Ft. Hood – Meesh’s Tribute
Source: Fox News
White House Spent ‘Weeks’ Courting BUYING Lone GOP Vote on Health Care Bill
Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, the only Republican to back the health care bill in the House Saturday night, says he had several meetings with President Obama and White House staff in the weeks leading up to the vote.
The White House spent weeks trying to convince Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao to support the House health care reform bill before he finally cast his vote in favor of the Democratic package, the Republican congressman from Louisiana said Monday.
Rep. Anh 'Joseph' Cao, shown here, was the only Republican to vote for Democrats' health care bill. (AP Photo)
Cao was the only Republican to back the House bill Saturday night. He told Fox News that he bucked his party out of a sense of obligation for his district, which encompasses most of New Orleans.
“My vote was a vote of conscience,” Cao said. “Whether or not it was a popular vote for the party is of little relevance to me.”
But Cao said the Obama administration invested considerable time in him. He said President Obama spoke with him for “a period of a couple weeks” and that Obama’s staff spoke with him “on a number of occasions.”
The final pitch came Saturday around noon, when Obama called Cao and apparently offered assurances that he would help economic recovery in his district, which is mostly minority and poor. Obama got 75 percent of the votes in Cao’s district in last November’s presidential election.
“We were able to sit down to talk about recovery, to talk about the needs of the district,” Cao told Fox News, though he said no “promises” were made. “The administration and I, we have a very great relationship.”
The health care reform bill passed by a 220-215 vote Saturday. Cao’s backing denied the Republican Party the ability to claim a unanimous rejection of the bill, and it allows Democrats to claim some semblance of bipartisan support.
Republicans suggested they weren’t surprised by the vote.
“We’ve been working with him for months on this,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said of Cao.
Cao’s unique political circumstances make him a special case and could help justify his vote in the eyes of other Republicans.
The Republican won in an upset election last December, ousting embattled Democratic Rep. William Jefferson, who has since been convicted on federal corruption charges.
But Cao’s victory also immediately made him one of the most vulnerable GOP members in the House. Cao was keenly aware of how the health care reform vote could affect his political future.
According to The Times-Picayune, he said over the summer that “voting against the health care bill will probably be the death of my political career.”
With the “yes” vote, Cao may give himself a fighting chance.
The Republican gave a twofold explanation for his decision late Saturday, saying in a written statement that he was standing against taxpayer funding for abortion as much as he was standing for health care reform.
Cao said the last-minute amendment to restrict federal funding toward abortions, a sticking point for many moderates, was a deciding factor for him.
“Thanks to the … amendment, taxpayer dollars will not go to supporting elective abortions, and for thousands of my constituents, this was a top priority,” he said. “By incorporating this amendment into the health reform bill, my colleagues and I made this bill better, and that is an achievement of which I will always be proud.”
Cao even copied in an endorsement of his vote from Gregory Aymond, archbishop of New Orleans, who said he was “grateful” to Cao for his “determination to defend life.”
(All Emphasis Added Mine)
The Health Care Bill in Ninety Seconds
Cost
The CBO now estimates health bill spending at $3 trillion over 10 years. Since the CBO historically underestimates expenses, assume massive new deficits for a country that can ill afford them.
Personal Requirements
You’ll be required to buy a ‘qualified’ health plan. A family earning $102K a year will pay $1,700 a month in premium and out-of-pocket expenses. ‘Willful’ failure to buy a plan will result in a fine of up to $250,000 and ‘imprisonment of up to five years’. Illegal immigrants are exempt from fines and imprisonment.
Business Requirements
Every business in America must provide a ‘qualified plan’ for employees and pay 72.5% of the cost. Failure to do so results in an 8% payroll tax.
Impact to Seniors
Medicare reimbursements will be slashed by $500 billion. Medicare Advantage plans will be slashed by 20%. In many cases, seniors will be forced to see nurse practitioners rather than doctors.
Payments for Community Organizers, Translators and Racial/Ethnic ‘Balance’
The bill provides grants to community “entities” with no required qualifications. The bill also provides translators for patients who do not speak English and offers grants to schools serving students with “disadvantaged backgrounds including racial and ethnic minorities.”
Illegal Immigrants Covered, Abortion Funding Still Possible
Proof of citizenship requirements were gutted, so illegal aliens will be subsidized. The legislation also “doesn’t close the door to using taxpayer funds” for abortions.
This bill truly is, as Michele Bachmann describes it, the “crown jewel of socialism“. Its implementation will result in an economic catastrophe of the first order as certainly as the sun rises in the morning.
Source: WSJ
The Lords of Entitlement
Every medical insurance decision will be subject to rationing by politics.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi defied policy logic and public opinion late Saturday night, ramming through the House a nearly 2,000-page health-care leviathan that counts as the biggest expansion of the federal government since the New Deal. As President Obama likes to say, this was a “teachable moment” about our current government.
The vote was 220 to 215, with 39 House Democrats joining all but one Republican in opposition. Mrs. Pelosi had to cajole and bribe her way to the magic 218, and the list of her promises must be stacked to the ceiling.
The lone Republican, Joseph Cao, represents a Democratic-leaning Louisiana district and extracted a promise that Mr. Obama would increase Medicaid payments to his state, and even then he only voted after Democrats had already hit 218. Let no one suggest this was the “bipartisan” health reform that Mr. Obama has long promised.
The bill is instead a breathtaking display of illiberal ambition, intended to make the middle class more dependent on government through the umbilical cord of “universal health care.” It creates a vast new entitlement, financed by European levels of taxation on business and individuals. The 20% corner of Medicare open to private competition is slashed, while fiscally strapped states are saddled with new Medicaid burdens. The insurance industry will have to vet every policy with Washington, which will regulate who it must cover, what it can offer, and how much it can charge.
We have little sympathy for the insurers, or for that matter most of the other medical providers who signed on to this process only to claim now to be appalled by the result. The insurance lobby—led by Aetna CEO Ron Williams—made the Faustian bet that it could trade new regulations for more new subsidized customers who would face a tax penalty if they didn’t buy their insurance. The Pelosi bill includes the regulation but guts the tax penalty because it’s unpopular. Insurers will thus have to cover more sick people with fewer dollars, as healthy folk opt out of coverage until they are sick.
Associated Press House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
This writing was on the wall months ago, but the insurers chose to play an inside game rather than shape public opinion. Judging by their weekend statement—criticizing the House bill but vowing to seek “bipartisan” reform—they will now throw themselves at the mercy of the Senate. Good luck with that. The real victims are their customers, most of whom will pay more for insurance as the new mandates raise costs.
The real importance of the abortion uproar is as preview of the politics that will dominate every medical coverage issue if ObamaCare becomes law. Every decision of what to insure or not—when an MRI can be used, or whether a stage-four breast cancer patient can get Avastin or some future expensive drug—will become subject to political intervention over moral disputes or budget constraints. Heretofore, these decisions have largely been made between a doctor and patient. This is the real “right to life” issue.
Perhaps the most unsurprising news in this drama was the collapse of the Blue Dog “deficit hawks.” Enough of them always cave in the end to give Mrs. Pelosi her way. It’s nonetheless worth noting the surrender of that most vocal scourge of deficits, Tennessee’s Jim Cooper, who voted aye on grounds that the bill can be improved in the Senate.
But Max Baucus’s Finance Committee bill includes a similar gimmick of making the numbers look good by using 10 years of new taxes to finance only seven years of spending (six in the House). The deficits explode in the second decade and beyond in both bills.
The House also contains a new government long-term insurance program that starts collecting premiums in 2011 but doesn’t starting paying benefits until 2016 and then runs out of money in 2029. North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad called it “a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of” in an interview with the Washington Post in late October. Mr. Cooper has with a single vote made his entire career irrelevant.
