Some time ago Hugh Fitzgerald wrote this about the psychically marginal Zacarias Moussaoui:
Infidels have a thousand things to blame. They can blame their parents — just as many on that Infidel jury wanted to blame, for Moussaoui, his treatment by his parents. They can blame their aggressive or unpleasant siblings, their ungrateful children, the System, Racism, The Man, Amerikkka, Kapitalism, Fate, the stars, their cholesterol level, their serotonin level, anything and everything at all — even, just perhaps, themselves. But Muslim Believers have one thing to blame always at the ready. And to the extent that one takes that belief-system seriously, it is likely that one will, viewing the universe through the grid, the prism, of Islam, blame the Infidel. And that is exactly what Moussaoui did.
And now it looks as if another psychically marginal Muslim, Naveed Haq, has done just the same thing: embraced jihad as a way to give his life meaning, after casting about in a number of different areas. “Shooting suspect was baptized: Just part of the enigma he proved himself to friends,” from the Seattle Times, with thanks to all who sent this in:
RICHLAND — Those who knew Naveed Haq said Saturday that to them he was an enigma, a puzzle that they wish they could have solved before his deadly rampage in a Seattle Jewish center.
Stunned and saddened by the news, some of Haq’s acquaintances recounted many of what they saw as the contradictions of his life.
He held a degree in electrical engineering and was the son of a successful engineer, yet he couldn’t keep a regular job. He was smart, creative and skilled as a writer. He recently won an essay contest for a U.S. Institute of Peace scholarship.
Yet Haq was frustrated at his lack of friends and female companionship.He told friends he felt alienated from his own family, in part because his career had disappointed his father and also because he had disavowed Islam last year, converting to Christianity.
Haq had begun studying the Bible, attending weekly men’s spiritual group meetings, only to stop coming a few months after his baptism.
He had told the group’s leader that he seen too much anger in Islam and that he wanted to find a new beginning in Christianity.
Yet in the midst of his shooting spree in Seattle Friday, he declared himself an angry Muslim.
Acquaintances said he never seemed the fanatic religious extremist he played out on Friday. Instead some think his anger was really directed at problems in his personal and professional life.
“Naveed had the profile of the guy who just couldn’t get things together,” said Erik Neilsen, a Richland resident who let Haq live with him for three months in 2004. He said he thinks several problems compounded for Haq, and he just exploded.