Medicalizing Mass Murder
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, November 13, 2009
What a surprise -- that someone who shouts "Allahu Akbar" (the "God is great" jihadist battle cry) as he is shooting up a room of American soldiers might have Islamist motives. It certainly was a surprise to the mainstream media, which spent the weekend after the Fort Hood massacre playing down Nidal Hasan's religious beliefs.
"I cringe that he's a Muslim. . . . I think he's probably just a nut case," said Newsweek's Evan Thomas. Some were more adamant. Time's Joe Klein decried "odious attempts by Jewish extremists . . . to argue that the massacre perpetrated by Nidal Hasan was somehow a direct consequence of his Islamic beliefs." While none could match Klein's peculiar cherchez-le-juif motif, the popular story line was of an Army psychiatrist driven over the edge by terrible stories he had heard from soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
They suffered. He listened. He snapped.
Really? What about the doctors and nurses, the counselors and physical therapists at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who every day hear and live with the pain and the suffering of returning soldiers? How many of them then picked up a gun and shot 51 innocents?
And what about civilian psychiatrists -- not the Upper West Side therapist treating Woody Allen neurotics, but the thousands of doctors working with hospitalized psychotics -- who every day hear not just tales but cries of the most excruciating anguish, of the most unimaginable torment? How many of those doctors commit mass murder?
It's been decades since I practiced psychiatry. Perhaps I missed the epidemic.
But, of course, if the shooter is named Nidal Hasan, who National Public Radio reported had been trying to proselytize doctors and patients, then something must be found. Presto! Secondary post-traumatic stress disorder, a handy invention to allow one to ignore the obvious.
And the perfect moral finesse. Medicalizing mass murder not only exonerates. It turns the murderer into a victim, indeed a sympathetic one. After all, secondary PTSD, for those who believe in it (you won't find it in DSM-IV-TR, psychiatry's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual), is known as "compassion fatigue." The poor man -- pushed over the edge by an excess of sensitivity.
Have we totally lost our moral bearings? Nidal Hasan (allegedly) cold-bloodedly killed 13 innocent people. His business card had his name, his profession, his medical degrees and his occupational identity. U.S. Army? No. "SoA" -- Soldier of Allah. In such cases, political correctness is not just an abomination. It's a danger, clear and present.
Consider the Army's treatment of Hasan's previous behavior. NPR's Daniel Zwerdling interviewed a Hasan colleague at Walter Reed about a hair-raising grand rounds that Hasan had apparently given. Grand rounds are the most serious academic event at a teaching hospital -- attending physicians, residents and students gather for a lecture on an instructive case history or therapeutic finding.
I've been to dozens of these. In fact, I gave one myself on post-traumatic retrograde amnesia -- as you can see, these lectures are fairly technical. Not Hasan's. His was an hour-long disquisition on what he called the Koranic view of military service, jihad and war. It included an allegedly authoritative elaboration of the punishments visited upon nonbelievers -- consignment to hell, decapitation, having hot oil poured down your throat. This "really freaked a lot of doctors out," reported NPR.
Nor was this the only incident. "The psychiatrist," reported Zwerdling, "said that he was the kind of guy who the staff actually stood around in the hallway saying: Do you think he's a terrorist, or is he just weird?"
Was anything done about this potential danger? Of course not. Who wants to be accused of Islamophobia and prejudice against a colleague's religion?
One must not speak of such things. Not even now. Not even after we know that Hasan was in communication with a notorious Yemen-based jihad propagandist. As late as Tuesday, The New York Times was running a story on how returning soldiers at Fort Hood had a high level of violence.
What does such violence have to do with Hasan? He was not a returning soldier. And the soldiers who returned home and shot their wives or fellow soldiers didn't cry "Allahu Akbar" as they squeezed the trigger.
The delicacy about the religion in question -- condescending, politically correct and deadly -- is nothing new. A week after the first (1993) World Trade Center attack, the same New York Times ran the following front-page headline about the arrest of one Mohammed Salameh: "Jersey City Man Is Charged in Bombing of Trade Center."
