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pjohns
08-10-2013, 01:20 PM
From a piece in National Review by Mark Steyn, entitled "Know Thine Enemy":


On December 7, 1941, the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor was attacked. Three years, eight months, and eight days later, the Japanese surrendered. These days, America’s military moves at a more leisurely pace. On November 5, 2009, another U.S. base, Fort Hood, was attacked — by one man standing on a table, screaming “Allahu akbar!” and opening fire. Three years, nine months, and one day later, his court-martial finally got under way.

The intervening third-of-a-decade-and-more has apparently been taken up by such vital legal questions as the fullness of beard Major Hasan is permitted to sport in court. This is not a joke: See “Judge Ousted in Fort Hood Shooting Case amid Beard Debacle” (CBS News). Army regulations require soldiers to be clean-shaven. The judge, Colonel Gregory Gross, ruled Hasan’s beard in contempt, fined him $1,000, and said he would be forcibly shaved if he showed up that hirsute next time. At which point Hasan went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, which ruled that Colonel Gross’s pogonophobia raised questions about his impartiality, and removed him. He’s the first judge in the history of American jurisprudence to be kicked off a trial because of a “beard debacle.” The new judge, Colonel Tara Osborn, agreed that Hasan’s beard was a violation of regulations, but “said she won’t hold it against him.”

The U.S. Army seems disinclined to hold anything against him, especially the 13 corpses plus an unborn baby. Major Hasan fired his lawyers, presumably because they were trying to get him off — on the grounds that he’d had a Twinkie beforehand, or his beard don’t fit so you must acquit, or some such. As a self-respecting jihadist, Major Hasan quite reasonably resented being portrayed as just another all-American loon gone postal. So he sacked his defense team, only to have the court appoint a standby defense team just in case there were any arcane precedents and obscure case law he needed clarification on. I know that’s the way your big-time F. Lee Bailey types would play it, but it doesn’t seem to be Major Hasan’s style. On the very first day of the trial, he stood up and told the jury that “the evidence will clearly show that I am the shooter.” Later, in one of his few courtroom interventions, he insisted that it be put on the record that “the alleged murder weapon” was, in fact, his. The trial then came to a halt when the standby defense team objected to the judge that Major Hasan’s defense strategy (yes, I did it; gimme a blindfold, cigarette, and tell the virgins here I come) would result in his conviction and execution. ...

Major Hasan says he’s a soldier for the Taliban. Maybe if the Pentagon were to reclassify the entire Afghan theater as an unusually prolonged outburst of “workplace violence,” we wouldn’t have to worry about obsolescent concepts such as “victory” and “defeat.” The important thing is that the U.S. Army’s “workplace violence” is diverse. After Major Hasan’s pre-post-traumatic workplace wobbly, General George W. Casey Jr., the Army’s chief of staff, was at pains to assure us that it could have been a whole lot worse: “What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty.” And you can’t get much more diverse than letting your military personnel pick which side of the war they want to be on. ...

Unlike the Zimmerman trial, Major Hasan’s has not excited the attention of the media. Yet it is far more symbolic of the state of America than the Trayvon Martin case, in which superannuated race hucksters attempted to impose a half-century-old moth-eaten Klan hood on a guy who’s a virtual one-man melting pot. The response to Nidal Hasan helps explain why, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, this war is being lost — because it cannot be won because, increasingly, it cannot even be acknowledged. Which helps explain why it now takes the U.S. military longer to prosecute a case of “workplace violence” than it did to win World War Two.

Oh, and the link: National Review Online | Print (http://www.nationalreview.com/node/355421/print)

Chris
08-10-2013, 01:36 PM
Posted elsewhere but bears repeating:

Shawn Manning, after describing his injuries and loss of some benefits...


But it would be a mistake to think that the terrorism designation is just about benefits. It is also about the government acknowledging its complicity in the attack.

Before the shooting, the Army knew that the gunman was an Islamic religious extremist. After the attack, a bipartisan Senate report concluded that the Defense Department had evidence that “Hasan embraced views so extreme that it should have disciplined him or discharged him from the military, but DoD failed to take action against him.”

The FBI knew that Hasan was e-mailing with known terrorist leader Anwar al-Awlaki, asking questions about religious martyrdom and expressing support for Awlaki’s terrorist tactics. It did nothing.

The Army also knew that Hasan was an incompetent psychiatrist who repeatedly neglected his duties. Yet instead of investigating, disciplining or discharging him, they transferred him to my medical detachment for deployment to Afghanistan.

Congress has labeled the Fort Hood attack an act of terrorism. In the wake of the attack, an independent report commissioned by the FBI looked at ways to improve counterterrorism measures. Even the president said the attack was inspired by “larger notions of violent jihad.” The only entities that have stubbornly refused to call it an act of terrorism are the Army and the Pentagon. Unfortunately for those wounded in the attack, their opinions are the ones that most affect us.

Hasan’s conviction would represent one step on the path toward justice. But that journey won’t be complete until the government tells the truth about the attack, provides proper support for its victims and takes measures to ensure that these mistakes won’t happen again.


@ The Fort Hood attack was terrorism. The Army should call it that (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-fort-hood-attack-was-terrorism-the-army-should-call-it-that/2013/08/07/cfe62210-feb1-11e2-bd97-676ec24f1f3f_story.html)


I believe him.