While it’s becoming fairly clear that last week’s shootings at Fort Hood were not part of a wider terrorist plot, questions are starting to be raised about exactly why the man who carried them out, Major Nadil Malik Hasan, was still a member of the United States Army given the fact that there seemed to be a fairly clear record that Hasan not only doubted the American missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, but openly sympathized with the enemy:
Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) — Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of a shooting spree that killed 13 people at the Fort Hood Army Base in Texas, called the war on terrorism “a war against Islam,” said a doctor who was in a graduate program with him.
While studying for a masters degree in public health in 2007, Hasan used a presentation for an environmental health class to argue that Muslims were being targeted by the U.S. anti-terror campaign, said Val Finnell, a classmate.
“He was very vocal about the war, very upfront about being a Muslim first and an American second,” said Finnell, 41, a preventive medicine doctor in Los Angeles, in an interview yesterday. “He was always concerned that Muslims in the military were being persecuted.”
Hasan was also quoted as calling for a Muslim uprising against the “aggressor,” by whom he apparently meant the United States:
Col Terry Lee, a retired officer who worked with him at the military base in Texas, alleged Maj Hasan had angry confrontations with other officers over his views.
Maj Hasan was reportedly fighting orders to be deployed to Iraq at the end of the month, claiming that he was the victim of harassment and insults because of his Arab background and his faith.
(…)
“He was making outlandish comments condemning our foreign policy and claimed Muslims had the right to rise up and attack Americans,” Col Lee told Fox News.
“He said Muslims should stand up and fight the aggressor and that we should not be in the war in the first place.” He said that Maj Hasan said he was “happy” when a US soldier was killed in an attack on a military recruitment centre in Arkansas in June. An American convert to Islam was accused of the shootings.
Col Lee alleged that other officers had told him that Maj Hasan had said “maybe people should strap bombs on themselves and go to Time Square” in New York.
We already knew that he shouted “Allahu Akbar!” (“God Is Great”) prior to opening fire on Thursday, now it appears that he may have worshiped at a mosque with links to the September 11th attacks:
Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother’s funeral was held there in May that year.
The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.
Hasan’s eyes “lit up” when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki’s teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday’s horrific shooting spree.
As investigators look at Hasan’s motives and mindset, his attendance at the mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw. Al-Awlaki moved to Dar al-Hijrah as imam in January, 2001, from the west coast, and three months later the September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour began attending his services. A third hijacker attended his services in California.
Hasan was praying at Dar al-Hijrah at about the same time, and the FBI will now want to investigate whether he met the two terrorists.
The question, of course is what the military knew and when it knew it, and, as James Joyner, notes, it’s entirely possible that it didn’t “know” much of anything:
[I]t’s not at all inconceivable that “the Army” had no idea. The fact that several of his colleagues had heard him say highly inflammatory things doesn’t mean that these things were reported up through the chain of command. Further, it’s not entirely clear what his superiors could have done with these reports, aside from confronting and counseling him.
While highly constrained in terms of time, place, and manner, military officers are allowed to disagree with official government policy in casual conversation with one another. Plenty of officers, including those currently deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, have no doubt expressed bitterness at missions they don’t believe in. Lord knows, a large number of them did so about the various deployments ordered by Bill Clinton in the 1990s. And, while it may not have made Hasan a popular guy on base, one doesn’t have to be a Muslim or want Americans killed to hold the view that citizens have a right to “rise up” against an invading force.
Beyond that, there’s a natural reluctance to be overly aggressive in challenging a Muslim soldier as an enemy sympathizer. Being accused of racial profiling can be damaging to one’s career. Further, it can feed natural resentments against Muslim soldiers, almost all of whom are just as loyal to the country, the uniform, and their fellow soldiers as the next guy.
As James notes in an update, though, there are now reports that Hasan made many of these comments at a graduate school run by the military:
FORT HOOD, Texas – There was the classroom presentation that justified suicide bombings. Comments to colleagues about a climate of persecution faced by Muslims in the military. Conversations with a mosque leader that became incoherent.
As a student, some who knew Nidal Malik Hasan said they saw clear signs the young Army psychiatrist — who authorities say went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and 29 others wounded — had no place in the military. After arriving at Fort Hood, he was conflicted about what to tell fellow Muslim soldiers about the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, alarming an Islamic community leader from whom he sought counsel.
