Free Republic

Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan admits pulling out a pistol, shouting "Allahu akbar" (God is great) and opening fire on unarmed people, killing 13 of them. All, he says, in an effort to stop them from going to Afghanistan and killing his fellow Muslims. Concluding he was on the "wrong side" in America's war, he told jurors at his court-martial that he switched sides. ... Victims of the shooting rampage filed a lawsuit last year over the administration's decision to treat the incident as workplace violence. They say that designation has robbed them of benefits and made them ineligible to...

In the wake of an ABC News story detailing claims by victims of the Fort Hood shooting that they have been neglected by the military and 'betrayed' by President Obama, the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee has sent a letter to his fellow members of Congress demanding that the Obama administration classify the attack as a terrorist act and provide full benefits to the victims and their families. "It is time for the administration to recognize the Fort Hood shooting for what it is—an act of terrorism," wrote Rep. Michael McCaul, R.-Texas, in a letter cosigned by Rep....

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people in a shooting spree at Fort Hood and wounding dozens of others, begins an arduous legal process today that could end in his death. The Article 32 proceeding, as it is called, could run for more than a month with Col. James Pohl sifting through the evidence. Pohl's task will be to gather evidence and then tell higher-level commanders if a trial should be ordered. It isn't clear how Hasan's lawyer, himself a former military judge, will counter testimony, likely from GIs in a crowded Fort Hood deployment...

At the end of Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS, host Bob Schieffer offered commentary on the cause of the mass shooting at Fort Hood: “That doctor [Major Nidal Hasan] should not have been at Fort Hood. I don’t care how hard-up the Army is for mental health professionals....sadly, this shows the Army still does not take protecting soldiers’ mental health as seriously as it does training them to shoot.” Schieffer went on to argue: “And then there is the other part that often happens in government. Don’t deal with the problem, shuffle it off to somewhere else. When he...

“U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.” http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fort-hood-shooter-contact-al-qaeda-terrorists-officials/story?id=9030873 “Months ago”!!! Yet Hasan was allowed to remain in the Army and, for all we know, was not placed under heavy surveillance!? WHY!? Just like when it comes to light that a school district or a church kept a known child-molester on staff and covered it up by shuffling him or her around, the powers that be in our military, political and intelligence...