Yet 39 other Democrats were given a pass on the vote, as the leadership knows how unpopular this bill is in most of America. They know this legislation is not the result of some national consensus in favor of expanding state power. Its passage was possible only because of temporary liberal majorities that are intent on fulfilling their dreams of a cradle-to-grave entitlement state. If they lose Blue Dog seats, or even their majority, in the short term, so be it. As the party of government, Democrats believe they will benefit in the long run from a much larger government.
Unless the Senate has an epiphany of common sense, Americans will be paying the bills for this willful exercise for generations to come.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A18
Source: FSM
November 9, 2009
‘Crystal Night’ and Beyond
Prof. Robert S. Wistrich
On November 9, 1938, a massive nation-wide anti-Jewish pogrom took place during peacetime across the entire territory of the Third Reich. The pretext for this orgy of violence against German Jews was the shooting in Paris two days earlier of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish-Jewish refugee.
The state-organized pogrom, instigated by Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, resulted in the burning or damaging of more than a thousand synagogues; the ransacking of about 7,500 businesses, the murder of at least 91 Jews, and the deportation of another 30,000 Jewish males to concentration camps in Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen. This murderous onslaught against German Jewry, cynically described by the Nazis as the “Night of Broken Glass” (Kristallnacht), was a major turning point on the road to the “Final Solution” of the so-called “Jewish Question.”
It signified that the Nazi regime had crossed a Rubicon and would no longer be deterred by Western public opinion in its “war against the Jews.” The economic expropriation of German Jewry, its complete social ostracism and public humiliation swiftly followed. Jews were banned from public transport, from frequenting concerts, theaters, cinemas, commercial centers, beaches, or using public benches. Only a fortnight after “Crystal Night,” the SS journal, Das Schwarze Korps, chillingly prophesied the final end of German Jewry through “fire and sword” and its imminent complete annihilation.
Today, shocking to relate, the specter of such apocalyptic anti-Semitism has returned to haunt Europe and other continents, while often assuming radically new forms. In the Middle East, it has taken on a particularly dangerous, toxic and potentially genocidal aura of hatred, closely linked to the “mission” of holy war or jihad against the West and the Jews.
Islamist anti-Semitism is thoroughly soaked in many of the most inflammatory themes that initially made possible the atrocities of “Crystal Night” and its horrific aftermath during the Holocaust. For example, the pervasive use of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion with its perennial theme of the “Jewish conspiracy for world domination;” or the medieval blood-libel imported to the Muslim world from Christian Europe; or the vile stereotypical image of the Jews as a treacherous, rapacious, and bloodthirsty people engaged in a ceaseless plotting to undermine the world of Islam. To these grotesque inventions one must add such more up-to-date libels like Holocaust denial which has become a state-sponsored project in Ahmadinejad’s Iran and is increasingly pervasive in the Arab world.
Equally fashionable (and increasingly popular in Europe) is the slanderous identification of Israel with Nazism or the “ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinians. This modernized version of inverted anti-Semitism which sails under the mask of “anti-Zionism” and anti-Americanism, is today a global phenomenon, but it has special resonance in the Middle East as a result of the unresolved “Palestinian question.”
The scale and extremism of the literature and commentary available in Arab or Muslim newspapers, journals, magazines, caricatures, on Islamist websites, on the Middle Eastern radio and TV news, in documentaries, films, and educational materials, is comparable only to that of Nazi Germany at its worst. Yet the Western world largely turns a blind eye to the likely genocidal consequences of such a culture of hatred, much as it did 70 years ago.
My own extensive research into this phenomenon has, unfortunately, convinced me that the Holocaust did not truly succeed in neutralizing the scourge of anti-Semitism. In a sinister and sometimes devious manner, the widespread defamation and demonization of Israel has in effect revived fantasies of completing the murderous work of the Third Reich. This is especially palpable in the case of Iran. Hence, the anniversary of “Crystal Night” raises two fundamental moral questions for the future of human civilization. Are we at all capable of learning from history, and will the Jewish people once again have to stand alone in the face of concrete threats to annihilate it? On the answer to these questions much may depend.
Prof. Robert S. Wistrich is the director of The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the author of A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad (Random House, January 2010).
U.S.-Born Yemen-Based Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki on His CA-Hosted Website: Fort Hood Shooter ‘Nidal Hassan Is A Hero’
Source: MEMRI
U.S.-Born Yemen-Based Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki on His CA-Hosted Website: Fort Hood Shooter ‘Nidal Hassan Is A Hero’
On October 21, 2009, MEMRI published two reports on U.S.-born imam Anwar Al-Awlaki: Special Dispatch No. 2610, “U.S.-Born Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki on the State of Jihad Eight Years After 9/11: The U.S. Cannot Win – There is No Rolling Back the Worldwide Jihad” [1] and Al-Awlaki’s article “44 Ways of Supporting Jihad,” on the MEMRI Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor. [2]
Following the November 5, 2009 shooting at Fort Hood army base in Texas, in which Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is accused of killing 13 and wounding 29, the connection between Hasan and Al-Awlaki came to light; Hasan’s family attended the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, VA, where Al-Awlaki was preaching in 2001, [3] and Hasan, according to a Fort Hood acquaintance, was an admirer of Al-Awlaki [4] and expressed “deep respect” for his teachings. [5] Previously, the FBI linked the mosque to two of the 9/11 hijackers. [6]
On November 9, Al-Awlaki published an article on his website Anwar-alawlaki.com, in which he called Hasan a “hero” and “a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.”
Information on Host Anwar Al-Awlaki’s Website
The registration information for Anwar Al-Awlaki’s website is as follows: The domain ANWAR-ALAWLAKI.COM is protected by the private domain registration company DomainsByProxy.com. The information listed for DomainsByProxy.com is: Domains by Proxy, Inc., DomainsByProxy.com, 15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353, Scottsdale, Arizona85260, United States, (480) 624-2599 Fax (480) 624-2598. A trace of the server hosting the website shows that it’s being hosted by New Dream Network, LLC, 417 Associated Rd., PMB #257, Brea, CA 92821; their “Abuse Team” can be reached at: +1-714-706-4182, abuse@dreamhost.com
Following is Al-Awlaki’s article, as it appeared on his website.
“Nidal Hassan Is A Hero”
“Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush aside and just pretend that it doesn’t exist. Any decent Muslim cannot live, understanding properly his duties towards his Creator and his fellow Muslims, and yet serve as a U.S. soldier.”
“How Can There Be Any Dispute About the Virtue of What He Has Done?”
“The U.S. is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam. Its army is directly invading two Muslim countries and indirectly occupying the rest through its stooges.
“Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the U.S. army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal. The heroic act of brother Nidal also shows the dilemma of the Muslim American community. Increasingly they are being cornered into taking stances that would either make them betray Islam or betray their nation. Many amongst them are choosing the former. The Muslim organizations in America came out in a pitiful chorus condemning Nidal’s operation.”
“The Fact That Fighting Against the U.S. Army Is an Islamic Duty Today Cannot Be Disputed”
“The fact that fighting against the U.S. army is an Islamic duty today cannot be disputed. No scholar with a grain of Islamic knowledge can defy the clear cut proofs that Muslims today have the right – rather the duty- to fight against American tyranny. Nidal has killed soldiers who were about to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in order to kill Muslims. The American Muslims who condemned his actions have committed treason against the Muslim Ummah and have fallen into hypocrisy.
“Allah(swt) says: Give tidings to the hypocrites that there is for them a painful punishment -
Those who take disbelievers as allies instead of the believers. Do they seek with them honor [through power]? But indeed, honor belongs to Allah entirely. (al-Nisa 136-137)”
“The Wisdom Behind the Opinions That Call For Migration [of Muslims] From The West”
“The inconsistency of being a Muslim today and living in America and the West in general reveals the wisdom behind the opinions that call for migration from the West. It is becoming more and more difficult to hold on to Islam in an environment that is becoming more hostile towards Muslims.”
