HDS Greenway's Notebook:
Hasan's act
The Fort Hood killings and the consequences of Major Nidal Hasan’s horrific deed are destined to spread far and wide. On one level are the families of the dead whose lives have been tragically altered. If they had to have a son or a husband killed for their country, what could be worse than to have them murdered by a fellow American soldier?
On another is the army itself, stretched to the breaking point by multiple deployments and having to fight two wars with an all-volunteer army. Some say that a volunteer army was not meant to take this deployment strain. If there were going to be long wars the volunteer army would provide the core while a draft was reinstated. But no draft is even contemplated, and politicians know that it would have been politically impossible to commit draftees to the kind of “forever war” in which the military is now engaged. The American people would long ago have shut both Iraq and Afghanistan down if their sons and daughters had to go involuntarily.
The strain on the armed forces was one of the reasons President Barack Obama called in the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the White House the other day as part of his deliberations on whether and how much to reinforce Afghanistan. Hasan’s act will be in the President’s mind as he comes to make his painful decision.
That a psychiatrist would crack under strain is not surprising, given that army psychiatrists have to engage in all the horrors their patients bring home with them. It also appears that this particular army psychiatrist was hazed for his Muslim faith.
That he was a Muslim can be absorbed in this country. It is a special horror for Muslim Americans, of course, and there will inevitably be some scattered retaliation taken against them. It will make the lives of Muslim Americans more stressful, but it will be kept at a minimum here at home. Americans can accept that Hasan’s act was the act of an individual, not a representative of Islam.
Abroad, out in the greater Muslim world, Hasan’s act has done incalculable damage. Islamic extremists can and will say: You see, despite all the Americans talk about Iraq, Afghanistan and their support of Israel’s inhuman blockade of Gaza, not being a war against Islam, here was an American soldier that knew differently.
Here was an American, born in the U.S., who could not justify his Muslim identity or his Palestinian heritage with what the American military is doing to us. So on the eve of his deployment he sided with his religion and struck a blow for Islam right in the heart of America’s aggressive machinery geared to oppress the faith, extremists will say.
A new Al Qaeda martyr has been born, whether Major Hasan ever realized it or not. If Nidal Hasan, who wrote on a website about justifying suicide attacks and killing American soldiers, turns out to be the same man as Major Hasan — not known at this writing — then there is an indication that he did know how his act would play in the greater propaganda war. But the damage has been done and the tragedy will have political and military consequences far beyond the human tragedy for which we mourn.
The War Hotels
From the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s to today's conflict in Iraq, it seems that in most wars a hotel provides a stage set for a cast of characters trying to cope with the tragedy outside. You can read about some of them in my series:
More Davos chatter
Yet another World Economic Forum attendee has sounded a note of hope. The secretary general of the Arab League, Amre Moussa, said to me: "Oh yes, I was so impressed. This means there is a possibility for real change."
Davos chatter
DAVOS, Switzerland — In Samuel Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot,” Godot never actually shows up. The fear in the world beyond America’s shores was that waiting for Obama might mean that the Obama of their hopes would never actually arrive.
The World Economic Forum, which gathers together leaders from 90 countries, is as good a place as any to judge the world’s mood. And if conversations in the corridors here are any indication, the world has taken a big sigh of relief that perhaps their Godot is actually here.
Obama’s immediate moves to close down Guantanamo, his calls to Middle East leaders, and his spectacular outreach to Muslims, even daring to refer to his Muslim connections — which was the love that dared not speak its name in the election campaign — has deeply impressed delegates here.
“It’s hard to believe,” said an Arab delegate.
“Obama is the game changer,” said an Australian.
Rabbi Awraham Soetendorp of Holland, who is a leader in bringing Islam and the West together, said that Obama had hit "exactly the right tone" in his outreach to Muslims.
He said that Obama's "multiple indentities," a Christian with a Muslim background, a white mother and a black father, was an advantage in a world where extremists sought to drive people apart from one another.
For those keenly attuned to Middle East problems, a key Obama phrase was returning to the “same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world 20 or 30 years ago.” Thirty years ago, 1979, produced a U.S.-brokered peace between Egypt and Israel which was a mighty breakthrough in the 100 year war between Jews and Arabs in the region.
Obama was quick to affirm America’s alliance with Israel, and Arabs accept that. But Arabs , Europeans and some Israelis, too, hope that the U.S. can play an honest broker role, as did Presidents Carter, George H.W. Bush and Clinton. The hope is that the joined-at-the-hip relationship with Israel that was George W. Bush’s policy, the never-say-no-to-anything days, might finally be over.
George W. Bush may have called for a two-state solution, but he will be remembered more for giving Israel a green light to attack Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in the administration’s final days — green lights that went far beyond, in the view of many delegates here, Israel’s legitimate right of self-defense.
Obama's overtures to McCain noted abroad
That President-elect Barack Obama attended a banquet for his former rival, Sen. John McCain, the night before his inauguration did not go unnoticed around the globe — especially in countries where political transitions do not go smoothly. A Kenyan friend told me that in Kenya, the land of Obama's paternal ancestors, people took note on election night of McCain's graceful concession speech, one of the best in memory. Since then Obama has gone to unprecedented lengths to seek out McCain's advice.
When President Mwai Kibaki won Kenya's last election in December of 2007 widespread ethnic violence broke out across the country — some of it directed against Obama's people, the Luo. It was not until February 2008 that a power-sharing arrangement was made with the defeated candidate, Raila Odinga.
Obama isn't considering sharing power, but his efforts to fulfill his promise of a more bi-partisan approach — even to the extent of annoying his left-leaning supporters — will be noted abroad, especially in countries where elections are often a zero-sum game.
Reporter's Dispatches
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