"Another who was one of them.  He ate with them, worked alongside them and slept with them..."

K, he didn't do any of that.  He was a medical officer who lived off post, had never been in any kind of troop unit, had never been to Iraq or Afganistan...he was not one of them.  He was not worthy to be one of them.  He was a muslim, disloyal to his service and his country, and I agree with you whole-heartedly that he betrayed the trust he was supposed to have as an officer.  It makes me sick the way the media has soft-pedaled this whole incident, trying to blame everything on the war, the Army, the policies of the last administration and anything else they can find to point a finger at.  The political correctness that has over-run common sense in this country is what is mostly responsible for this mess.  A muslim officer in the military who claims sympathy for home-grown jihadists, rails about the unjustness of fighting against Islam, is very vocal about not wanting to go to either war and his superiors decide that the cure for all that is to take him away from the returning soldiers he was counselling and send him to a unit that is scheduled to deploy.  But we can't offend any of our muslim brethern, so we turn the other way and look what we get.  How long do you think it will be before we hear about another one just like him?

I would like to be there when he wakes up and finds that instead of 72 virgins, he is going to meet up with a jury of his peers.  Bummer, dude.

That man was obviously crazy or insane and unstable - a christian with the same condition could have done the same and in fact it has happend before. I don't believe any institution or religion is to blame - what I know about amok killings (they talked about it alot after the one in Germany that happend in march) is that they are unpredictable and rare.

Political Correctness is a pain more often than not, but there is a good reason it exists and is enforced by laws. I heard about this tragedy in the news here, and I was really shocked that someone could go on and do something like that.

I get that it is frustrating and that you probably want to be there when they hang him - can you get the death penalty in a court martial? - and pull the lever yourself. But it is wrong to automatically condemn every other muslim out there for the crimes of one individual. Blowing off steam is allowed as long as it doesn't end up in a lynch mob but sadly there are many who act upong such news in that manner. I wouldn't be surprised if some retaliatory acts against muslims were to happend in the next few days.

I wanted to point out that religion does not automatically have to be the determining motive, and unstable people of any religion can snap. How easy is love turned into hate..that is true for all people, and also for christians who are mad and unstable and that is what I meant by my statement. K As far as I know, islam has had wars within so it isn't as if there was one unified group and theology. It isn't like if you are a muslim, democracy or the United States are automatically your enemy and murdering fundamentalist and terrorists your ally just because they are also muslim.

Christian soldiers had been in that very situation in the past, interestingly enough. The 4th crusde. Admittedly, this is not a correlating example, but the problem was the same. Crusaders usually fought against the nonbelievers and enemies of christianity aka muslims back then and other heretics, not against fellow christians. But the financing fell through and venice blocked the shipping order because the crusaders couldn't pay for it. And then the doge had this brilliant idea to kill two birds with one stone. He'd get them to the holy land via Byzantine and on the way there all they had to do was to pillage Constantinople. It went against many people's conscious and alot didn't participate, but enough had no problems with that and went on to sack a christian city and burned it to the ground, killing and raping christians on the way. Venice emerged as the global political power without its rival.

This is a very paraphrased and not very detailed account of the 4th crusade. Some soldiers have had a mercenary disposition and didn't care even though they would consider themselves devout christians, and some just couldn't do it because it went against what they believed. It is not a problem that is restricted to todays muslims in the US military but a general problem that is as old as war itself. I don't know if there is a solution but everybody took an oath to defend and protect the United States against all enemies, I would think that a very devout person would not take this oath and not mean it, or decide to join the military knowing that it would conflict with his faith. Those that do must feel as americans first. I find it a bit problematic to declare that they are unable to reconcile this because they are muslims.

Amok killings are always unexpected and unpredictable.

Faith in the middle ages was different than from today. First of all, they didn't believe you could have "Christ in us" independant from the catholic church. If they cast you out, your soul was lost and you couldn't be saved. The comparison is difficult. People knew less, were educated less and were alot more superstitious. Many believed crusading, freeing the holy land, was their holy duty as christians. It is difficult to comprehend from todays perspective.You are correct about the fact that crusades also had alot to do with money and political power. Many went on crusades because it was good for their resume.

The 1st crusade was a big success and the crusaders errected states or little kingdoms there, the Levante. The orient was important for trade, luxurious fabric like silk and spices, jewlery etc. that arrived via the trade/mercant roads from India, Africa, China and South Asia. Historic pipelines if you will and just as coveted as oil pipelines today.

The 4th is really interesting because you could already see superpower politics at work. Venetian history is fascinating.  The venetians took advantage of the situation and used it  to get rid of their political and economic rival. It was very agressive and almost modern in that respect. The lure of money to be made from pillaging Constantinople was stronger than religion - greed is powerful, back then and today.

 

I see. The trial will be interesting.

There is a fine line between "freedom of speech" and sedition.  This individual, in my opinion, crossed that line at a full gallop.  But apparently not in the judgement of some of his leaders.  Which calls into question the wisdom of continuing to pay those leaders the big bucks for their less than valuable judgement.  A leader has to evaluate his troops and make corrections when necessary.  That obviously didn't happen so nobody was protected.  And why is it that the stories of the soldiers in the kill zone who did marvelously brave and selfless things to help their fallen comrades are just now leaking out in dribs and drabs?  

Overall, I'm with you, K...it makes me sick...all of it.