“Ask Allah to Accept From Him His Great Heroic Act”
“May Allah grant our brother Nidal patience, perseverance, and steadfastness, and we ask Allah to accept from him his great heroic act. Ameen”
[1] http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP261009
[2] http://www.memrijttm.org/content/en/report.htm?report=3683¶m=GJN
[3] http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091109/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_fort_hood_muslims_15, November 9, 2009.
[4] McClatchy Newspapers, November 8, 2009.
[5] The Telegraph (UK), November 7, 2009.
[6] Houston Chronicle, November 9, 2009.
Introspection, Not Rationalization, Needed in Wake of Fort Hood Slaughter
Source:IPT Report
A picture of Nidal Malik Hasan is emerging from the slaughter he carried out Thursday during a ceremony at a Fort Hood readiness center, leaving 13 people dead and another 30 wounded.Born in Virginia, sent to medical school by the U.S. Army, the psychiatrist was chastised for proselytizing to his patients about Islam.
Asked his nationality, he didn’t identify himself as an American but as a Palestinian. He appeared pleased by the shooting death of a Little Rock Army recruiter in June and reportedly was heard saying “maybe people should strap bombs on themselves and go to Times Square.”In the fateful moment before he opened fire on his unarmed victims, he shouted “Allahu Akhbar.”
With each new disclosure, some media outlets and organized Islamist groups increasingly are trying to deflect attention away from Hasan’s religious motivation. In a statement condemning the attack, the Muslim American Society’s Freedom Foundation referenced past shootings by soldiers on their bases and cited the suicide rate at Fort Hood.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued a statement once the killer’s name was known condemning the attack and saying “No religious or political ideology could ever justify or excuse such wanton and indiscriminate violence.”
The condemnations are welcome and appropriate if not the only thing that could be done in response to the tragedy. As we have noted previously, such unequivocal statements are much harder to come by when arrests are made before the killings can be carried out or when the killers share the Islamists’ ideology.
Arab-American Anti Discrimination Committee President Mary Rose Oakar issued a statement calling the Hasan attack “absolutely deplorable.” But she also emphasized that the violence “has nothing to do with any religion, race, ethnicity, or national origin.”
Friday morning, CAIR national spokesman Ibrahim Hooper told radio interviewer John Hockenberry that Hasan’s motivation remains unknown:
“He could have just snapped from some kind of stress. The thing is when these things happen and the guy’s name is John Smith nobody says well what about his religious beliefs? But when it is a Muslim sounding name that automatically comes into it.”
Contrast that with blogger Shahed Amanullah’s willingness to address the matter with courage and honesty lacking among the American Muslim community’s self-anointed national spokesmen:
“Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, was reportedly troubled by his impending deployment to Iraq. Mental instability and depression has resulted in violence within the armed forces before. But unless Hasan left an explicit message to that effect, a religiously-inspired political act of violence is, much as we’d be unwilling to admit it, entirely plausible. With that in mind, Muslims will have to ask themselves some difficult questions as to why there are still those among us who continue to find justification for acts such as this in their faith.”
Hasan’s murderous rampage is just the latest in a string of attempts to murder American soldiers at home. It’s a point Daniel Pipes made in 2003 after Hasan Akbar, a sergeant in the 101st Airborne Division, rolled a grenade into a tent holding his fellow soldiers on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. Akbar was found legally sane, convicted and sentenced to death in 2005.
In June, Abdulhakim Muhammad killed an Army recruiter in Little Rock and wounded a second recruiter. He told investigators he would have killed more people if he had seen them.
Fortunately, other plots were broken up by law enforcement before anyone got hurt. But in those cases, the Islamist organizations have cast the FBI as engaging in a sinister effort to entrap people otherwise uninterested in violence or incapable of carrying it out.
Among the examples:
Fort Dix
On May 7, 2007, six individuals were arrested for plotting an attack on the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey. The goal of the attack, according to court documents, was to “kill as many soldiers as possible.” Following a jury trial, the plotters were found guilty on charges of conspiracy to harm U.S. military personnel on December 22, 2008. CAIR initially was supportive following the arrests saying, “we applaud the FBI for its efforts and repeat the American Muslim community’s condemnation and repudiation of all those who would plan or carry out acts of terror while falsely claiming their actions have religious justification.”
Later, CAIR also requested that media outlets and public officials refrain from linking this case to the faith of Islam. The council asked mosques and Islamic institutions in New Jersey and nationwide to report any incidents of anti-Muslim backlash.
Bronx Terror Plot
On May 20, 2009, James Cromitie and three others were arrested and indicted on charges arising from a plot to detonate explosives near a synagogue in the Bronx and to shoot down military planes at the New York Air National Guard Base at Stewart Airport in Newburgh, NY. Although they initially condemned the plotters and congratulated the FBI on its efforts, MPAC came to question the motives and methods of the FBI saying that “none of these cases that we’re talking about now involved in al Qaida cells. These were individuals who were either petty criminals or gullible people who were guilty of stupidity. They were not imminent threats to our country, as the FBI has stated.”
North Carolina Jihad
On July 27, 2009, Daniel Patrick Boyd and six others were indicted in North Carolina for planning to “advance violent Jihad including supporting and participating in terrorist activities abroad and committing acts of murder, kidnapping, or maiming persons abroad,” after three years of being under surveillance by the FBI. Among the allegations was that Boyd and his co-conspirators intended to attack the Quantico Marine base. Because a member of Boyd’s group cooperated with law enforcement, MPAC insinuated the FBI improperly investigated the case: “the arrests come at a time when questions have been raised about the use of FBI informants in mosques and tense relations between law enforcement and local communities.”
The same pattern has been applied in the past two weeks, since FBI agents shot and killed a Detroit imam who fired first. Luqman Abdullah had a long history of advocating an offensive jihad and using his mosque for training in martial arts and with weapons. Yet CAIR and other Islamist groups have argued his religious justifications should not be a part of the case and allege the FBI reacted with excessive force after Abdullah fired his weapon.
There’s obviously a lot more to Hasan’s attack still to be learned. He reportedly dreaded his pending deployment to Iraq and may have snapped. But to dismiss his statements about people “strap[ping] bombs on themselves” or that Muslims should rise up and fight the aggressors is irresponsible and counter productive.
This is no isolated incident and the sooner national groups face that fact, the sooner they might heed Amanullah’s challenge to engage in a genuine search for the causes and confront those who help foster such violent ideology.
Source: ABC News
Officials: U.S. Aware of Hasan Efforts to Contact al Qaeda
Army Major in Fort Hood Massacre Used ‘Electronic Means’ to Connect with Terrorists
By Richard ESPOSITO, MATTHEW COLE and BRIAN ROSS
U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik 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.
It is not known whether the intelligence agencies informed the Army that one of its officers was seeking to connect with suspected al Qaeda figures, the officials said.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said that he requested the CIA and other intelligence agencies brief the committee on what was known, if anything, about Hasan by the U.S. intelligence community, only to be refused.
In response, Hoekstra issued a document preservation request to four intelligence agencies. The letter, dated November 7th, was sent to directors Dennis Blair (DNI), Robert Mueller (FBI), Lt. Gen Keith Alexander (NSA) and Leon Panetta (CIA).
Hoekstra said he is “absolutely furious” that the house intel committee has been refused an intelligence briefing by the DNI or CIA on Hasan’s attempt to reach out to al Qaeda, as first reported by ABC News.
“This is a law enforcement investigation, in which other agencies—not the CIA—have the lead,” CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said in a response to ABC News. ” Any suggestion that the CIA refused to brief Congress is incorrect.”