“I told him, `There’s something wrong with you,’” Osman Danquah, co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen, told The Associated Press on Saturday. “I didn’t get the feeling he was talking for himself, but something just didn’t seem right.”
Danquah assumed the military’s chain of command knew about Hasan’s doubts, which had been known for more than a year to classmates in a graduate military medical program. His fellow students complained to the faculty about Hasan’s “anti-American propaganda,” but said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim student kept officers from filing a formal written complaint.
“The system is not doing what it’s supposed to do,” said Dr. Val Finnell, who studied with Hasan from 2007-2008 in the master’s program in public health at the military’s Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. “He at least should have been confronted about these beliefs, told to cease and desist, and to shape up or ship out.”
Did incompetence, or political correctness, allow this guy to slip through the cracks ?
At the very least, that question deserves to be investigated.
November 8th, 2009 at 11:13 am
There are probably lots of people in the military who shouldn’t be.
The military used to screen out people with certain tattoos common to skinheads. They have relaxed those rules to meet their quotas.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/06/15/neo_nazis_army/
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/15/neo-nazi-us-military/
November 8th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
I am certain that his position as a medical officer had something to do with the lack of action about his statements. First, the Army has trouble recruiting medical officers, hence the program to pay for medical education. Second, they had a lot invested in him and there might have been some thoughts that he was trying to weasel out of his obligation, Finally, medical officers are not line officers and he was unlikely to be asked to do anything that really was contrary to his beliefs.
One consideration, however, is that he was the worst possible guy to be trying to help young soldiers deal with the stress of combat. He had already been counseled about proselytizing and the one harassment episode that did have a basis in fact concerned his bumper sticker and someone keying his car over it.
November 8th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Hasan’s refusal to be photographed with women in the Army that he worked should have been enough to pitch him out of the service; and an order should have been given to get in the pictures. If he refused he should have been told to get out of the Army.
November 8th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
The army pays for someone’s medical education and training, after which they require several years service as payback. But now we’re going to fire people with ideas we don’t like? How would that work exactly?
Army guy says, “Obama is a dope.” — and he’s dishonorably discharged and owes $300,000 for medical training? Really? For “Obama is a dope.”? That sounds like a good idea to you?
Or he’s just let go. Then every new doctor says “Obama is a dope,” and gets out of their 4 year obligation to speed up return to lucrative civilian practice.
What EXACTLY would a doctor have to think to get discharged? What EXACTLY would happen to the doctor?
November 8th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Q:Did incompetence, or political correctness, allow this guy to slip through the cracks ?
A:Did the sun rise in the East today?
All snarkiness aside, this raises answers troubling questions…this country is so wrapped up in guilt over the ugliness of its racist past that it goes to every possible extent to over compensate for it.
Look at the number of people in the MSM who have tried to mull over the fact that a jihadi was in the US Army in it’s biggest army base. Re-read that sentence. It gives me the chills – and i am not even American.
This country is very kind and generous even to its enemies -it is an admirable quality, but not a wise one.
November 8th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Similar problem exists with Navy Nukes, dealing with “mickey mouse” naval discipline & tradition, having nothing to do with nuclear safety. After a while it gets very old and boring. Some kids can’t handle the many indignities of naval service. Like medical doctors, the Navy invests quite a bit of money training nukes, requiring the nuke payback the training with an extra two-years of service.
I have known many Navy Nukes who exploited:
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (“I pack fudge” – lie)minor drug usage (“I smoked dope six-weeks ago” – lie)routine alcohol consumption (“I am an alcoholic” – lie)thoughts of suicide (“I feel like killing myself” – lie)
to escape from the Navy. Better that than have a perpetual whiner foul up the work center.
Too bad for the Ft Hood victims that this Ft Hood Jihadi lacked the spine (like many a junior officer) to escape from something he truly detested. Weird junior officer logic: die in a blaze of jihadi fantasy gunfire -vs- admit to packing fudge, getting a homo discharge six-weeks later.
November 8th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Hasan’s refusal to be photographed with women in the Army that he worked should have been enough to pitch him out of the service; and an order should have been given to get in the pictures. If he refused he should have been told to get out of the Army.
100000% Agreed – any one who refuses to be photographed with any one else in the army – should be ordered to do so. And if that order is not followed, that should be enough grounds for a discharge.
It’s poetic justice that this scum was bought down by a brave Texan woman… when he finally discovers that a woman pumped some lead into his sorry a** i hope he automatically dies of shame.
