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On April 16th 2007 Sueng-Hui Cho killed thirty-three people. In the wake of Columbine, Nichols Mines (the Amish schoolhouse), September 11th and countless other tragedies, people are asking themselves simple questions. Why did he do it? How did this happen? Will it happen to me, or to my kids? What can I do? What can we do? Is the world unraveling? Can anything be done, or are we powerless in the face of this insanity?
These topics aren't pleasant, but they must be addressed. As Henry David Thoreau once wrote, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary...(I wanted to) drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world..."
Dr Bruce Lackie, a preeminent expert in the field of trauma teaches us that insanity is insight without context. It is possible to comprehend Cho's "insight and context." If we combine it with the "insight and context" found in Blacksburg, Virginia we may be able to "learn what it had to teach" and begin to answer to all of these questions.
To find the answers we need to do some deconstruction. First we must be open to the possibility that Cho thought he was doing the right thing. We need to suspend our assumptions and begin to understand Cho's logic, the context where he had his insight.
Context- P/O Brian Haughton, Philadelphia Police Department (SWAT) recently wrote an article titled, "When SWAT faces Schizophrenia." In this article, he describes not only the attributes of a person afflicted with this disease, but he is also describing Cho's behavior in his video. Included on the list are: delusions, disorganized and flattenness of affect of speech, loss of facial expression. Haughton concludes, "Essentially these disease sufferers have a hard time telling real life from fantasy because of their abnormal brain activity".
If we assume that Cho suffered from schizophrenia (which typically manifests itself in the late teens) then we can begin to rebuild his perceived reality (what we would call his fantasy) from the messages he sent us. Everything I've seen leads me to conclude that Cho was suffer from schizophrenia, or a similar condition.
Cho told us who he believed he was. He had the words "Ax Ishmael" printed or tattooed on his forearm in the video. On the package that he sent to the media, he used these words where anyone else would've signed their name. Cho believed that he was Ax Ishmael.
To answer the question "who is Ax Ishmael?" we must first understand which Ishmael Cho is referencing. This context will give us insight. Abraham had two sons, Isaac and Ishmael. Isaac is the patriarch of the Judeo-Christian traditions and Ishmael is the patriarch of the Arab-Islamic traditions. Isaac was the favored son and Ishmael was the outcast. In the Qu'ran, Ishmael uses an ax to destroy idols and false gods. If Cho believed he was Ishmael's ax, then he would see himself as the destroyer of the idols and false gods of our society.
Our society revels in its technology. We love our iPod nanos and our Blackberries with a passion that borders on worship. We "can't live without" GPS in our cars and plasma TVs in our homes. It is either tragic irony, or Cho's insight out of context that his chosen target of wanton destruction were the students of the engineering school, the place where we train those who design and build our idols.
Cho had applied to Virginia Tech's engineering school and had been rejected. His mental health problems caused him to become isolated. When this isolation is combined with the rejection, it is reasonable to conclude that he would have felt locked out. This feeling becomes amplified as time passes because Cho was scheduled to graduate in a month. Graduation would've made this isolation and rejection permanent. He would be locked out forever. He didn't want to be outside of the locked doors of the engineering school. He wanted to be on the inside.
We find that patients with schizophrenia often experience a worsening of their pathologies when they are faced with change. Cho was on the verge of graduation into an uncertain future. It is difficult for us to fully comprehend the degree of his uncertainty because Cho wasn't a citizen of the United States. In spite of the fact that he had lived here since he was eight years old, he was still a "resident alien." Would he be permitted to stay after his class graduated? If he had to leave, where would he go? Was he competent to figure this out?
Before they moved to the United States, Cho's parents lived in South Korea. Cho's father lived and worked in Saudi Arabia for ten years before he married. Does this explain Cho's familiarly with Ishmael's ax. Cho didn't need to live in Southwest Asia as a child for him to use Islamism as the context for the feel of his video.
The fact that Cho decided to send a video doesn't fit with the other school shooters. While the two of Columbine did videotape themselves before their rampage, their video wasn't a monologue like Cho's video. The other place that we see this type of video is in the Islamic world.
Mujahideen "martyrs" (those who die while committing murder for allah) have been instructed by a fatwah (Islamic religious ruling) to videotape themselves stating their intent and, if possible, they should videotape their assault so that "the infidels cannot deny that it was us." When we view Cho's video with this as our context, then we begin to gain insight into his logic, his possible reasons for sending it. Or he may simply wanted to be heard and seen and this was his choice.
It's no secret that there is a strong jihadi influence in the Middle East, especially in Saudi Arabia. You no longer need to be raised in that society and to be exposed to this influence. Trying to escape it would be like trying to raise a little girl in the US without exposing them to Barbies, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty or any of the other Disney princesses. It is possible that Cho, the outcast, may have identified with the ultimate outcasts of our society, the Islamists for comradeship.
Al Qaeda's intention is to transition from an organization to a movement. If they are successful in doing this then they no longer need to maintain contact with individual cells and our job just became much more difficult. If they influenced Cho's video then the transition might be complete. If these influences did affect Cho's world view, then it is possible that Cho wanted to become a part of the global jihadi organization. Instead, he may have become part of the global jihadi movement.