Investigators want to know if Hasan maintained contact with a radical mosque leader from Virginia, Anwar al Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen and runs a web site that promotes jihad around the world against the U.S.
In a blog posting early Monday titled “Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing,” Awlaki calls Hasan a “hero” and a “man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.”
According to his site, Awlaki served as an imam in Denver, San Diego and Falls Church, Virginia.
The Associated Press reported Sunday that Major Hasan attended the Falls Church mosque when Awlaki was there. The Telegraph of London reported that Awlaki had made contact with two of the 9/11 hijackers when he was in San Diego. He denied any knowledge of the hijacking plot and was never charged with any crime. After an intensive investigation by the FBI , Awlaki moved to Yemen. People who knew or worked with Hasan say he seemed to have gradually become more radical in his disapproval of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. On Sunday, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) called for an investigation into whether the Army missed signs as to whether Hasan was an Islamic extremist. “If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have a zero tolerance,” Lieberman told Fox News Sunday.
Army Chief of Staff
A fellow Army doctor who studied with Hasan, Val Finell, told ABC News, “He would frequently say he was a Muslim first and an American second. And that came out in just about everything he did at the University.” Finell said he and other Army doctors complained to superiors about Hasan’s statements. “And we questioned how somebody could take an oath of office…be an officer in the military and swear allegiance to the constitution and to defend America against all enemies, foreign and domestic and have that type of conflict,” Finell told ABC News. The Army Chief of Staff, General George Casey, raised concerns over the weekend that innocent Muslim soldiers could suffer as a result of the shooting at Fort Hood.
“I think the speculation (on Hasan’s Islamic roots) could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Source: FrontPageMag
Sudden Jihad or Inordinate Stress at Ft. Hood? – by Daniel Pipes
When a Muslim in the West for no apparent reason violently attacks non-Muslims, a predictable argument ensues about motives.
The establishment – law enforcement, politicians, the media, and the academy – stands on one side of this debate, insisting that some kind of oppression caused Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, to kill 13 and wound 38 at Ft. Hood on Nov. 5. It disagrees on the specifics, however, presenting Hasan as the victim alternatively of “racism,” “harassment he had received as a Muslim,” a sense of not belonging,” “pre-traumatic stress disorder,” “mental problems,” “emotional problems,” “an inordinate amount of stress,” or being deployed to Afghanistan as his “worst nightmare.” Accordingly, a typical newspaper headline reads “Mindset of Rogue Major a Mystery.”.
Instances of Muslim-on-unbeliever violence inspire the victim school to dig up new and imaginative excuses. Colorful examples (drawing on my article and weblog entry about denying Islamist terrorism) include:
- 1990: “A prescription drug for … depression” (to explain the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane)
- 1991: “A robbery gone wrong” (the murder of Makin Morcos in Sydney)
- 1994: “Road rage” (the killing of a random Jew on the Brooklyn Bridge)
- 1997: “Many, many enemies in his mind” (the shooting murder atop the Empire State Building)
- 2000: A traffic incident (the attack on a bus of Jewish schoolchildren near Paris)
- 2002: “A work dispute” (the double murder at LAX)
- 2002: A “stormy [family] relationship” (the Beltway snipers)
- 2003: An “attitude problem” (Hasan Karim Akbar’s attack on fellow soldiers, killing two)
- 2003: Mental illness (the mutilation murder of Sebastian Sellam)
- 2004: “Loneliness and depression” (an explosion in Brescia, Italy outside a McDonald’s restaurant)
- 2005: “A disagreement between the suspect and another staff member” (a rampage at a retirement center in Virginia)
- 2006: “An animus toward women” (a murderous rampage at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle in 2006)
- 2006: “His recent, arranged marriage may have made him stressed” (killing with an SUV in northern California in 2006)
 Sgt. Hasan Karim Akbar, convicted of the 2003 murder of two fellow soldiers.
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Additionally, when an Osama bin Laden-admiring Arab-American crashed his plane into a Tampa high-rise, blame fell on the acne drug Accutane.
As a charter member of the jihad school of interpretation, I reject these explanations as weak, obfuscatory, and apologetic. The jihadi school, still in the minority, perceives Hasan’s attack as one of many Muslim efforts to vanquish infidels and impose Islamic law. We recall a prior episode of sudden jihad syndrome in the U.S. military, as well as the numerous cases of non-lethal Pentagon jihadis and the history of Muslim violence on American soil.
We are not mystified by Hasan but see overwhelming evidence of his jihadi intentions. He handed out Korans to neighbors just before going on his rampage and yelled “Allahu Akbar,” the jihadi’s cry, as he fired off over 100 rounds from two pistols. His superiors reportedly put him on probation for inappropriately proselytizing about Islam.
We note what former associates say about him: one, Val Finnell, quotes Hasan saying, “I’m a Muslim first and an American second” and recalls Hasan justifying suicide terrorism; another, Col Terry Lee, recalls that Hasan “claimed Muslims had the right to rise up and attack Americans”; the third, a psychiatrist who worked very closely with Hasan, described him as “almost belligerent about being Muslim.”
Finally, the jihad school of thought attributes importance to the Islamic authorities’ urging American Muslim soldiers to refuse to fight their co-religionists, thereby providing a basis for sudden jihad. In 2001, for example, responding to the U.S. attack on the Taliban, the mufti of Egypt, Ali Gum’a, issued a fatwa stating that “The Muslim soldier in the American army must refrain [from participating] in this war.” Hasan himself, echoing that message, advised a young Muslim disciple, Duane Reasoner Jr., not to join the U.S. army because “Muslims shouldn’t kill Muslims.”
If the jihad explanation is overwhelmingly more persuasive than the victim one, it’s also far more awkward to articulate. Everyone finds blaming road rage, Accutane, or an arranged marriage easier than discussing Islamic doctrines. And so, a prediction: what Ralph Peters calls the army’s “unforgivable political correctness” will officially ascribe Hasan’s assault to his victimization and will leave jihad unmentioned.
And thus will the army blind itself and not prepare for its next jihadi attack.
Source: FrontPageMag
Why He Shouted “Allahu Akbar” – by Jamie Glazov
by Jamie Glazov
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Robert Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of nine books on Islam and Jihad, a weekly columnist for Human Events and Frontpagemag.com, and has led numerous seminars for the U.S. military and intelligence communities. He is the author of the new book, The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran.
FP: Robert Spencer, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
What do we now know about the Fort Hood shooting and what conclusions can we make?
Spencer: Jamie, we now know from the testimony of various eyewitnesses that this act was carefully planned. Nidal Malik Hasan some time ago told his landlord he would not be renewing the lease on his apartment. He gave away his furniture along with copies of the Qur’an on the morning of the day he committed mass murder. This indicates that he thought he was going to die – in other words, that he was planning a suicide attack. As he began firing, he shouted “Allahu Akbar.”
We also know that he was disciplined for proselytizing for Islam during his stint at the Uniformed Service University of the Health Sciences. Law enforcement officials flagged Internet postings written by a man named “Nidal Hasan” and he was praising suicide attacks, but they couldn’t be sure that he was the man who had written them. Still, it was in character: one of his colleagues recalled that he had said that Muslims must rise up against the U.S. military, and had spoken approvingly of Sgt. Hasan Akbar, a Muslim soldier in the U.S. military who lobbed a grenade at American troops, killing two, several years ago.
And we know that during a lecture he was supposed to be giving on a medical topic, he instead preached Islam, warning the assembled unbelievers of hellfire in such lurid Koranic terms that some left the hall wondering if he might end up shooting someone someday.
FP: Why does the media and liberal-Left so reflexively deny and ignore these conclusions?
