Once again, the killing spree by a co-religionist has put Muslim Americans on the defensive. Chastened by the post-9/11 criticism that Muslim Americans were slow to condemn the atrocity, most Muslim-American organizations immediately condemned Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's massacre of fellow soldiers and civilians at Fort Hood on Nov. 5.

Unfortunately, they did not know much about the person they were condemning. Muslim Americans are in such a deep hole that any time a Muslim wacko does something heinous, Muslim Americans are expected to first own him, then dissociate from him and finally, condemn him. And they have learned to do so dutifully.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan may have been known to the law-enforcement agencies, but he is not a name familiar to Muslim Americans outside his immediate family. Muslim Americans were just as shocked and as incensed as other Americans to learn about Hasan's massacre of fellow Americans in cold blood. That's where the unity ended and the dichotomy began.

The media pointed a not-so-subtle finger at Muslim Americans, spreading the innuendo that something may be inherently wrong with Islam and those who practice it, even in America. It did not help that Hasan was American-born and not a zealous new convert. Time magazine put Hasan on its cover and wondered in print whether Hasan's actions were just an aberration or the true reflection of the criminal mind of a true believer.

The right-wingers harbored no such doubts. While most ordinary Americans make a distinction between the peaceful, ordinary Muslim Americans and the extremists who invoke Islam to perpetrate criminal acts, many right-wingers do not. If one were to listen to the radio and television talk-show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Michael Savage, one would conclude not only that Muslims should not be allowed into the U.S. armed forces, but that America would be better off if its Muslim population were somehow shipped out, and come to think of it, the world would be in better shape if it could rid itself of its 1.5 billion Muslims!

Muslim Americans worry that such incessant anti-Muslim bigotry and vitriol spouted by these right-wingers, who have a tremendous following, may inspire some impressionable Americans to take the law into their own hands and do some serious damage to Muslims Americans.

Such apprehensions are not far-fetched. Muslim-baiting has reached a fever pitch in western Europe. In the same Time magazine that featured Hasan on its cover was the story of a Muslim German woman, Marwa el-Sherbini, who was stabbed to death in a German courtroom by a man who was being tried for spewing racial epithets at her. The German police stood by and shot only her husband, who tried to save her.

Maj. Hasan was unfit to serve as an armed forces psychiatrist entrusted with the responsibility of healing the mental wounds of soldiers returning from combat. Hasan needed psychiatric help himself. He left a long trail of inflammatory anti-U.S. rhetoric and, astonishingly, was not disciplined for it. It is hard to believe that he was treated with kid gloves because he is a Muslim American. If that were the case, it is political correctness gone way too far. Clearly, Hasan was a walking time bomb; unfortunately, no one came forward to defuse him.

Reportedly, Maj. Hasan did not want to fight fellow Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he was about to be deployed. He should have thought about that before he enlisted. America has a volunteer armed forces; only Americans who wish to join do so. After joining the armed forces, one cannot place conditions on where one can be deployed. Americans join the military on the armed forces' terms, not on their own terms.

By his cowardly act, Maj. Hasan has cast a shadow over the exemplary reputation of thousands of Muslim Americans who loyally serve their country in the U.S. military and die for their country. They never ask for special privileges or exemptions. They don't kill fellow Americans.

The road Maj. Hasan traveled is well-trodden. He was dealing with his own demons. He needed help. He neither sought it nor was offered it. He decided to depart the world in a blaze of "glory," taking dozens of innocent lives with him. What better way to do so than to invoke his religion and God as his protective shield?

Muslim Americans do not buy Maj. Hasan's martyrdom rationale; they consider him a criminal who should be treated as such and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Maj. Hasan's actions represent Maj. Hasan only, and no one else.

* Fakhruddin Ahmed, Ph.D., is a Rhodes scholar from Bangladesh who resides in West Windsor
** nj.com