David Brooks in his Rush to Therapy article in NY Times Opinion today says the following at the end of the piece:

The conversation in the first few days after the massacre was well intentioned, but it suggested a willful flight from reality. It ignored the fact that the war narrative of the struggle against Islam is the central feature of American foreign policy. It ignored the fact that this narrative can be embraced by a self-radicalizing individual in the U.S. as much as by groups in Tehran, Gaza or Kandahar.

Is the war narrative of the struggle against Islam central to American foreign policy? I'm not sure. Obama has attempted to open up several channels of diplomacy and discourse in the past few months. Iraq and Afghanistan--are they no more than struggles against Islam? Iraq was hardly even a jihadi state, more the personal fiefdom of Saddam, who was nominally a Sunni, but more of a monster of his own maniacal ego than even a Muslim. And Afghanistan? Somehow as the refuge of bin Laden, et. al., I  guess it has an Islamic elemental, but it too is tied to a larger dynamic, although I don't see the US succeeding there any more than Russia did. But Brooks' point that therapy is inappropriate as a palliative to such a heinous act doesn't quite add up as assessment of what is happening. The Right has often condemned Liberals for wanting to do therapy with terrorists. Is that what Brooks is getting at here? We still don't know the whole story of Hasan's mad act. If it isn't a psychotic act, but a sheer act of evil, then I suppose we have another suicide attack without the suicide. It would be interesting to find out what the interrogators are getting from him. Amazing to me, having worked in mental health for many years, to see somebody with his credentials (M.D., etc.) lose it in this way. Troubling again how an automatic gun is the chosen accompaniment in carrying out these rages. There must be such a thing as gun psychosis/rage that is very popular among US males. But of course the 2nd Amendment folks will not see restricting access to guns even in the case of psychotic anger as appropriate. The question of evil arises here again, and, as Brooks argues, should be taken seriously.