Not doing the Muslim faith--or Muslims--any favor

So here we go again, it seems.

One more incident, to the Western eye, of a Muslim man "going postal" in the world--this time in Fort Hood, Texas.

Any and every time some terrorist straps explosives to their body and blows themself up, whether they take anyone with them or not, if they are also Muslim, the opinion in the West is that these are desperately ignorant people.

In this case, unfortunately, US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan went on a shooting spree here in the States--at Fort Hood, Texas, just outside San Antonio.

The result?

At least 13 killed and 31 wounded.

And as usual, it makes no sense. It just ends up being another horrible, tragic event.

And the thing is, to the people of the United States and the West, this all too frequently looks like a pattern of a lack of education (read: ignorance), religious or otherwise zeal and virtually unthinkable violence, all rolled into one.

Leaders of the Muslim faith immediately came out to say that this is not the Muslim faith, fortunately--and of course--and that's good. But for too many people, they see these senseless, murderous acts repeated again and again and both don't like the results of them, naturally, and feel as though it's an ugly, ugly pattern that gets repeated far too frequently all around the world.

How do you deal with someone who thinks violence is an answer?

And the only answer, at that?

How do you deal with someone who has been taught by his elders (because most of them are men, in fact) that if they go on a successful suicide pact and kill "the enemy", they will go straight to "heaven"? Granted, that's not the case here regarding Major Hasan but that is the case for so many of the deaths in the Middle East.

How can we deal with a suicide mentality, locally, nationally and internationally?

In the case of this Major Hasan in Texas, it appears he was mentally unstable, as information comes out but it appears, given what information we have at this moment, that it also may have been borne out of religious fervor.

I hope that's not the case.

What's true is that religious leaders all around the world need to teach their followers in peace, acceptance and tolerance--not murder, death and suicide.


Link to story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_fort_hood_shooting_suspect