What should we make of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who apparently killed 13 innocent people at Fort Hood?

Skip to next paragraph

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Thomas L. Friedman

Go to Columnist Page �

Here�s my take: Major Hasan may have been mentally unbalanced � I assume anyone who shoots up innocent people is. But the more you read about his support for Muslim suicide bombers, about how he showed up at a public-health seminar with a PowerPoint presentation titled �Why the War on Terror Is a War on Islam,� and about his contacts with Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni cleric famous for using the Web to support jihadist violence against America � the more it seems that Major Hasan was just another angry jihadist spurred to action by �The Narrative.�

What is scary is that even though he was born, raised and educated in America, The Narrative still got to him.