Ah yes, those Jersey men -- so resentful of New York, so prone to violence.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
Showing posts with label Nidal Malik Hasan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nidal Malik Hasan. Show all posts
Friday, November 13, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Jihadists Playing US For Suckers
- November 10, 2009
Jihadists In Military Playing U.S. for Suckers
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/11/10/cal-thomas-hasan-muslims-military-political-correctness/
by Cal Thomas
By now, the script should be disturbingly familiar. Whether in the Middle East, or increasingly in America, a fanatical Muslim blows up or goes on a shooting spree, killing many. This is quickly followed by "condemnations" from "Muslim civil rights groups," like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). We are then warned by the president and some newspaper editorials not to jump to conclusions, or to stereotype. Yasser Arafat wrote this script, which he used with great success throughout his bloody career as a terrorist.
Suddenly, the issue of gays in the military doesn't seem as important as jihadists in the military. If you were an enemy of America, not only would you fight overseas and develop nuclear weapons (Iran), you would also engage in an even more effective strategy by striking at America's underbelly. This is our most vulnerable region because we now tolerate virtually everything, indulge in political correctness and subscribe to a bogus belief that if radical Islamists can see we mean them no harm, they will mean us no harm.
The federal government at all levels has hired and promoted Muslims to influential positions. It requires "sensitivity training" for federal employees, including those who work at the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Last week, the House Judiciary Committee, dominated by liberal Democrats, defied the White House and removed from the USA Patriot Act a tool for tracking non-U.S. citizens in anti-terrorism investigations. As our enemies grow stronger and more emboldened, they see us becoming weaker and less committed.
No amount of evidence -- from Koran verses urging the killing of "infidels," to cries of "God is great," reportedly shouted by the alleged Ft. Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan -- will cure our self-deception. Sun Tzu famously wrote that all war is deception. But it takes two to deceive and the United States is behaving like a willing partner.
People claiming to know Hasan told interviewers he made frequent statements against the wars and the U.S. presence in Islamic countries. Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, told reporters after he was briefed on the shootings that Hasan "took a lot of advanced training in shooting." Why would a psychiatrist need advanced training in shooting unless he believed in murder as therapy? Shouldn't that, coupled with his statements about "the aggressor" and other actions -- including his preference for Muslim clothing -- have alerted someone in authority that he might be a time bomb waiting to go off? Yes, absolutely. But who wants to jeopardize a career by raising such questions and becoming the target of "civil rights groups" and politically correct dupes? Intimidating Americans into silence when they know better is also a very effective strategy when fighting a war.
Sound minds not brainwashed by our own "re-educators" should have seen this coming. Though born in America to Jordanian immigrant parents, Hasan described himself as a "Palestinian." He got into trouble by attempting to proselytize some of his patients.
Most top federal agencies, including the Pentagon and DHS, now have offices of "civil liberties," offices recommended by the 9/11 Commission to focus on "outreach" to the Muslim community. In this, they follow efforts by the Bush administration, which dispatched Karen Hughes to tell Muslim women in Saudi Arabia that American women are so free they can drive their own cars. The Saudi women were not impressed.
It's one thing to be suckered by others. It's quite another to sucker yourself.
How much longer will we tolerate fighting this war as if it were a minor crime wave? Our enemies are fighting to win and they are fighting everywhere, including within our borders. People trained to appear non-threatening, until the threat becomes obvious and it is too late to do anything about it, are infiltrating our government and society at every level.
It is irrelevant that some have put the number of radicalized Muslims worldwide at 10 percent. Even if that figure is accurate, one hundred million jihadists can cause a lot of damage, as they plot the destruction of Western democracies. Other wars have been won with far fewer soldiers and far fewer dupes.
Jihadists In Military Playing U.S. for Suckers
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/11/10/cal-thomas-hasan-muslims-military-political-correctness/
by Cal Thomas
By now, the script should be disturbingly familiar. Whether in the Middle East, or increasingly in America, a fanatical Muslim blows up or goes on a shooting spree, killing many. This is quickly followed by "condemnations" from "Muslim civil rights groups," like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). We are then warned by the president and some newspaper editorials not to jump to conclusions, or to stereotype. Yasser Arafat wrote this script, which he used with great success throughout his bloody career as a terrorist.
Suddenly, the issue of gays in the military doesn't seem as important as jihadists in the military. If you were an enemy of America, not only would you fight overseas and develop nuclear weapons (Iran), you would also engage in an even more effective strategy by striking at America's underbelly. This is our most vulnerable region because we now tolerate virtually everything, indulge in political correctness and subscribe to a bogus belief that if radical Islamists can see we mean them no harm, they will mean us no harm.