November 8th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
“Better Screwed Than Rude”…
Mark Steyn connects some of the dots regarding Nidal Hasan’s transformation into a radical jihadist:
Step One:
Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Fal…
November 8th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
“…It’s poetic justice that this scum was bought down by a brave Texan woman…”
It would only be better if she were Jewish.
November 8th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
The Army also has historically had strict requirements even for it’s medical officers. You can’t be taking an antidepressant for instance and become a medical officer. So that’s the kind of purity the Army has demanded. They’d rather have a nut like Hasan w/o stigma than a fifth generation American kid who is still getting it together, knows he could use some help.
November 8th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Short answer – Political Correctness. The Religion of Diversity is more powerful in America than most people seem to realize. Pretend it was the Catholic Church driving speech codes and hate crimes legislation and affirmative action.
This nonsense is destroying out country and attempting to rewrite our history. It must be stopped, by all of us, at every turn. Refuse to comply with this religion of crap. Next time there is a ‘mandatory diversity awareness training’ at your place of employment or school, tell them to pack sand, that you don’t subscribe to that particular religion. Their only source of power is convincing us to be afraid to stand up against them.
November 8th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Now if only he’d been Gay, instead of a Muslim Jihadi, he would have been separated long before now, as a “threat” of some kind.
I think we have our priorities wrong here.
November 8th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
We will refuse to learn the obvious lessons from this, as usual. Islam is a religion with a complete political system that does not brook dissent–you are not to question Sharia and the Koran. So a serious practicing Muslim cannot consider himself an American first–he is first a part of the Ummah, sworn to bring those ouside the house of Islam into it either by conversion or the sword. I served 20 years in the USAF, and worked w/ some Muslims, but they were not fundamentalists. They were like Catholics that support abortion–they took what they liked from their religion, while ignoring the parts they didn’t care for or agree with. Only the blind will be surprised by this latest shooting. If we can’t sort out the radicals from the “moderates” (who we are still trying to identify), then Muslims should be barred from military service. That would solve the problem–but we don’t have the political will to do it–and I imagine the comments that follow mine will point to this, as well as expressing outrage at the suggestion, and contain some hints at racism on my part just for good measure. And so we will buy more of the same.
November 9th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Fact: Had Major Hasan been an enlisted man with the same vocal opinions, he would have been discharged long ago. This is a case of inconsistent application of military discipline.
November 9th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Political correctness. People tip toe around religious, racial, and gender issues for fear of themselves being labeled. You criticize how Israel killed more Palestinian civilians than militants in the last major clash, and used controversial weapons like White Phosphorous, and you get called an anti-semite. You say affirmative action is unfair and people should be hired based on skill and not race, and you get called a racist. It’s no wonder people are apathetic and find security in keeping quiet.
November 9th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Islam is not why this man committed this act. His extremism, which can be found in almost every religion, is part of it. Speech and rhetoric, even when derogatory of the US is not criminal.
November 9th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Vast,
The the context of his obligations as a military officer and the provisions of the UCMJ that govern his behavior, they very well may have been.
At the very least, the comments seem to indicate that he was not the type of person that was well suited to being a member of the military.
Why these comments went unaddressed is a question that demands an answer
November 10th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
All the Intel.and all our impt.people and we over look Hasan what a joke I pray some political puppets heads roll.This was handled by the little league some hot shots should be fired.
November 10th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
All our Intel.and Hasan gets overlooked until now or do we now do our jobs?I pray we get people that do their jobs to protect our country.I hope officers of any intel.involved with their failure in the Hasan investigation prior to Ft. Hood get fired……
November 16th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Modern Day Trojan Horse by Sam Solomon & E Al Maqdisi, published by ANM (www.Adnamis.org)
Do we have to believe this? Wake up Western World!!!!
Don’t put such a tragedy as the Ford Hood massacre away as a single event, look at the big picture of “da’wa” ( the Islamic call to establish an Islamic state or political power base and to spread Islam.) We need to know about “Al Hijra” (the Islamic Immigration charged and binding to all Muslims)
November 20th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
This is one of the best rants I’ve heard so far on the failure of political correctness surrounding Maj Hasan. It’s from a Libertarian talk show host, and I think you’ll agree with it and find it entertaining: http://blog.timdoctor.com/2009/11/10/one-flew-over-the-turban.aspx