Spencer: They reflexively deny and ignore these conclusions because they are completely sold out to the idea that Muslims, as non-white, non-Christian, non-Westerners, cannot possibly be anything but victims. (The facts that there are white Muslims, and that the jihad doctrine and Islamic supremacism are not racial issues, but constitute an ideological and societal challenge, are completely lost on them. Likewise the non-white victims of the jihad matter nothing to them.) We can see from the avalanche of “backlash” stories in the mainstream media – even in the absence of any actual backlash – that it is simply impossible for these people to conceive of a paradigm in which Muslims can perpetrate any kind of evil at all. In the lenses through which they view the world, only white Judeo-Christian Westerners can do anything wrong.
FP: What does this massacre, and the media response, indicate about what is coming down the line for our country?
Spencer: The more we remain in denial about how these things happen, and from what wellsprings they come, the more we will see of attacks like this. Why? Because nothing is being done to prevent them. Instead of the endless stories about backlash that we are seeing, we should be seeing stories about authorities calling the American Muslim community to account. We should be seeing stories about authorities demanding transparent, inspectable programs in American mosques and Islamic schools, teaching against the Islamic doctrines that inspired Nidal Hasan. This is not a religious freedom issue – these are political doctrines with a lethal edge, as Nidal Hasan illustrated. It is an entirely Constitutional matter of self-protection to move to restrict it.
But that won’t happen. Political correctness has the media and government in a stranglehold. That will only ensure that nothing will be done to address this problem at its root, and we will see many more Nidal Hasans.
FP: Robert Spencer, thank you for joining us.
*
Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine’s editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Russian, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He is the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union and is the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. His new book is United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.
[To get the whole story on why the liberal media and the Left deny the true nature of Islamic jihad, read Jamie Glazov’s new book, United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror.]
Source: NY Post
Ralph Peters
Call this horror by its name: Islamist terror
U.S. President Barack Obama steps of Marine One at a landing zone on his way to visit wounded soldiers at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, November 6, 2009. REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES)
On Thursday afternoon, a radicalized Muslim US Army officer shouting, “Allahu akbar!” (“God is great!”) committed the worst act of terror on American soil since 9/11. And no one wants to call it an act of terror or associate it with Islam.
What cowards we are. Political correctness killed those patriotic Americans at Fort Hood as surely as the Islamist gunman did. And the media treat it like a case of nondenominational shoplifting.
This was a terrorist act. When an extremist plans and executes a murderous plot against our unarmed soldiers to protest our efforts to counter Islamist fanatics, it’s an act of terror. Period.
When the terrorist posts anti-American hate speech on the Web; apparently praises suicide bombers and uses his own name; loudly criticizes US policies; argues (as a psychiatrist, no less) with his military patients over the worth of their sacrifices; refuses, in the name of Islam, to be photographed with female colleagues; lists his nationality as “Palestinian” in a Muslim spouse-matching program and parades around central Texas in a fundamentalist playsuit — well, it only seems fair to call this terrorist an “Islamist terrorist.”
But the president won’t. Despite his promise to get to all the facts. Because there’s no such thing as “Islamist terrorism” in ObamaWorld.
And the Army won’t. Because its senior leaders are so sick with political correctness that pandering to America haters is safer than calling terrorism “terrorism.”
And the media won’t. Because they have more interest in the shooter than in our troops — despite their crocodile tears.
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan planned this terrorist attack and executed it in cold blood. The resulting massacre was the first tragedy. The second was that he wasn’t killed on the spot.
Hasan survived. Now the rest of us will have to foot his massive medical bills. Activist lawyers will get involved, claiming “harassment” drove him temporarily insane. There’ll be no end of trial delays. At best, taxpayer dollars will fund his prison lifestyle for decades to come, since our politically correct Army leadership wouldn’t dare pursue or carry out the death penalty.
Maj. Hasan will be a hero to Islamist terrorists abroad and their sympathizers here. While US Muslim organizations decry his acts publicly, Hasan will be praised privately. And he’ll have the last laugh.
But Hasan isn’t the sole guilty party. The US Army’s unforgivable political correctness is also to blame for the casualties at Fort Hood.
Given the myriad warning signs, it’s appalling that no action was taken against a man apparently known to praise suicide bombers and openly damn US policy. But no officer in his chain of command, either at Walter Reed Army Medical Center or at Fort Hood, had the guts to take meaningful action against a dysfunctional soldier and an incompetent doctor.
Had Hasan been a Lutheran or a Methodist, he would’ve been gone with the simoom. But officers fear charges of discrimination when faced with misconduct among protected minorities.
Now 12 soldiers and a security guard lie dead. At least 38 people were wounded, 28 of them seriously. If heads don’t roll in this maggot’s chain of command, the Army will have shamed itself beyond moral redemption.
There’s another important issue, too. How could the Army allow an obviously incompetent and dysfunctional psychiatrist to treat our troubled soldiers returning from war? An Islamist wacko is counseled for arguing with veterans who’ve been assigned to his care? And he’s not removed from duty? What planet does the Army live on?
For the first time since I joined the Army in 1976, I’m ashamed of its dereliction of duty. The chain of command protected a budding terrorist who was waving one red flag after another. Because it was safer for careers than doing something about him.
Get ready for the apologias. We’ve already heard from the terrorist’s family that “he’s a good American.” In their world, maybe he is.
But when do we, the American public, knock off the PC nonsense?
A disgruntled Muslim soldier murdered his officers way back in 2003, in Kuwait, on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Recently? An American mullah shoots it out with the feds in Detroit. A Muslim fanatic attacks an Arkansas recruiting station. A Muslim media owner, after playing the peace card, beheads his wife. A Muslim father runs over his daughter because she’s becoming too Westernized.
Muslim terrorist wannabes are busted again and again. And we’re assured that “Islam’s a religion of peace.”
I guarantee you that the Obama administration’s nonresponse to the Fort Hood attack will mock the memory of our dead.
Ralph Peters’ latest novel is “The War After Armageddon.”
CNN: Radical American Muslims praise Fort Hood shooter
Fort Hood gunman had told US military colleagues that infidels should have their throats cut
Fort Hood gunman had told US military colleagues that infidels should have their throats cut
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the gunman who killed 13 at America’s Fort Hood military base, once gave a lecture to other doctors in which he said non-believers should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats.
Source: Telegraph
Hat Tip: Jeff Imm
By Nick Allen in Fort Hood
Published: 5:00PM GMT 08 Nov 2009
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S. Army doctor named as a suspect in the shooting death of 13 people and the wounding of 31 others at Fort Hood, Texas Photo: GETTY
He also told colleagues at America’s top military hospital that non-Muslims were infidels condemned to hell who should be set on fire. The outburst came during an hour-long talk Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, gave on the Koran in front of dozens of other doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington DC, where he worked for six years before arriving at Fort Hood in July.
Colleagues had expected a discussion on a medical issue but were instead given an extremist interpretation of the Koran, which Hasan appeared to believe.
It was the latest in a series of “red flags” about his state of mind that have emerged since the massacre at Fort Hood, America’s largest military installation, on Thursday.
Hasan, armed with two handguns including a semi-automatic pistol, walked into a processing centre for soldiers deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan, where he killed 13 and injured more than 30.
Fellow doctors have recounted how they were repeatedly harangued by Hasan about religion and that he openly claimed to be a “Muslim first and American second.”
One Army doctor who knew him said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim soldier had stopped fellow officers from filing formal complaints.
Another, Dr Val Finnell, who took a course with him in 2007 at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Maryland, did complain about Hasan’s “anti-American rants.” He said: “The system is not doing what it’s supposed to do. He at least should have been confronted about these beliefs, told to cease and desist, and to shape up or ship out. I really questioned his loyalty.”
