It’s been hard to make a lot of sense of the Fort Hood massacre last weekend, where as of now, at least 13 people have died, and over 40 have been injured. Maj. Nadal Malik Hassan, an Army psychiatrist, went on a bloody shooting spree when faced with the prospect of being sent to Afghanistan.

The mainstream media’s reaction to this tragedy has been the source of a lot of my frustration. Every time I turn on the TV, Hassan’s actions are being blamed on psychological trauma, his lack of a girlfriend and social life, and his many poor job evaluations.

It’s not that these explanations are entirely wrong. They are true, up to a point. Hassan did hear the tear-laced horror stories that soldiers brought home from the US’s killing fields in the Middle East, and these undoubtedly affected Hassan’s judgment and his unwillingness to be shipped away.

What is missing from this simplistic analysis are a few elements that throw a wrench into this conveniently timid thesis. Before Hassan became a psychiatrist at Fort Hood, he frequently attended the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Virginia, where he listened to the bloodthirsty Anwar Al-Awlaki preach and mingled with two of the eventual 9/11 hijackers. Eight years later, Hassan gunned down victim after victim while yelling “Allahu Akhbar” (God is great).

Hassan was faced with the option of fighting for the US in a war he perceived to be waged on Islam in which he could not possibly participate. This is why the FOX News fascistas labeled Hassan’s shooting as “the first terrorist attack on American soi since 9/11l” and took the opportunity to criticize President Obama for his supposed “weakness” on terrorism (at the same time Obama is leaning toward sending 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan).

The fact that Hassan was an ideological Muslim is a crucial point to this story not because he represents some grand neocon conspiracy of how bin Laden and his ilk want to establish an Islamic Caliphate from Mecca to Montgomery, but for a few key different reasons instead.

US foreign policy has directly led to the radicalization of a religion and culture (that once surpassed the West in mathematics, poetry, and literature) by propping up extremely cruel Middle East and African dictators, starving them with sanctions, and pummeling cities with incendiary bombs. Suddenly, democratic and progressive movements give way to support for anyone who resists this occupation, no matter how cruel or barbarous they may be.

Additionally, US response to 9/11 was the most counterproductive and misguided reaction there could have possibly been. Initiating two open-ended wars on two countries that had nothing to do with the attacks was a recipe for disaster, and made the key mistake of ignoring where the real threats lied.

Despite the lies about disrupting “safe havens” in foreign lands, a few of the 9/11 hijackers spent years in Florida before they struck. While the US Empire was busy radicalizing more and more young Muslims with cruise missiles, Al Qaeda and its sympathetic allies lashed out with infiltration and deception. The FBI, in all of its clumsiness, was asleep at the wheel.

The blame for the Fort Hood massacre lies squarely on Hassan’s shoulders, but it is also the direct product of a ruthless and imperial foreign policy, where the US military occupies two-thirds of the globe. Empire inevitably leads to blowback (the unintended consequences of military intervention), and from 9/11 to Hassan, these consequences are, and will continue be, felt on our soil.

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For more of Robert’s work, please visit his Libertarian Examiner blog.

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