So what do we really know, at this point, about Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo and his attempted attack on Ft. Hood?
Well we do know this.
Abdo — Muslim: from Arabic abduh “his servant”, i.e. “his (Allah’s) servant.” Abduh is one of the epithets of the Prophet Muhammad.
We know that, in the U.S. military, he self-identified as a Muslim.
We know that, in addition to his weapons and bomb-making materials, investigators said Abdo had an article — from the Summer 2010 issue of “Inspire,” an English-language al-Qaeda publication — entitled, “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom.”
We know that, when applying for conscientious objector status in 2010, he argued that his Islamic faith would prohibit him from fighting in a war while serving in the U.S. Army. In particular, Abdo argued that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan violated his beliefs.
We also know that he was on the verge of being discharged as a conscientious objector, but that this was derailed when he was charged with possession of child pornography.
Then, the other day, the Los Angeles Times and other mainstream media organizations offered reports that went something like this:
The suspect accused of planning an attack on Ft. Hood soldiers had holed up in a motel room in Killeen this week, authorities said, with a 40-caliber handgun, a cache of bomb-making ingredients and a plan to make this military city ache all over again.
Instead, Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo appeared … in U.S. District Court in Waco. There, the army private shouted his inspiration for what authorities say was a plot to set off two bombs at a popular restaurant outside the sprawling Ft. Hood military base.
“Nidal Hasan — Ft. Hood 2009!” he said, a defiant reference to the army major and psychiatrist and fellow Muslim who is charged with killing 13 people at the base nearly two years ago.
So at this point, what do we not know about this man? What do we urgently need to know?
For one thing, we know that he has self-identified as a Muslim. We do not know, however, if he has practiced this faith in any meaningful way. Other than an al-Qaeda magazine, we do not know if he has been reading anything that might link him to any form of Islamic network, congregation or school of thought.
The following paragraph the Los Angeles Times article struck he as especially interesting:
When authorities arrested Abdo … at the motel, court papers said, they found smokeless gunpowder, shotgun shells and pellets, two clocks, two spools of auto wire, an electric drill and two pressure cookers. There was epoxy and glue, tape, gloves, a battery and Christmas lights, with some of the items in his backpack.
What is missing from this list, at least as offered by military authorities or the editors at the Times? Was he, for example, carrying a copy of the Koran? A mat to use during prayers?
In other words, is there any way to know if this man was following his faith in any meaningful way? Was he, in effect, another troubled loner who was living out his own version of Islam? Was he connected to any particular imam or congregation? To any particular approach to the faith, in the mainstream or on the radical fringe?
These fact-based, journalistic questions may sound familiar to GetReligion readers, as of late.
You see, the goal is to dig deeper than mere labels, even if this conflicted and possibly disturbed man pinned that label on himself. Does this kind of journalistic digging matter and, if so, to whom? Back to the Los Angeles Times report:
“Thank God nothing bad happened,” said Suraiya Rabbani, a school counselor who’s lived here for two decades. “Thank God no lives were lost.”
A Muslim on her way to Friday prayers, Rabbani had added reasons for relief. She recalled how the adults at her mosque had to soothe children who were taunted after the 2009 attack. She found herself explaining, repeatedly, that Islam was a religion of peace.
When she learned that Abdo claimed to share her faith, her stomach sank.
“He had to come here to Killeen to do this?” she said.
Note the word “claimed” in that piece of the story. That’s an important word.
So is the word “practiced,” when it is backed with strong, factual reporting. Once again, it is time to keep looking for the facts. Mere labels are not enough.
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Comments (6) |
July 31, 2011, at 3:01 pm
Perhaps this is off topic, as I know that the track in this instance is simply to seek factual answers to the questions presented above that may give a more clear picture of the religion elements in this story, but I find it interesting that in the case of this self-identified Muslim terrorist, the press is more willing to show empathy toward the [maligned] Muslim community. In contrast, when we had a self-identified Christian in Norway performing acts of terrorism, there were no (to my knowledge) empathetic interviews of Christian members of the affected community. Even now that we have a clearer picture of what Anders Breivik’s motivations and beliefs are, there is still this undercurrent of protest against the Christian community for having turned out such a monster. Maybe I’ve missed something, but it seems like there hasn’t even been an ‘Oops, sorry for the mistake!’ type of story in the mainstream. I don’t know if it means anything or if I might be reading something into this which just isn’t there, but I felt that it was worth mentioning.
You guys do a great job - your stories in my feed are often what I look forward to most when I open up my Google Reader.
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July 31, 2011, at 4:27 pm
I agree with Jaye, the media is generally more sympathetic towards Muslims, same thing happened with Nidal Hasan, the media hardly mentioned what he was influenced by, they blamed PTSD (he was an Army psychiatrist, not a combat troop, he never was in a Traumatic Stress situation) among other things.
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July 31, 2011, at 8:40 pm
This guy sounds like a nutcase from the reporting, one who may have claimed a religious justification, but what with his kiddie porn and comments clearly had psychiatric issues. And the Norwegian seemed to have some pretty serious psychological issues, but perhaps more political coherence. In neither case do I see the press blaming the religions for creating monsters, and appropriately so.
But no one is going around calling Christianity a religion of war, or claiming that even with some pretty bloody source texts, that Christians believe killing Labor Party kids is equivalent to wiping out the Amalekites. So I don’t think it is an example of press bias to quote a Muslim mother who is upset that a criminal is claiming religious justification for his planned acts .The religious context is different.
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July 31, 2011, at 9:21 pm
I agree with everyone. First, like Karen said, so far this fellow seems a little more mentally unbalanced with that being a major cause of his designs, rather than simply waging some holy war. That’s, at least, how it seems based on what I’ve read and heard.
With that said, it’s also clear that the media performs no end of dancing about trying to avoid pinning the blame on the Muslim community for endless thousands of terrorists killing tens of thousands of innocent people, with hundreds being caught trying to do the same. Yet with the Norway case, even today I saw an AP article suggesting that this only goes to show that Christians have their terrorists, too. If there has been much dancing around that conclusion in the media, I’ve sure missed it.
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August 1, 2011, at 11:37 am
Glad to see GetReligion is also questioning whether self-identification should be the basis for Muslims as well as Christians. But again, as I tried to explain in the earlier post about Breivik, deadline-driven mainstream journalism has to go with self-identification as the basis 90% of the time, unless it’s an in-depth analysis piece and/or we’re reporting on cases where membership requires formal recognition from the religious body (as with Mormons and some other groups, but not most).
Karen has a good point about why the reporting on a U.S. Muslim terrorist takes greater pains to note the larger Muslim community’s denunciations of such acts: responsible journalism demands it, both for accuracy and to set the record straight on the hate-filled screeds filling up the blogosphere against a vulnerable American minority. It already goes without saying, in places where Christians are the majority, that folks like Breivik aren’t a dime a dozen.
On the other hand, given the global reach of media these days, we do need more nuance when reporting on all kinds of Christian extremists in our midst (Terry Jones, Westboro Baptist Church) — to make it clear to places where Christians are the vulnerable minority that this is not an accurate representation of that religion, even if the perpetrators self-identify as such.
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August 1, 2011, at 10:50 pm
The reporting on this event has been more disconnected than usual. A few facts (?) picked up from Texas media: his father is Palestinian and was deported to Jordan after being convicted of soliciting online sex with a minor in a police sting, his mother is Christian (whatever that means), his father lived in Killeen after being divorced from his mother in 1993. Many questions are left unanswered, religious and otherwise.
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