The federal government at all levels has hired and promoted Muslims to influential positions. It requires "sensitivity training" for federal employees, including those who work at the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Last week, the House Judiciary Committee, dominated by liberal Democrats, defied the White House and removed from the USA Patriot Act a tool for tracking non-U.S. citizens in anti-terrorism investigations. As our enemies grow stronger and more emboldened, they see us becoming weaker and less committed.
No amount of evidence -- from Koran verses urging the killing of "infidels," to cries of "God is great," reportedly shouted by the alleged Ft. Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan -- will cure our self-deception. Sun Tzu famously wrote that all war is deception. But it takes two to deceive and the United States is behaving like a willing partner.
People claiming to know Hasan told interviewers he made frequent statements against the wars and the U.S. presence in Islamic countries. Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, told reporters after he was briefed on the shootings that Hasan "took a lot of advanced training in shooting." Why would a psychiatrist need advanced training in shooting unless he believed in murder as therapy? Shouldn't that, coupled with his statements about "the aggressor" and other actions -- including his preference for Muslim clothing -- have alerted someone in authority that he might be a time bomb waiting to go off? Yes, absolutely. But who wants to jeopardize a career by raising such questions and becoming the target of "civil rights groups" and politically correct dupes? Intimidating Americans into silence when they know better is also a very effective strategy when fighting a war.
Sound minds not brainwashed by our own "re-educators" should have seen this coming. Though born in America to Jordanian immigrant parents, Hasan described himself as a "Palestinian." He got into trouble by attempting to proselytize some of his patients.
Most top federal agencies, including the Pentagon and DHS, now have offices of "civil liberties," offices recommended by the 9/11 Commission to focus on "outreach" to the Muslim community. In this, they follow efforts by the Bush administration, which dispatched Karen Hughes to tell Muslim women in Saudi Arabia that American women are so free they can drive their own cars. The Saudi women were not impressed.
It's one thing to be suckered by others. It's quite another to sucker yourself.
How much longer will we tolerate fighting this war as if it were a minor crime wave? Our enemies are fighting to win and they are fighting everywhere, including within our borders. People trained to appear non-threatening, until the threat becomes obvious and it is too late to do anything about it, are infiltrating our government and society at every level.
It is irrelevant that some have put the number of radicalized Muslims worldwide at 10 percent. Even if that figure is accurate, one hundred million jihadists can cause a lot of damage, as they plot the destruction of Western democracies. Other wars have been won with far fewer soldiers and far fewer dupes.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Hasan's Red Flags
HOMELAND INSECURITY
Hasan counseled Fort Hood Muslims
Alleged Army terrorist substitute chaplain for 48
Posted: November 09, 2009
2:11 am Eastern
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
The suspected Fort Hood terrorist served as a lay Muslim leader running Islamic services on the base in the absence of the Muslim chaplain, WND has learned. He also mentored at least one young convert to Islam whose parents worked at the sprawling Texas post.
Hasan's religious activities raise the specter that others may have been radicalized, investigators worry. There are nearly 50 Muslim soldiers serving on the base.
Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly shot 46 fellow soldiers and security guards and murdered 13 in the worst act of terrorism on U.S. soil since 9/11.
Witnesses say the devout Muslim officer jumped up on a desk and shouted, "Allahu akbar!" – Allah is greatest – before opening fire and spraying more than 100 bullets inside a crowded building where troops were preparing to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq.
"He was preparing for a martyrdom operation," a U.S. Army intelligence official said. "There is no evidence that this was an issue of an emotional aberration. It was well planned."
Not long after Hasan transferred to the base earlier this year, he sat down with Muslim chaplain Maj. Khalid Shabazz to discuss carrying out Shabazz's "vision" at the Fort Hood chapel when Shabazz was away. Shabazz helped lead Islamic services at the base's Ironhorse Chapel, which serves 48 Muslim soldiers.
"I found him to be very pleasant," Shabazz said of Hasan.
Shabazz, who recently left the base, met privately with Hasan several times.
Before his posting at Fort Hood, Shabazz ministered to Muslim inmates at the military detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was known as a "sympathizer" among military police. Shabazz scolded MPs for making noise while al-Qaida detainees were praying.