Selena Coppa, an activist for Iraq Veterans Against the War, said: “This man was a psychiatrist and was working with other psychiatrists every day and they failed to notice how deeply disturbed someone right in their midst was.”
One of Hasan’s neighbours described how on the day of the massacre, about 9am, he gave her a Koran and told her: “I’m going to do good work for God” before leaving for the base.
A civilian police officer who shot him, bringing the rampage to an end, said Hasan appeared “calm” during the massacre, hiding behind a telephone pole and shooting fellow soldiers in the back as they tried to get away.
“He was firing at people as they were trying to run and hide, said Sgt Mark Todd. “Then he turned and fired a couple of rounds at me. I didn’t hear him say a word, he just turned and fired.”
Hasan flinched after he was shot and slid down against the pole still clutching his gun, which had a laser sight on it. The officer kicked away the weapon and handcuffed him.
He said: “The guy was breathing, his eyes were blinking. I could tell that he was fading out and he didn’t say anything. He was just kind of blinking.”
Senator Joe Lieberman, who chairs the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security, said there had been “strong warning signs” that Hasan was an “Islamist extremist”.
The committee would ask “whether the Army missed warning signs that should have led them to essentially discharge him, he said. He added: “The US
Army has to have zero tolerance. He should have been gone.”
But General George Casey, the Army’s Chief of Staff, said it was “speculation” that military authorities failed to pick up on warning signs. “I don’t want to say that we missed it,” he said.
Asked if military authorities had missed warning signs Gen Casey, the Army’s Chief of Staff, added: “We have to go back and look at ourselves ,and ask ourselves the hard questions. Are we doing the right things? We will learn from this.
“It’s too early to draw conclusions but we will ask ourselves the hard questions about what we are doing and the changes we should make as a result of this.”
Obama blowing off the Muslim committing Jihad on his own fellow soldiers at Fort Hood was spelled out very well in the blog from The Foxhole. If you watch the video at the end of the posting it should help to explain a lot of Obama and his attitude toward his fellow Muslim’s. This man lied to the American people about his Muslim background, he was Muslim before and he is still Muslim now, and always will be a Muslim.
Source: The Foxhole
Hat Tip to JustOneMinute.
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2009/11/maybe-if-we-apologized-with-greater-deference.html
……Obama, extending condolences to the community at Fort Hood, Texas, reminded Americans on Saturday that people of “every race, faith and station” serve in the military — an oblique attempt to prevent a backlash against Muslims in the wake of Thursday’s shootings by an Army psychiatrist.
This, in spite of the fact that non-mulsims who serve in the military usually don’t pick up their weapons and kill fellow servicemembers in the name of their particular gods, religion, or ideology.
And of course, the New York Times, that bastion of truth, enlightenment, and objectivity weighed in:
Obama has made it a goal of his presidency to repair relations with Muslims around the world; in a major speech in Cairo this year, he called for a “new beginning” with the Muslim world. The shootings at Fort Hood, however, pose a different problem for the president, by shining a spotlight on the tensions Muslims feel inside the United States.
Scuse the fuck outta me but Obama, the State Department, the Homeland Security Department, and the MSM, have gone out of their way to accomodate and make excuses for radical muslims here and outside the country.
The crap about the possibility of PTSD being involved is bullshit on stilts. Hasan never left the United States; he was never deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. His motives were purely Islamic-based ideology and hatred for this country.
This little muslim jihadist made his feelings quite known to subordinates and peers alike. During a conference with other officers he stated that: ‘muslims had the right to rise up and attack Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan’, ‘we shouldn’t be over there’, and ‘maybe the muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor’.
But, those are facts that leftwing rag will never print.
The New York Post, on the other hand, presents the hardcore facts about Hasan’s background, associates, and violent Islamic proclivities.
What interpretation of Islam influenced Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan? As often before, the trail leads to the official sect of Saudi Arabia — known as Wahhabism…..
Hasan, though born in America, refused to have his picture taken with women — an attitude distinct to fundamentalist radicalism among Muslims.
……We’ve also learned that, before his transfer to Ft. Hood last year, Hasan served as a psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, and regularly attended Friday prayer at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, Md.
……Yet what docrines did Hasan absorb at the mosque? While he was a communicant, it hosted at least four talks by Enver Masud, the founder of The Wisdom Fund, the main Muslim “truther” group in America.
And Khan is a leading board member of the Islamic Society of North America — the main Wahhabi-lobby group in the United States, established by Saudi Arabia to impose extremism on American Muslims. ISNA has a long and disgraceful record of promoting radical Islam.
On the roster of the ISNA board (listed on its Web site), the Silver Spring center’s Imam Faizul Khan is the fourth member under its president.
But the mosque has worse associations. On its own Web site (mccmd.org), it promotes a Sharia-based financial product — the Amana Mutual Fund, put together by the Wahhabis at the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT), in northern Virginia.
Federal antiterrorism agents raided IIIT in the Operation GreenQuest raids of 2002. That operation remains an ongoing inquiry; IIIT and the Amana fund are still under investigation. Convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian is still in US federal custody because of his refusal to give evidence about the Virginia Wahhabi ring caught in GreenQuest.
Most interesting of all: The button on the MCC’s Web site titled “Islam” takes you to a pamphlet titled “Islam Is . . .” by a person calling himself “Pete Seda.”
Seda is an Iranian also known as Pirouz Sedaghaty and Abu Yunus. He was one of three officers of the US branch of a Saudi-based “charity,” the Al-Haramain Foundation — until being indicted by the Justice Department for terror financing and tax fraud. Seda and his companions still await trial.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/take_look_at_hasan_old_mosque_tqVGxjbLxWz8SV5tnpmV2N
From Ralph Peters:
On Thursday afternoon, a radicalized Muslim US Army officer shouting, “Allahu akbar!” (“God is great!”) committed the worst act of terror on American soil since 9/11. And no one wants to call it an act of terror or associate it with Islam.
What cowards we are. Political correctness killed those patriotic Americans at Fort Hood as surely as the Islamist gunman did. And the media treat it like a case of nondenominational shoplifting.This was a terrorist act. When an extremist plans and executes a murderous plot against our unarmed soldiers to protest our efforts to counter Islamist fanatics, it’s an act of terror. Period.
When the terrorist posts anti-American hate speech on the Web; apparently praises suicide bombers and uses his own name; loudly criticizes US policies; argues (as a psychiatrist, no less) with his military patients over the worth of their sacrifices; refuses, in the name of Islam, to be photographed with female colleagues; lists his nationality as “Palestinian” in a Muslim spouse-matching program and parades around central Texas in a fundamentalist playsuit — well, it only seems fair to call this terrorist an “Islamist terrorist.”
But the president won’t. Despite his promise to get to all the facts. Because there’s no such thing as “Islamist terrorism” in ObamaWorld.
And the Army won’t. Because its senior leaders are so sick with political correctness that pandering to America haters is safer than calling terrorism “terrorism.”
And the media won’t. Because they have more interest in the shooter than in our troops — despite their crocodile tears.
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan planned this terrorist attack and executed it in cold blood. The resulting massacre was the first tragedy. The second was that he wasn’t killed on the spot.
Hasan survived. Now the rest of us will have to foot his massive medical bills. Activist lawyers will get involved, claiming “harassment” drove him temporarily insane. There’ll be no end of trial delays. At best, taxpayer dollars will fund his prison lifestyle for decades to come, since our politically correct Army leadership wouldn’t dare pursue or carry out the death penalty.
Maj. Hasan will be a hero to Islamist terrorists abroad and their sympathizers here. While US Muslim organizations decry his acts publicly, Hasan will be praised privately. And he’ll have the last laugh.
But Hasan isn’t the sole guilty party. The US Army’s unforgivable political correctness is also to blame for the casualties at Fort Hood.
