahu akbar!” A phrase meaning, “God (Allah) is great,” and often used by Islamic extremists to initiate their attacks.

All signs point to violent, radical, extremist Islamic terrorism.  So what did our Commander in Chief have to say when Jake Tapper of ABC News asked him, “ Philosophically, what separates an act of violence from an act of terrorism?”

Well, look, we — we have seen, in the past, rampages of this sort. And in a country of 300 million people, there are going to be acts of violence that are inexplicable. Even within the extraordinary military that we have — and I think everybody understands how outstanding the young men and women in uniform are under the most severe stress — there are going to be instances in which an individual cracks. I think the questions that we’re asking now and we don’t have yet complete answers to is, is this an individual who’s acting in this way or is it some larger set of actors? You know, what are the motivations? Those are all questions that I think we have to ask ourselves. Until we have these answers buttoned down, I’d rather not comment on it.  -President Obama, November 10, 2009

In the sarcastic words of my favorite fictional international terrorist Dr. Evil, “Riiiiiiight…”