Islamophobia caused shootings at Fort Hood, Texas
by
Hector Carreon
La Voz de Aztlan
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| The Fort Hood Commander Lt. Gen. Robert Cole has repeated the rumor that Major Nidal Malik Hasan yelled "Allahu Akbar" just before he started shooting.. |
There are certain things that the Pentagon shuts up about that God forsaken place in Central Texas. Fort Hood is located approximately 60 miles north from Austin and is the largest U.S. military installation in the world. The base is a 340 square mile facility nestled between Killeen and Copperas Cove. The horrors that occur there almost daily, especially during times of war, is something you would not want to tell your family after coming home. Killeen is the place where the second worst mass murder in the history of the US took place in 1991.
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, presently in a military hospital for treatment of wounds received in the shootings, is a Muslim of Palestinian descent whose duties, as a Doctor of Psychiatry, are to treat soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan totally psychotic and extremely disturbed because of their war time experiences and mental traumas received in battle. During my 16 months at Fort Hood, there were weekly suicides by soldiers returning from Vietnam but worst of all was the toll paid by the families that lived at the base. Regularly one would hear of a wife being chopped up by her disturbed G.I. husband and often about their babies being dismembered in the family barracks.
The fact that today, at Fort Hood, the returning soldiers are coming back from Arab and Muslim countries most probably made the situation for Major Nidal Malik Hasan particularly more difficult. I remember that during my initial military training for the Vietnam War, the racist drill sergeants would constantly demonize the "slanted eyed gooks." Their objective was to instill hate and to dehumanize the "enemy" to the point that to kill him would become natural. Today, I am sure that the drill sergeants are demonizing the "ragheads" and the "camel jockeys."
That an officer of Palestinian descent was constantly harassed by others in the US Army and called a "camel jockey" does not really surprise me. Mexican-Americans in the US Army suffer similar abuse even though the war with Mexico ended in 1849. There is incredible racism in all branches of the US Armed Forces. The racism is reflected in the attitudes of non-officers and officers alike. At Fort Hood, I once had the Company Commander, a captain, approach me to tell me not to speak "Mexican" in his company. When I politely informed him that there was no such thing as a Mexican language and that it was called Spanish, I was ordered to extra duty for insubordination.
Islamophobia is today rampant in all sectors of society and it is bound to have extreme negative consequences for all of us. Presently the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) out of New York City is working very hard to create a hostile environment for Muslim students at the University of California at Irvine. The reason is that the students assisted in raising funds for the humanitarian effort called Viva Palestina USA no matter that four Orthodox Jewish Rabbis raised and donated $30,000 dollars for the very same effort. Also the Zionist press is already propagandizing the Fort Hood incident by labelling Major Nidal Malik Hasan a "Jihadi." They have also already planted the rumor that Major Nidal Malik Hasan yelled "Allahu Akbar" just before he started shooting.
Recently I had the opportunity, as a reporter for La Voz de Aztlan, to accompany the 200 member Viva Palestina USA delegation to Gaza. On the way to Gaza, some in the delegation went to Alexandria, Egypt to pick up some of the aid convoy vehicles. There in Alexandria, I and other US delegates attended a Muslim prayer at the large downtown Mosque. All Americans and Christians, as I am, should at least once in their lifetimes visit a Mosque and pray alongside Muslims. I believe that the greatest problem that Americans suffer from is ignorance. I will never forget the US Army 2nd Armored Divisions Captain at Fort Hood, Texas that thought I spoke Mexican instead of the Spanish language. .
Related La Voz de Aztlan Reports:
LA RAZA: The "grunts" of the U.S. Armed Forces
