Lieberman shouts ‘fire’; Resilience undermined, soldiers at risk
Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife
It is one thing for an average citizen, including bloggers and journalists, to vent Islamaphobic hate speech–we’re America after all, we say what we want–but quite another when the Chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee does it. The difference is the difference between protected free speech and speech that is itself dangerous, like falsely shouting fire in a crowded movie theater.
On Sunday morning, Senator Lieberman is reported to have told Chris Wallace on Fox, however much he included some qualifying “ifs” that
“the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11,”
via Lieberman calls Ft. Hood shooting ‘terrorist attack’ | Raw Story.
But is it false to say Hasan may have been “the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11?” Is it dangerous? Unless the answer to both is yes then I am simply venting Liebermanaphobic hate speech which is not something I would want to do–however much it may be deserved.
The false is actually easy as the NY Times also reported on Sunday,
After two days of inquiry into the mass shooting at Fort Hood, investigators have tentatively concluded that it was not part of a terrorist plot.
Rather, they have come to believe that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused in the shootings, acted out under a welter of emotional, ideological and religious pressures, according to interviews with federal officials who have been briefed on the inquiry.
via Investigation Into Fort Hood Shootings Turns Up No Link to Terror Plot – NYTimes.com.
There you have it.
To show how he is dangerous, I want to turn to an interview I did yesterday with psychiatrist, and colleague, Grant Brenner who has just published, along with co-editors Daniel H. Bush (a Chaplain) and Joshua Moses (an anthropologist), Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience: Integrating Care in Disaster Relief Work.
First, he pointed me to an article by Maguen, et. al in Military Medicine (173, 1:1–9, 2008) titled “Description of Risk and Resilience Factors among Military Medical Personnel before Deployment to Iraq.” The title sure seemed relevant, and the research did not disappoint. Of immediate interest was their finding that predeployment PTSD symptoms were connected to risk factors: the more risk factors (current stress and cumulative trauma), the more symptoms. And what might be an example of current stress? Oh, I don’t know, how about something like the Chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee comparing a murderous criminal rampage committed by a broken man to the events of 9/11?
Grant Brenner provided a useful analogy to help us understand the context–and the danger–of Lieberman’s hate speech. He said risk factors,
“… can be the “straw which breaks the camel’s back.” A physical analogy is often used when discussing traumatic stress. Imagine a weight-bearing column in an old building. When it was new, it could support a certain amount of vertical weight; any weight beyond this would cause it to start to buckle and eventually collapse, depending on the load. In this analogy, resilience is the ability of the column to return to its original shape if the load is removed, and the usual chronic stressors of everyday life and the inherent deterioration of the material are the usual stresses the column experiences over the years. Direct trauma would be if there is some direct damage to the column itself (someone drives a fork lift into it). Vicarious trauma might be if the column next to it starts to breakdown, and our column (the caregiver) has to bear the load for the adjacent column. We can see in this simple analogy that VT is one important factor among many. If the other stresses are being adequately addressed and the VT is small, the column will remain intact; if the other stresses have moved the column toward a vulnerable state (a point of criticality) than even a small VT may be sufficent to cause collapse.”
What Lieberman did is put additional stress on the pillars of our soldiers’ mental health. His might be a small, perhaps insignificant contribution, but maybe not for some; every stress counts. He should be ashamed of himself, although his attitude towards health-care reform has already shown he is just not that into other people’s health and well-being.
Maybe soon our collective attention will turn from the seemingly inevitable wave of hate speech that follows a Muslim committing a crime. We have two far more pressing concerns: helping those effected heal and diligently working to make sure this does not happen again, that our soldiers are given the care their service and sacrifice deserves. The Chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee should be working to make sure all the help our armed services personnel need is provided, not grandstanding on Fox making a tragic situation worse.
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So just because someone disagrees with you on the definition of “terrorism” they must be spewing hate speech? Seems a bit far fetched to me.
Sorry, but comparing the hateful actions of a deranged, broken lone gunman to a coordinated terrorist attack because they happen to share a religious heritage is the very definition of hate speech. When Sgt. John Russell killed 5 fellow soldiers in Baghdad last May, no one talked about it as terrorism.
In response to another comment. See in context »Todd, the Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, formerly the leader of a mosque in Falls Church, VA, now broadcasting from Yemen, called Maj. Hasan “a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.” He added:
“Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done?”
“In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the U.S. army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.”
Is al-Awlaki also an Islamophobe?
Senator Lieberman has no more reason to be ashamed of what he said than you do for expressing your opinion that PTSD may be to blame. In fact, in the Raw Story piece you quoted, Lieberman says:
“While the Army and the FBI are conducting the criminal investigation about exactly what happened and what Dr. Hasan should be charged with, the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense has a real obligation to convene an independent investigation to go back and look at whether warning signs were missed, both the stress he was under, but also the statements that he was making,” he said.
It would seem that you and the Senator agree that he “should be working to make sure all the help our armed services personnel need is provided.” For had someone noted and acted on the many warning signs Maj. Hasan displayed, according to many independent reports, the 12 dead and 31 wounded armed services personnel would be unharmed today. But political correctness mandated that these many warning signs be ignored. Will we now let political correctness shut our eyes, ears, and mouths so that we do not act to prevent future Ft. Hoods?
“Is al-Awlaki also an Islamophobe?” If the quotes you offer are accurate, he’s voicing hate speech of his own. Despicable.
“But political correctness mandated that these many warning signs be ignored.” Take a look at planetolywa’s interesting comment — perhaps more than PC, what caused the warning signs to be missed may be cost-cutting and a dearth of sufficient mental health expertise in the military.
In response to another comment. See in context »I”m not sure it’s political correctness that is at issue here, rather the accurate use of language to describe precisely what has happened. It certainly isn’t political correctness that justifies heaving the social safety net aside in the name of “cost-cutting” or “resource-savings” which is at the heart of many of the violent deeds being perpetrated these days. As I noted yesterday in a post, had there been true clinical supervision of Dr. Hasan, there is a great chance the warning signs caught in hindsight would have been seen ahead of time. Supervision is exactly what the word implies, in that a skilled clinician familiar with the psychological territory that Dr. Hasan was trying to navigate would have possibly had the “super-vision” to see around the bend.
The word terrorism is used wily-nily to describe all sorts of violent acts. It’s my contention that if we are truly to address what might be construed as some sort of organized group effort to terrorize another group,i.e., Al Qaeda versus the USA, then it would do us much good to be prudent in our use of the word terrorism. We have a tendency to lump every sort of grievous act into one giant pile, thereby losing any sort of perspective or sophistication, for example take the time to explore who gets caught and lost in the dragnet of sexual offender. Just say the word and pay attention to the images that arise and you’ll know exactly what I mean. Sadly, it’s not that simple in the real world.
Terrorist and sexual offender and drug addict and mentally ill are buzz words whereby giving us the illusion we know what we’re talking about. I have never in all my years as a mental health professional ever met a person who fit completely inside a diagnosis. There is always aspects, oftentimes very important aspects that are left out, so the person is diminished and often demonized by the assessment and diagnosis.
It seems to me that Senator Lieberman is simply playing politics with a horrible act in order to appear to be someone whom he is not. He is one the many hawks who walk the hallowed halls of our government who managed to avoid any military service, and yet he needs to appear tough and resolute. It’s this sort of chest puffing and pretend toughness that gets us into trouble again and again in our national and foreign policy making. Joe Lieberman reminds me of the sort of kid who stood on the edge of the playground encouraging Billy to beat the hell out of Bobby without ever being willing to get grass stains on his well pressed pants.