Let me pause for a moment and remind you that this is an attempt to deconstruct an unhealthy mind. I do not presume to KNOW anything. I am simply creating a hypothesis that can be tested. To decrease the uncertainty, we should start with the known and then use it to determine the knowable.
There are things that we know. We know that Cho's roommate reports that Cho left his dorm room around 5:00 that morning, yet the first murders didn't occur until nearly two hours later. We also know that Muslims pray five times a day. Their first prayers (fagr) occur at 5:15AM. We know that there is an Islamic prayer room in the Squire Student Center, and that it would take less than fifteen minutes to walk there from Cho's dorm room in Harper Hall.
We do not know if Cho was a practicing Muslim, nor do we know if he was influenced by this world view. This is knowable, and knowing it would help us gain some degree of closure. If Cho was a practicing Muslim, there is no reason to make the logical leap to conclude that this tragedy was directed by Al Qaeda.
Remember that Cho's brain didn't function correctly. Just as we can't apply our logic to determine his decision making processes, we can't expect anyone else would be able to get him to apply their logic to drive his decision making processes, including Al Qaeda.
Cho's anger at his malfunctioning brain may have caused him to destroy the brains of his victims. If this is his logic, then it makes sense that Cho must also kill himself. If the police kill him, then he is separated from his class. By shooting himself in the head, his brain becomes like all the others and Cho finds peace.
In death, Cho arrests time. He derails the process that would have lead inevitably to commencement. By doing this, he and thirty two others become eternally joined to the engineering school, and Cho finds peace.
A student of Virginia Tech, Katelynn Johnson, must have sensed this when she added the thirty-third stone to the spontaneous monument that was created on the drill field. In his mind, perhaps Cho committed suicide thirty-three times.
There are a number of lessons to be learned by this tragedy.
-Risk increases with time. Doing nothing won't make it better. Those who became frozen in their seats died there. Those who acted, those who did something- anything- had a much better chance of receiving survivable injuries. Those who acted together were much more likely to survive without injuries. They lived together.
-There is always more than meets the eye. The story that hasn't been told is the story of the number of lives saved on that day. The VATech first responders were dealt a lousy hand. What they did with it is worthy of both individual and unit commendation. The killing didn't end because Cho ran out of ammunition. Cho took his own life because the SWAT team had made entry. Their decisive action on that day ended the killing and saved the lived of the injured and the trapped.
-The SWAT Medics- by integrating seasoned paramedics into the entry teams (rather than assigning a cop to act as medic or having no medic at all), these SWAT Medics were able to triage and treat all of the wounded within seconds or minutes of their injuries. The management decision that was made years ago to use this organization structure empowered the SWAT Medics to save lives on that day. There is no longer any doubt: Tactical Medics save lives. After VATech, any SWAT Team in the US that doesn't have them will be considered negligent.
-Local EMS- the VTech EMS and BVRS had more than six intensive care units on scene in less than ten minutes. The rapid triage and treatment of the most critically wounded combined with the ability to stabilize and transport assured the survival of all but one of the trauma victims. This is an incredible accomplishment considering the fact that the victims were shot at close quarters, and many were subject to multiple wounds, and MedEvac was not available. Having worked for one of the largest fire based EMS systems in the US, I can tell you that the outcomes (only one died after the scene was secured) is unprecedented.
On April 16th 2007 Sueng-Hui Cho was the thirty-third person that he killed. We will never really know why he did it. If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that we know how it happened. We, as a society, failed to be responsible for each other. Not only did we fail Cho and the thirty two others who died that day. We failed all of those who were injured and those who escaped physically untouched who now have to deal with survivor's guilt. We failed the families, friends, alumni, administration, and community of Virginia Tech and Blacksburg Virginia.
Most importantly, we failed our children here and in Littleton Colorado, and in Dawson College Montréal, and in Bailey Colorado, and in Jonesboro Arkansas, and in Grundy Virginia, and in West Paducah Kansas, and in San Diego State, and in Moses Lake Washington, and in Iowa City Iowa, and in Stockton California, and in Flushing New York, and in Kileen Texas, and in Red Lake Minnesota. We should be held accountable because this is an incomplete list. There are questions that we should be asking ourselves and each other. How many times do we need to hear: all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing? At what point do we cease to be bystanders and become co-conspirators, collaborators and perpetrators?
As for the rest of the questions: Will it happen to me, or to my kids? What can I do? What can we do? Is the world unraveling? Can anything be done, or are we powerless in the face of this insanity? If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that we have choices and we make choices. We can do nothing. We can try something. We can work together. We regulated the use of seat belts and smoking in public places. We can start by making it illegal to allow our children the enjoyment of shooting people in the head tens of thousands of times in video games. We can begin by taking a vow to never buy a violent video game and never watch a gratuitously violent movie. We can tell others what we are doing.
April 16th 2007 comes down to one question: Am I my brother's keeper? If you have any doubt or hesitation in your answer, then you need to do some soul searching. May they rest in peace. May their families be comforted. May the blessing of their memory inspire us to make the world a better place.
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