"I would have to go down and chastise those guys," he recalled in a 2008 interview with NPR, "telling them, 'Hey man, those guys are praying. Have the decency not to play the national anthem and agitate them while they're praying.'"
The NPR interview was posted last year on the website of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which the FBI says is a front group for Hamas terrorists. (Following CAIR's blacklisting by the Justice Department as an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator, the FBI last year cut off formal ties to the group.)
Shabazz, who says it's tough trying to be a good Muslim and a good U.S. soldier, serves as a member of a chaplaincy steering committee for the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA.
Federal prosecutors recently named ISNA – a sister organization to CAIR – as an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator in the largest terror finance case in U.S. history. ISNA, they say, like CAIR is a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood, parent of Hamas and al-Qaida.
The Brotherhood, which supports violent jihad and Islamic rule, is the subject of the bestselling new book, "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America."
Federal investigators are looking into Hasan's use of his neighbor's computer, and a visitor he had the day before the Fort Hood attack. Reports say Hasan was "mentoring" on Islam that Muslims shouldn't be in the U.S. military, because Muslims shouldn't kill Muslims.
Hasan counseled on more than a dozen occasions recent Islamic convert Duane Reasoner, an 18-year-old whose parents worked on the base.
"He said he didn't want to go to Iraq or Afghanistan," said Reasoner, who was raised a Catholic. "He didn't want to be deployed. He said Muslims shouldn't be in the U.S. military, because obviously Muslims shouldn't kill Muslims."
Reasoner added: "In the Quran, you're not supposed to have alliances with Jews or Christians or others, and if you are killed in the military fighting against Muslims, you will go to hell."
An Army chaplain interviewed by McClatchy Newspapers on the condition of anonymity confirmed that there are other Muslim soldiers who are conflicted about honoring their duty while fighting other Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hasan told colleagues, "I'm a Muslim first and an American second." He clearly put the Islamic nation above the secular nation he took an oath to protect and defend.
He's not alone. At least a dozen other Muslim soldiers have been convicted of terrorism or espionage since 9/11. Here's a sampling:
"Muslim Mafia" co-author Paul Sperry says Hasan is just the tip of a jihadist Fifth Column operating inside the U.S. military – which is too blinded by political correctness to see the internal threat.
"If military command is too PC to protect its own troops from Islamic fanatics on its own soil, how can Americans be confident they can protect the rest of the country?" asked Sperry, also author of "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington."
He says that each branch of the military operates a counterspying unit in charge of force protection.
"Why didn't the Army investigate Hasan with all the red flags waving around him?" Sperry said. "And what other radicalized soldiers – and I would include chaplains among them – are they failing to investigate now? What is the military doing to stop the next Maj. Nidal?"
Hasan counseled Fort Hood Muslims
Alleged Army terrorist substitute chaplain for 48
Posted: November 09, 2009
2:11 am Eastern
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
The suspected Fort Hood terrorist served as a lay Muslim leader running Islamic services on the base in the absence of the Muslim chaplain, WND has learned. He also mentored at least one young convert to Islam whose parents worked at the sprawling Texas post.
Hasan's religious activities raise the specter that others may have been radicalized, investigators worry. There are nearly 50 Muslim soldiers serving on the base.
Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly shot 46 fellow soldiers and security guards and murdered 13 in the worst act of terrorism on U.S. soil since 9/11.
Witnesses say the devout Muslim officer jumped up on a desk and shouted, "Allahu akbar!" – Allah is greatest – before opening fire and spraying more than 100 bullets inside a crowded building where troops were preparing to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq.
"He was preparing for a martyrdom operation," a U.S. Army intelligence official said. "There is no evidence that this was an issue of an emotional aberration. It was well planned."
Not long after Hasan transferred to the base earlier this year, he sat down with Muslim chaplain Maj. Khalid Shabazz to discuss carrying out Shabazz's "vision" at the Fort Hood chapel when Shabazz was away. Shabazz helped lead Islamic services at the base's Ironhorse Chapel, which serves 48 Muslim soldiers.
"I found him to be very pleasant," Shabazz said of Hasan.
Shabazz, who recently left the base, met privately with Hasan several times.
