The only good news out of the Fort Hood massacre is that U.S. electronic surveillance technology was able to pick up Major Hasan's phone calls to an al Qaeda-loving imam in Yemen. The bad news is the people and agencies listening to Hasan didn't know what to do about it. Other than nothing.Next week, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I., Conn.) will convene the Homeland Security Committee to find out if someone in the Army or FBI dropped the ball on Hasan. At Ford Hood itself, grief has been turning to anger as news of possible dropped balls has emerged.
Earlier in the week at Fort Hood, President Obama spoke about the consequences of doing nothing. He named and described each of the 13 dead. That properly gave individual reality to what soon will become "the victims of Fort Hood."
Daniel Henninger discusses the question of who was at fault in the Fort Hood tragedy. This is how it always goes. For about a week after these awful incidents—such as the USS Cole bombing in Yemen (year 2000, 17 dead)—the rest of us feel, just a little, what the surviving families feel. This week, 13 American families are shattered, forever. It's a big deal, the biggest deal there is.
On Tuesday night at 9:06 p.m. in Virginia, the state executed the Beltway sniper, John Allen Muhammad, who gunned down 10 in 2002. The day before the execution, the father of a dead daughter described why he would witness it:
"I want to see what he made me see. He forced us to look at our little girl laying in a coffin. I want to see justice done. I want to see him take a last breath. I want to be able to describe it to the rest of the family."
Terror-tied ISNA official teaching troops at Ft Hood about to deploy to Afghanistan, wrote of "preemptive strikes" against Islam's enemies(UPDATED) It gets worse. I was contacted today by an official in the military anti-terrorism community who was extremely upset that a top official for the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) was conducting classes at Ft. Hood on Islam to troops about to deploy to Afghanistan. The individual in question, Louay Safi, actively promotes the ideology employed by Ft Hood killer Maj. Nidal Hasan, and has been caught on FBI wiretaps communicating with terrorist leaders operating in the US. Safi has also written a defense of "preemptive strikes" against Islam's enemies, such as that carried out by Maj. Hasan. (Update: It seems that Robert Spencer received the same report about Safi's appearance at Ft Hood today.)
WASHINGTON - In hindsight the warning signs all look so obvious.An Army doctor in medical school who preferred offering militant political screeds about Islam in place of assigned papers on scientific topics.
A psychiatrist who sought to have some patients charged with war crimes for their actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A devout Muslim who engaged in an extensive e-mail dialogue with a radical Yemeni-American religious cleric infamous for encouraging extremist attacks against Western targets.
None of that behavior exhibited by the accused Fort Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, in the weeks and months before the deadly Nov. 5 rampage went unnoticed. But much of it went unreported, and no single individual or agency appears to have possessed more than slivers of the bigger picture.
Now, as the results of the first of several federal probes into missed signals in the Fort Hood case circulate inside the White House, outside experts are coming to their own conclusions. They believe excessive political correctness, a lack of understanding of Islam and holes in Army guidelines for spotting extremists in the ranks all contributed to the failure to identify ominous warning signs in Hasan’s case.
"With 20/20 hindsight it’s easy to say there should have been indicators," said Zachary Lockman, professor of Middle Eastern studies and history at New York University. "But some people may have been reluctant because others would see it as going after him for being Muslim. Others might have identified all of Islam with extremism, so they didn’t see anything unusual."
The reluctance to voice concerns about Hasan’s behavior "suggests we need a better understanding of the difference between mainstream Muslims and the more radical, extreme elements," Lockman said.
Charlie Daniels, the legendary country and rock musician, is NB's newest blogger.Considering the condition of most of the media in this country, I can't say I'm surprised at their reaction to the murder of 13 and wounding of 30 soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas.
They are trying to blame Maj. Nadal Malik Hasan's terrorist act on the stress of being in the Army and harassment by other soldiers because of his religion. In other words, trying to blame it on anything besides what it is. The fact is that he is a radical Muslim who hates the United States of America and wants to destroy it.
Hasan had never been to war anywhere, so that dog won't hunt. He was a major, and if he was under such heavy persecution why didn't he simply resign his commission?
Posted on Saturday, December 05, 2009 8:56:34 AM by freedomyes
“Muzzammil Hassan is the founder and chief executive officer of Bridges TV, which he launched in 2004, amid hopes that it would help portray Muslims in a more positive light.”