Response to Fort Hood: "Allah is Love."

SHOOT: I once discussed this with a Muslim colleague. I said that probably the word that describes the Christian religion is 'love', what then describes Islam? 'Justice'. I don't know if that's conventionally held to be true, I think it is, but perhaps Muslims need to go back and rethink what the purpose of their religion is. It may be a pointless exercise, because everyone knows that we use religion to justify our own motives, and increasingly, those motives are about personal justice.

Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone , the base commander at Fort Hood , said that witnesses to Thursday's mayhem reported that Hasan had shouted "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great," in Arabic, as he opened fire with two handguns on clusters of soldiers who were waiting for medical examinations.

SHOOT: I find it weird that Major Nidal Malik Hasan [pictured below] resolved his dissatisfaction [being criticised and harassed for his Islamic beliefs] by performing an activity that would encourage further discrimination against Muslims. On the other hand, if you're a Muslim serving in the US military, surely that settles where your allegiance lies, and you shouldn't have to prove your allegiance, or be harassed. That harassment still doesn't justify turning yourself into a suicide gunner though.

Muslims make up less than 0.3 percent of America's active duty military forces. Of the roughly 548,000 soldiers in the U.S. Army , there are 2,500 Muslims, 1,500 of them on active duty. By comparison, 105,000 claim Roman Catholicism as their religion, and 99,000 say they're Baptists. More than 1,800 soldiers say they're Jewish, surpassed by the nearly 2,500 who identified themselves as atheists. More than 101,000 list no religious affiliation.

clipped from news.yahoo.com WASHINGTON — The killings of 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas , by an Army psychiatrist who also was a Muslim set off a rancorous debate Friday that once again spotlighted the fear among Muslims in America that they'll be collectively found guilty for the actions of one man. Vitriolic exchanges filled Internet sites devoted to military affairs, with some posters arguing that Muslims should be barred from the armed services. "My heart cried last night," said Husseini, a hairdresser. "Every time the Muslims try to get up, something goes boom and pushes us back. What a crazy person decides does not define me or Islam." "They're trying so hard to pin this on Islam," said Arshad Qureshi , the mosque's chairman. "They're working so hard to make it about religion." "This is just a nightmare," she said as she hung up the phone. "He's the person that you'd least expect, from what I've seen of him."