Before his posting at Fort Hood, Shabazz ministered to Muslim inmates at the military detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was known as a "sympathizer" among military police. Shabazz scolded MPs for making noise while al-Qaida detainees were praying.
"I would have to go down and chastise those guys," he recalled in a 2008 interview with NPR, "telling them, 'Hey man, those guys are praying. Have the decency not to play the national anthem and agitate them while they're praying.'"
The NPR interview was posted last year on the website of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which the FBI says is a front group for Hamas terrorists. (Following CAIR's blacklisting by the Justice Department as an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator, the FBI last year cut off formal ties to the group.)
Shabazz, who says it's tough trying to be a good Muslim and a good U.S. soldier, serves as a member of a chaplaincy steering committee for the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA.
Federal prosecutors recently named ISNA – a sister organization to CAIR – as an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator in the largest terror finance case in U.S. history. ISNA, they say, like CAIR is a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood, parent of Hamas and al-Qaida.
The Brotherhood, which supports violent jihad and Islamic rule, is the subject of the bestselling new book, "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America."
Federal investigators are looking into Hasan's use of his neighbor's computer, and a visitor he had the day before the Fort Hood attack. Reports say Hasan was "mentoring" on Islam that Muslims shouldn't be in the U.S. military, because Muslims shouldn't kill Muslims.
Hasan counseled on more than a dozen occasions recent Islamic convert Duane Reasoner, an 18-year-old whose parents worked on the base.
"He said he didn't want to go to Iraq or Afghanistan," said Reasoner, who was raised a Catholic. "He didn't want to be deployed. He said Muslims shouldn't be in the U.S. military, because obviously Muslims shouldn't kill Muslims."
Reasoner added: "In the Quran, you're not supposed to have alliances with Jews or Christians or others, and if you are killed in the military fighting against Muslims, you will go to hell."
An Army chaplain interviewed by McClatchy Newspapers on the condition of anonymity confirmed that there are other Muslim soldiers who are conflicted about honoring their duty while fighting other Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hasan told colleagues, "I'm a Muslim first and an American second." He clearly put the Islamic nation above the secular nation he took an oath to protect and defend.
He's not alone. At least a dozen other Muslim soldiers have been convicted of terrorism or espionage since 9/11. Here's a sampling:
* NAVY SIGNALMAN HASSAN ABUJIHAAD last year was convicted of tipping off al-Qaida to battlegroup movements in the Persian Gulf, including disclosing classified documents detailing the group's vulnerability to terror attack
* ARMY RESERVIST JEFFREY LEON BATTLE in 2003 pleaded guilty to conspiring to wage war against the U.S., confessing he enlisted "to receive military training to use against America"
* ARMY RESERVIST SEMI OSMAN in 2002 was arrested for providing material support to al-Qaida and pleaded guilty to weapons charges after agreeing to testify against other terror suspects
* MARINE ABDUL RAHEEM AL-ARSHAD ALI trained at a suspected al-Qaida camp and was charged with selling a semiautomatic handgun to Osman
* ARMY SGT. ALI "THE AMERICAN" MOHAMED trained Green Berets at the elite Swick warfare school at Fort Bragg before stealing classified military secrets for al-Qaida and helping plan the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa
* ARMY SGT. HAMMAD ABDUR-RAHEEM in 2004 was convicted of terror-related charges
* ARMY SPC. RYAN G. ANDERSON in 2004 was convicted of leaking military intelligence to al-Qaida terrorists, including sensitive information about the vulnerabilities of armored Humvees
* ARMY SNIPER JOHN ALLEN MUHAMMAD was sentenced to death after fatally shooting 10 in the nation's capital a year after the 9/11 attacks
* FORMER ARMY LINGUIST AHMED FATHY MEHALBA in 2005 was convicted of stealing secret documents listing, among other things, the names of al-Qaida detainees from Gitmo
* SENIOR AIRMAN AHMAD AL-HALABI in 2004 was convicted of mishandling classified documents as an Arabic linguist at Gitmo
* ARMY CAPT. JAMES "YOUSEF" YEE in 2003 was formally charged with mishandling classified information – including maps of a new Gitmo facility – as a Muslim chaplain at Gitmo.
"Muslim Mafia" co-author Paul Sperry says Hasan is just the tip of a jihadist Fifth Column operating inside the U.S. military – which is too blinded by political correctness to see the internal threat.
