SOROOR AHMED comments on the Fort Hood shootout and opines that the soldiers go on killing spree or commit suicide in sheer frustration.
Killing fellow soldiers is not a phenomenon which first occurred on November 5, 2009 at Fort Hood military base in Texas in the United States. It is happening all over the world with increasing frequency, particularly with the armies which are involved in a prolong conflict. India is no exception. We have seen a number of incidents of army personnel, especially deployed on the border in Jammu and Kashmir, gunning down the officer or fellow soldiers before committing suicide or getting killed. War-weariness, deep frustration, mental and physical tiredness, stress, denial of leave, etc. are some of the factors attributed to such behaviour.
In India such a phenomenon is not confined to the army. Personnel of the Central Industrial Security Forces, mostly deployed at the airports and industries, have often exhibited such tendencies leading to the killings on several occasions. In a few incidents senior officers had to pay the price. Once, three decades ago, a CISF unit deployed in Dhanbad openly revolted and army had to be sent in to crush it. Twenty-seven died in the exchange of fire from both sides. One of those killed was an army Major. Interestingly, those were not the days of militancy and the CISF revolt had nothing to do with the stress involved with those deployed on the war-zones. BSF and CRPF men fighting insurgencies also witness such incident of shooting fellow soldiers.
However, the case involving Major Nidal Malik Hassan, an American soldier of Palestinian origin, is certainly different. This is obviously because of his name, his religion and his roots. Not only that it came just less than 48 hours after the shooting incident in Afghanistan where a policeman on duty killed five British soldiers.
Apparently the above two incidents are not linked to each other. Still they both have some commonality notwithstanding the fact that neither the Afghan policeman nor Major Nidal had any extremist connection. They both got perturbed by the unnecessary bloodbath. As both were part of the respective governments involved in the killing game they deemed it better to get rid of it by taking an extreme step.
Major Nidal, as the report is now coming, was not eager to join the American forces in Afghanistan or Iraq. So he thought that the best way to dissociate himself from this crime is to go for this murderous act and then commit suicide or ultimately get killed. It is not that this incident took place for the first time with the US army. Even during the first Gulf War in 1991 at least a couple of such incidents took place in Kuwait and a few soldiers lost their lives. However, the Fort Hood incident was the biggest on the American soil involving a soldier. Otherwise such incidents are quite common on the campuses and many people are killed every year in them.
Apart from shooting fellow soldiers, instances of suicide by army men and women deployed in the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan have also increased. As many as 115 committed suicide in 2007 and 102 the previous year. So more than a thousand US soldiers killed themselves in the last one decade. And the number of soldiers committing suicide after their return home from the war zones is many times more. They are unable to cope up with the life after being in the civilian battle zones for so long.
It is another thing that a section of media may now try to paint the whole picture involving Major Nidal in a different way. It would not be hard to sell fantastic stories about his extremist connection – even if there is none – as he is not only a Muslim, but a Palestinian too. But the big question is if he really had any connection with the extremist elements anywhere in the world the US intelligence would certainly have been aware of it.
If Major Nidal really had any extremist connection then who is to be blamed for this bloody mess? The United States of America is one country in the world which has no enemy whatsoever in its vicinity. After the decline of Soviet Union two decades ago there is now remotest threat of any invasion by any country of the world. It is situated in the western hemisphere of the world and away from the global war zones, yet to fulfil its imperialistic dream it has an army of over four million. What is strange is that the original White American males are not much keen to join the armed forces. Therefore, the army had a large number of Blacks and other non-White population. According to an estimate there are over 10,000 Muslims in the US army.
Unlike the imperialist British, which used to throw Indian and Nepalese soldiers in the battlefields in foreign land, especially in the two World Wars, the Americans have adopted a unique method of recruiting army personnel. Youth of Third World country aspiring to go to that country are allured with the offer of Green Card provided they serve in the army.
This is a fantastic way of recruiting mercenaries. Why will these soldiers show any religious or nationalistic patriotism for the country which just want to extend its empire all over the world. They would go on killing spree or commit suicide in sheer frustration.
Besides, in this age of information one cannot keep the army in dark and isolated. They too want to be convinced as to why they are staking their lives.