Given the myriad warning signs, it’s appalling that no action was taken against a man apparently known to praise suicide bombers and openly damn US policy. But no officer in his chain of command, either at Walter Reed Army Medical Center or at Fort Hood, had the guts to take meaningful action against a dysfunctional soldier and an incompetent doctor.
Had Hasan been a Lutheran or a Methodist, he would’ve been gone with the simoom. But officers fear charges of discrimination when faced with misconduct among protected minorities.
Now 12 soldiers and a security guard lie dead. At least 38 people were wounded, 28 of them seriously. If heads don’t roll in this maggot’s chain of command, the Army will have shamed itself beyond moral redemption.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/call_this_horror_by_its_name_islamist_HT78Wt6NkWoCGq5HIOwlII
Yeah, he did yell “Allah is Great!!”:
Disturbing new details surfaced yesterday about the deranged Fort Hood gunman and his methodical mass murder plot, which survivors say began with him screaming “Allahu akbar,” before he fired more than 100 rounds at his fellow soldiers.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/killer_cry_allahu_akbar_Ni1oXjARVgdWay1dk6qfFK#ixzz0WCx3VRVt
He ought have his citizenship revoked, be publically stripped of his rank, insignia, and uniform, and put up against a wall and shot.
I’d even volunteer to be on the firing squad.
Obama Admits He Is A Muslim
Texas: Media Reports on Attack at Fort Hood – Worst Mass Killing on U.S. Military Base
Texas: Media Reports on Attack at Fort Hood – Worst Mass Killing on U.S. Military Base
Hat Tip Jeff Imm
Source: UnitedStatesAction
November 6, 2009
In what is being reported by the media as the “worst mass killing on a U.S. military base,” media reports indicate that the shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan, was opposed to the U.S. war in Afghanistan and was upset because he was to be deployed to Afghanistan. Hasan has been described as a “lifelong Muslim.” Multiple reports state that Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar” before opening fire on the individuals at the Fort Hood, Texas military base. Prior to the attack, Hasan reportedly dressed in ‘Arabic clothing’ over the past several weeks, and was reportedly handing out Qurans and giving away his furniture the morning before the attack. CCTV video shows Hasan in “traditional Muslim robes and a prayer cap” before the attack. CNN reports that Hasan appeared “cool, calm, religious” before the Fort Hood attack.
The Daily Telegraph reports: “‘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.” It also reports that “Federal law enforcement officials have said Maj Hasan had come to their attention at least six months ago because of internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats.”
The Associated Press reports: “At least six months ago, Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades. They had not determined for certain whether Hasan is the author of the posting, and a formal investigation had not been opened before the shooting, said law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the case.” An Internet SCRIBD posting from a “Nidal Hasan” (unknown if this is the same Nidal Malik Hasan) shows a comment from a “NidalHasan” on suicide bombers: “You can call them crazy i you want but their act was not one of suicide that is despised by Islam. So the scholars main point is that ‘IT SEEMS AS THOUGH YOUR INTENTION IS THE MAIN ISSUE” and Allah (SWT) knows best.’”
The Associated Press also reports that “Federal law-enforcement agents ordered an evacuation of the apartment complex where Hasan lived in Killeen, Texas, Thursday night and conducted a search of his home, said Hilary Shine, director of public information for the city. She didn’t say what was found during the search.” “Officials said earlier that federal search warrants were being drawn up to authorize the seizure of his computer.
The New York Times reports that “General Cone said that terrorism was not being ruled out, but that preliminary evidence did not suggest that the rampage had been an act of terrorism,” and MSNBC reported that DHS Secretary Napolitano believed that it was “too soon to tell” on the shooter’s motivation. The Christian Science Monitor suggests a motive in the Fort Hood attack by asking if “Are Army psychiatrists overwhelmed?” The UK Guardian also focuses on combat stress issues.
Counterterrorism analyst Walid Phares described that Fort Hood attack “is for now the largest single Terror act in America since 9/11.” Phares stated that “what the world has seen and is eager to learn about cannot be described just as ‘horrific outburst of violence’ performed on American military, rather is part of an ideological war, generated by radicalization, and inciting individuals to perform such acts.”
The Washington Post provides a brief bullet biography of Nadil Hasan. Hasan’s parents reportedly immigrated from the Palestinian territories to Jordan, and then to the United States. Reportedly born in Arlington, Virginia (a few miles from Washington DC), Hasan described his nationality as “Palestinian.” His parents lived in Roanoke, Virginia, about three hours away from Washington DC. Prior to his stationing in Fort Hood, Texas, Hasan worked at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the DC/Maryland area, and regularly attended the Muslim Community Center mosque in Silver Spring, Maryland (a few miles from Washington DC), when he lived in the Maryland/DC area. (According to the July 2008 testimony of Steven Emerson before Congress, the Silver Spring, Maryland Muslim Community Center mosque has been used to host a fundraising effort where a speaker “made several radical comments implying that the use of violence is sanctioned by Islam to glorify Allah” (page 12).)
WJZ news reports that Nidal Hasan was a “39-year-old Army major [who] received his medical degree from the military’s Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001.”
National Public Radio (NPR) has reported that “A source tells NPR’s Joseph Shapiro that Hasan was put on probation early in his postgraduate work at the Uniformed Service University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. He was disciplined for proselytizing about his Muslim faith with patients and colleagues, according to the source, who worked with him at the time.”
Update: research shows that Nidal Hasan listed as a “task force participant” in a presidential transition task force meeting on homeland security matters “Thinking Anew-Security Priorities for the Next Administration.” George Washington University (GWU) Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) lists Nidal Hasan from the Uniformed Services University of Health Services (page 29 – electronic page 32 in Appendix C of its May 2009 report.) According to George Washington University (GWU) Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI)’s Frank Cilluffo: “Nidal Hassan has no affiliation whatsoever with HSPI or George Washington University. He has never served on any of our task forces, nor has he ever been invited to speak/brief @ any of our events. We are aware that he has RSVP’d for events as an audience member (our sessions are open to the public) and I remember him participating in the audience for at least one session. We print out RSVPs of audience participants for our sessions to share with others in the audience and speakers (as is the case in our appendix here). He had RSVP’d as a Disaster and Preventative Psychiatry Fellow at the Uniformed Services University School of Medicine…we are in the process of identifying which other sessions he may have RSVP’d for…the first one we are aware of him RSVP’ing was June 2008 & the last was February 2009.” HSPI states that they will provide an update on their web site about Nidal Hasan. HSPI’s web site is: http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/
(Additional Updates When Significant New Developments)
Media Report Excerpts:
– Associated Press reports: “There are many unknowns about Nidal Malik Hasan, the man authorities say is responsible for the worst mass killing on a U.S. military base. Most of all, his motive. But details of his life and mindset, emerging from official sources and personal acquaintances, are troubling.”
– “Federal law-enforcement agents ordered an evacuation of the apartment complex where Hasan lived in Killeen, Texas, Thursday night and conducted a search of his home, said Hilary Shine, director of public information for the city. She didn’t say what was found during the search.
– “Officials said earlier that federal search warrants were being drawn up to authorize the seizure of his computer.”
– “Retired Army Col. Terry Lee, who said he worked with Hasan, told Fox News that Hasan had hoped President Barack Obama would pull troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq. Lee said Hasan got into frequent arguments with others in the military who supported the wars, and had tried hard to prevent his pending deployment.”
– “Hasan attended prayers regularly when he lived outside Washington, often in his Army uniform, said Faizul Khan, a former imam at a mosque Hasan attended in Silver Spring, Md. He said Hasan was a lifelong Muslim.”