"If military command is too PC to protect its own troops from Islamic fanatics on its own soil, how can Americans be confident they can protect the rest of the country?" asked Sperry, also author of "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington."
He says that each branch of the military operates a counterspying unit in charge of force protection.
"Why didn't the Army investigate Hasan with all the red flags waving around him?" Sperry said. "And what other radicalized soldiers – and I would include chaplains among them – are they failing to investigate now? What is the military doing to stop the next Maj. Nidal?"
Political Correctness Going Too Far
A Culture of Political Correctness
by Guy Rodgers
www.actforamerica.org
The horrific massacre at Ft. Hood has exposed the degree to which political correctness impacts government and military action — and media coverage.
Fox News contributor Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (retired) exhibited a courage and clarity that has been lacking in most media coverage when, during two different interviews I saw, he angrily and indignantly denounced what he referred to as a “culture of political correctness” in the leadership of the military.
He pointedly asserted that this was an act of Islamist terrorism, and listed just some of the telltale signs to back up his position. For instance:
Col. Peters went on to blame the culture of political correctness for the failure of the Army to take any action against Hasan, in spite of an awareness that Hasan held these views.
Other evidence of Hasan’s beliefs include statements he made to colleagues that Muslims have the right to rise up against the U.S. military, and that they have the right to rise up against their “oppressors” — the United States.
A fellow student at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences complained about a presentation Hasan gave that “justified suicide bombings and spewed anti-American propaganda.”
Here’s the disturbing question that needs to be asked: Could this act of terrorism had been prevented had there not been such a politically correct reluctance to act on what was known about Hasan?
Imagine if the Army had acted. It’s easy to envision the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) indignantly blasting the Army with statements alleging “discrimination.”
Yet if the Army or law enforcement authorities had stepped in, taken action months ago, and brushed aside the typical and predictable rants from groups like CAIR, is it possible that twelve dead soldiers and one dead police officer would be alive today?
Why are so many in government and the military apparently afraid of “offending” a group like CAIR, which deserves to be investigated for its many questionable activities and ties to terrorists, not accommodated? (See our petition calling for such an investigation.)
But in the aftermath of this terrorist act, too few in the media or government have been willing to call it that. There has been a desperate search for another motive, the most common focusing on his mental state.
Edina Lekovic, communications director for the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), also appeared on Fox News. Lekovic was unequivocal in her remarks, claiming Hasan was “clearly disturbed” and comparing him to the killers at Virginia Tech and Columbine.
Remarkably, only a minute or so after making this unsubstantiated claim as if it were fact, when asked about any possible connection to Islam, she warned we must not “rush to judgment.”
But isn’t that precisely what Lekovic did when she asserted Hasan was “clearly disturbed?” Is she a psychiatrist? Did she examine him?
Of course not. What qualifies Lekovic to assert Hasan was like the Columbine killers? Nothing.
She did exactly what she is warning others not to. She “rushed to judgment.” And while anyone who is contending that this massacre has all the earmarks of a terrorist attack is challenged, no one on the Fox News program challenged Lekovic’s unverifiable claim falsely asserted as fact.
Why not? Political correctness?
More political correctness. Prior to killing 13 people on Thursday, Hasan gave away furniture and Korans, a telltale sign of a jihadist preparing for martyrdom.
So how does a Washington Post story characterize Hasan’s giving furniture away? As an act of kindness.
But the tide may be turning. Facts are stubborn things. There are just too many signs that Hasan was in fact a radical Muslim bent on jihad. Too many signs to be ignored.
ABC News last night ran a headline asking if the Army missed signs that Hasan was an Islamic extremist.
On Fox News Sunday, Bill Kristol referred to an AP story that quoted colleagues of Hasan at Walter Reed Hospital who admitted they did not report his suspicious actions due to fear of appearing to be discriminatory toward Muslims.
It may well be determined that Hasan had emotional problems. It may also turn out that he didn’t.
But as Brit Hume stated on Fox News Sunday, even if Hasan had emotional or psychological issues, the facts clearly point to the conclusion that Hasan was a radical Islamist who acted on his beliefs.
by Guy Rodgers
www.actforamerica.org
The horrific massacre at Ft. Hood has exposed the degree to which political correctness impacts government and military action — and media coverage.
