At the Detroit Free Press, Rochelle Riley examines the strange case of Hasan Akbar, the Army sergeant who murdered his fellow soldiers at the beginning of the Iraq War, and whose diaries reveal a fanatic with murderous intentions: Why was sergeant still in the Army?

In 1992, he wrote: “I made a promise that if I am not able to achieve success because of some Caucasians, I will kill as many of them as possible.”

In a 1996 entry, he wrote: “Destroying America is my greatest goal.”

In 1998, he joined the Army.

And in 2003, in the week before he went to Kuwait, he wrote: “As soon as I am in Iraq, I am going to try and kill as many of them as possible.” (Prosecutors say he was referring to fellow soldiers).

Akbar’s former platoon leader testified during his trial that Akbar was unfit for duty. He got fired from a leadership position just before the invasion. “He really was kind of fired and forgotten,” Capt David Storch told a jury.

So which question is the right one: How could the U.S. military send an obviously mentally ill man who abhorred fellow soldiers and walked around talking to himself to Kuwait with those soldiers?

Or: How could officers be so fed up with Akbar’s poor performance that they removed from him a leadership position, but didn’t relieve him of duty because it was “too complex” at a chaotic time?

Or: Why isn’t the case of a domestic terrorist who infiltrated the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., and later attacked his own unit at the top of the news?

No matter where the truth lies, one thing is clear: Somebody messed up. Somebody slipped up. Somebody wasn’t paying attention. Now two soldiers are dead; one is on death row. And 14 bear scars.

Hasan Akbar’s hatred may have been borne of racism or frustration or lunacy. But whatever its origin, he should not have been allowed to carry that hatred into battle.

Riley’s got it half right, but notice how she shies away from the very obvious conclusion that Akbar’s twisted thinking was the result of indoctrination into radical Islam. The statements in his diary are indistinguishable from the rhetoric of jihadis the world over.

UPDATE at 5/5/05 7:26:06 pm:

Baldilocks has also noticed that Rochelle Riley sometimes asks the right questions, but fails to think through the answers: Where Massa Clinton At?