Fox News contributor Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (retired) exhibited a courage and clarity that has been lacking in most media coverage when, during two different interviews I saw, he angrily and indignantly denounced what he referred to as a “culture of political correctness” in the leadership of the military.
He pointedly asserted that this was an act of Islamist terrorism, and listed just some of the telltale signs to back up his position. For instance:
* Nidal Hasan opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and would argue with his patients, vets returning from combat, against the justification for the wars.
* Hasan said the “war on terror” was in fact a war against Islam.
* There is evidence that Hasan believed “infidels” deserve beheading.
* Internet postings in Hasan’s name months earlier compared suicide bombers to heroic soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades.
Col. Peters went on to blame the culture of political correctness for the failure of the Army to take any action against Hasan, in spite of an awareness that Hasan held these views.
Other evidence of Hasan’s beliefs include statements he made to colleagues that Muslims have the right to rise up against the U.S. military, and that they have the right to rise up against their “oppressors” — the United States.
A fellow student at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences complained about a presentation Hasan gave that “justified suicide bombings and spewed anti-American propaganda.”
Here’s the disturbing question that needs to be asked: Could this act of terrorism had been prevented had there not been such a politically correct reluctance to act on what was known about Hasan?
Imagine if the Army had acted. It’s easy to envision the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) indignantly blasting the Army with statements alleging “discrimination.”
Yet if the Army or law enforcement authorities had stepped in, taken action months ago, and brushed aside the typical and predictable rants from groups like CAIR, is it possible that twelve dead soldiers and one dead police officer would be alive today?
Why are so many in government and the military apparently afraid of “offending” a group like CAIR, which deserves to be investigated for its many questionable activities and ties to terrorists, not accommodated? (See our petition calling for such an investigation.)
But in the aftermath of this terrorist act, too few in the media or government have been willing to call it that. There has been a desperate search for another motive, the most common focusing on his mental state.
Edina Lekovic, communications director for the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), also appeared on Fox News. Lekovic was unequivocal in her remarks, claiming Hasan was “clearly disturbed” and comparing him to the killers at Virginia Tech and Columbine.
Remarkably, only a minute or so after making this unsubstantiated claim as if it were fact, when asked about any possible connection to Islam, she warned we must not “rush to judgment.”
But isn’t that precisely what Lekovic did when she asserted Hasan was “clearly disturbed?” Is she a psychiatrist? Did she examine him?
Of course not. What qualifies Lekovic to assert Hasan was like the Columbine killers? Nothing.
She did exactly what she is warning others not to. She “rushed to judgment.” And while anyone who is contending that this massacre has all the earmarks of a terrorist attack is challenged, no one on the Fox News program challenged Lekovic’s unverifiable claim falsely asserted as fact.
Why not? Political correctness?
More political correctness. Prior to killing 13 people on Thursday, Hasan gave away furniture and Korans, a telltale sign of a jihadist preparing for martyrdom.
So how does a Washington Post story characterize Hasan’s giving furniture away? As an act of kindness.
But the tide may be turning. Facts are stubborn things. There are just too many signs that Hasan was in fact a radical Muslim bent on jihad. Too many signs to be ignored.
ABC News last night ran a headline asking if the Army missed signs that Hasan was an Islamic extremist.
On Fox News Sunday, Bill Kristol referred to an AP story that quoted colleagues of Hasan at Walter Reed Hospital who admitted they did not report his suspicious actions due to fear of appearing to be discriminatory toward Muslims.
It may well be determined that Hasan had emotional problems. It may also turn out that he didn’t.
But as Brit Hume stated on Fox News Sunday, even if Hasan had emotional or psychological issues, the facts clearly point to the conclusion that Hasan was a radical Islamist who acted on his beliefs.
Friday, November 06, 2009
No Reports of Harassment of Islamic Soldiers
Muslim Veterans Group Says No Reports of Harassment of Islamic Soldiers
Friday, November 06, 2009
By Joshua Rhett Miller
Nidal Malik Hasan
A Muslim veteran affairs organization says it has not received reports of harassment from Islamic soldiers, contrary to claims by a relative of the man authorities say is responsible for the worst mass killing on a U.S. military base.
Abdul-Rashid Abdullah, deputy director of the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council, told FoxNews.com that the nonprofit group has not received a single report recently of a U.S. soldier being harassed "simply because he was Muslim."
"That kind of report is inconsistent with what we've heard," Abdullah said prior to a press conference in Washington to denounce Thursday's shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, that left 13 dead and 38 wounded. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old Army psychiatrist who was reportedly due to be deployed later this month, is accused in the mass shooting.
Abdullah said his organization, which condemned the "unspeakable" attack, serves "several thousand" Muslim soldiers.
SLIDESHOW: Deadly rampage at Fort Hood Army Base
Hasan was shot four times during the Thursday attack and remained unconscious early Friday. He reportedly had told relatives in Virginia that he began having second thoughts about his military career after fellow soldiers harassed him for being a Muslim.
Hasan's aunt, Noel Hasan, of Falls Church, Va., told The Washington Post her nephew wanted out of the military following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks due to harassment about being a Muslim.
"Some people can take it and some people cannot," she told the newspaper. "He had listened to all of that and he wanted out of the military."
Nawar Shora, legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, expressed his sympathies to the victims and their relatives on Friday.
"We were all shocked at the tragedy yesterday at Fort Hood and the act of cowardice by the attacker," Shora said. "We were all attacked yesterday. Let's remember that this was an attack on all Americans and it’s a time for all Americans to come together in unity and in faith."
Alejandro Beutel, government liaison for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said the Muslim-American community is "appalled" by the incident.
"We unequivocally denounce this heinous act against our brave men and women serving in the military to protect our country," Beutel said. "We pray for [the victims'] well-being and for the safety of the entire nation."
Lt. Col. Les Melnyck, a Defense Department spokesman, said that as of August, 3,557 active duty troops of roughly 1.4 million identified themselves as being Muslim. According to the self-reported figures, the largest religious preference identified was Roman Catholic (284,000), followed by "no preference," he said.
"It's self-reported so you don't have to fill in that box," Melnyck said, adding that 1,710 Muslims are currently serving in the Army, by far the most of any service branch.
Friday, November 06, 2009
By Joshua Rhett Miller
Nidal Malik Hasan
A Muslim veteran affairs organization says it has not received reports of harassment from Islamic soldiers, contrary to claims by a relative of the man authorities say is responsible for the worst mass killing on a U.S. military base.
Abdul-Rashid Abdullah, deputy director of the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council, told FoxNews.com that the nonprofit group has not received a single report recently of a U.S. soldier being harassed "simply because he was Muslim."
"That kind of report is inconsistent with what we've heard," Abdullah said prior to a press conference in Washington to denounce Thursday's shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, that left 13 dead and 38 wounded. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old Army psychiatrist who was reportedly due to be deployed later this month, is accused in the mass shooting.
Abdullah said his organization, which condemned the "unspeakable" attack, serves "several thousand" Muslim soldiers.
SLIDESHOW: Deadly rampage at Fort Hood Army Base
Hasan was shot four times during the Thursday attack and remained unconscious early Friday. He reportedly had told relatives in Virginia that he began having second thoughts about his military career after fellow soldiers harassed him for being a Muslim.
Hasan's aunt, Noel Hasan, of Falls Church, Va., told The Washington Post her nephew wanted out of the military following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks due to harassment about being a Muslim.
"Some people can take it and some people cannot," she told the newspaper. "He had listened to all of that and he wanted out of the military."
Nawar Shora, legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, expressed his sympathies to the victims and their relatives on Friday.
"We were all shocked at the tragedy yesterday at Fort Hood and the act of cowardice by the attacker," Shora said. "We were all attacked yesterday. Let's remember that this was an attack on all Americans and it’s a time for all Americans to come together in unity and in faith."
Alejandro Beutel, government liaison for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said the Muslim-American community is "appalled" by the incident.
"We unequivocally denounce this heinous act against our brave men and women serving in the military to protect our country," Beutel said. "We pray for [the victims'] well-being and for the safety of the entire nation."
Lt. Col. Les Melnyck, a Defense Department spokesman, said that as of August, 3,557 active duty troops of roughly 1.4 million identified themselves as being Muslim. According to the self-reported figures, the largest religious preference identified was Roman Catholic (284,000), followed by "no preference," he said.
"It's self-reported so you don't have to fill in that box," Melnyck said, adding that 1,710 Muslims are currently serving in the Army, by far the most of any service branch.
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