– Associated Press reports: “Ft. Hood suspect reportedly shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’”
— “Soldiers who witnessed the shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 people dead reported that the gunman shouted ‘Allahu Akbar!’ before opening fire, the base commander said Friday. Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said officials had not yet confirmed that the suspected shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, made the comment, which is Arabic for ‘God is great!’ before the rampage Thursday, which left 30 people wounded, including the gunman.”
— “Cone said Hasan was not known to be a threat or risk. He acknowledged that it was ‘counterintuitive’ that a single shooter could kill and injure so many people. But he said the massacre occurred in ‘close quarters.’”
– Associated WFAA report
– Associated USA Today report
– New York Times reports: “In an interview on NBC’s ‘Today’ show, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone, a base spokesman, was asked about reports that Major Hasan had yelled ‘Allahu Akbar’ — an Arabic expression for ‘God is great’ — during the shooting. General Cone said soldiers at the scene had reported ’similar’ accounts.”
– “General Cone said that terrorism was not being ruled out, but that preliminary evidence did not suggest that the rampage had been an act of terrorism.”
– KSL reports: “The news of the mass shooting at Fort Hood Thursday hit close to home for some Utahns. One man says his daughter heard the shooter exclaim ‘Allah Akbar’ as he opened fire.”
– Kileen Daily Herald reports: “Shooting suspect on ventilator, wounded in stable condition, police officer identified” — “Hasan had been given orders for to deploy to Afghanistan.”
– “An early morning press conference at Fort Hood has answered some questions with regard to the mass shooting yesterday that claimed the life of 13 people and wounded 30 others.”
– “Dr. W. Roy Smythe spoke at a press conference this morning, saying that two or three of those wounded in yesterday’s tragedy may require further surgery but most injuries were dealt with yesterday. Smythe said they treated patients with gunshot wounds to the head, neck, chest, stomach and extremities. Some victims, he said, had multiple gunshot wounds.”
– “Smythe said one patient told him he was shocked when a man, ‘jumped on a desk and started shooting.’”
– CNN reports: “Suspect Nidal Malik Hasan in stable condition after Fort Hood killings”
– CNN reports: “Fort Hood suspect seemed ‘cool, calm, religious’”
– Daily Telegraph reports: “Fort Hood shooting: Nidal Malik Hasan ’said Muslims should rise up’” — “‘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.”
– “Federal law enforcement officials have said Maj Hasan had come to their attention at least six months ago because of internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats.”
– Kileen Daily Herald reports: “In the morning, neighbors said Hasan handed Qurans and donated his furniture to anyone who would take it. Neighbors described Hasan as a quiet man who began wearing ‘Arabic clothing’ in recent weeks. Edward Windsor, a neighbor, never suspected Hasan was in the Army.”
– Daily Telegraph reports: “Fort Hood shooting: CCTV shows Hasan before killings
US army officer Major Nidal Malik Hasan was captured on CCTV in the hours before the killing, wearing what appear to be traditional Muslim robes and a prayer cap”
— image from CCTV cameras
– ” Major Nidal Malik Hasan (L) on the morning of November 5, 2009 in Fort Hood, Texas Photo: GETTY “
– National Public Radio reports: “A source tells NPR’s Joseph Shapiro that Hasan was put on probation early in his postgraduate work at the Uniformed Service University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. He was disciplined for proselytizing about his Muslim faith with patients and colleagues, according to the source, who worked with him at the time.”
– Daily Telegraph reports: “A Muslim by birth, Hasan was born in Virginia, and his family is believed to have come from Jordan.”
– Associated Press reports: “Imam says Fort Hood suspect didn’t seem radical — A Maryland imam at the mosque attended by the suspected Fort Hood, Texas, shooter says the Army psychiatrist never seemed to be an extremist. Imam Faizul Khan says he knew Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan for more than 10 years. They first met at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring. On a form filled out by those seeking spouses through a program at the mosque, Kahn says Hasan listed his birthplace as Arlington, Va., but his nationality as Palestinian. Khan says he doesn’t know why because Hasan was born in the United States.”
– Washington Post: “Suspect in Fort Hood shootings attended mosque in Silver Spring”
– Washington Post reports: “He prayed every day at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, Md., a devout Muslim who, despite asking to be discharged from the U.S. Army, according to his aunt, was on the eve of his first deployment to war.”
– New York Times reports: “Suspect Was to Be Sent to Afghanistan” – “Investigators began piecing together on Friday how and why an Army psychiatrist facing deployment to Afghanistan gunned down dozens of people a day earlier at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, in one of the worst mass shootings ever on an American military base.”
– BBC reports: “US gunman ‘faced Afghan posting’” – “A US major believed to have killed 13 people in a gun attack at a Texas army base was due to be deployed soon to Afghanistan, a military official said.”
– Associated Press reports: “At least six months ago, Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades.”
– “They had not determined for certain whether Hasan is the author of the posting, and a formal investigation had not been opened before the shooting, said law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the case.”
– New York Times reports: Hasan’s parents were Jordanian, and “immigrated from a small town near Jerusalem many years ago… [with Roanoke Times stating that Hasan's mother] was born in Palestine in 1952″
– Internet SCRIBD posting from a “Nidal Hasan” (unknown if this is the same Nidal Malik Hasan) states: “NidalHasan scribbled: There was a grenade thrown amongs a group of American soldiers. One of the soldiers, feeling that it was to late for everyone to flee jumped on the grave with the intention of saving his comrades. Indeed he saved them. He inentionally took his life (suicide) for a noble cause i.e. saving the lives of his soldier. To say that this soldier committed suicide is inappropriate. Its more appropriate to say he is a brave hero that sacrificed his life for a more noble cause. Scholars have paralled this to suicide bombers whose intention, by sacrificing their lives, is to help save Muslims by killing enemy soldiers. If one suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers because they were caught off guard that would be considered a strategic victory. Their intention is not to die because of some despair. The same can be said for the Kamikazees in Japan. They died (via crashing their planes into ships) to kill the enemies for the homeland. You can call them crazy i you want but their act was not one of suicide that is despised by Islam. So the scholars main point is that “IT SEEMS AS THOUGH YOUR INTENTION IS THE MAIN ISSUE” and Allah (SWT) knows best.”
– Fort Hood: The largest “Terror act” in America since 9/11 – by Walid Phares
—- Walid Phares: Fort Hood attack “is for now the largest single Terror act in America since 9/11″
—- Walid Phares: “In that case, what the world has seen and is eager to learn about cannot be described just as ‘horrific outburst of violence’ performed on American military, rather is part of an ideological war, generated by radicalization, and inciting individuals to perform such acts.”
– MSNBC video reports: DHS Secretary “Napolitano: ‘Too soon to tell’ on shooter’s motivation”
– Daily Telegraph: “Fort Hood shooting: police woman hailed for bravery”
– Research shows that a “Nidal Hasan – Uniformed Services University School of Medicine” (see PDF Below, page 29) was a participant in a Task Force meeting in support of a George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) established the Presidential Transition Task Force for on “Thinking Anew-Security Priorities for the Next Administration”
– WJZ/AP reports that “For six years before reporting for duty at Fort Hood in July, Hasan worked at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center pursuing a career in psychiatry, as an intern, a resident and, last year, a fellow in disaster and preventive psychiatry. The 39-year-old Army major received his medical degree from the military’s Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001.”
B. Hussein Obama just doesn’t have any class whatsoever. He is a pathetic individual and a very power hungry, evil person. I really do not think he is capable to be sensitive to individual feelings, if you do not care about anything but yourself this is what you grow up as. Not something we want our children to grow up and be, really is not a worthwhile role model.
Source: NBC Chicago
Obama’s Frightening Insensitivity Following Shooting
A bad week for Democrats compounded by an awful moment for Barack Obama.
By ROBERT A. GEORGE
President Obama didn’t wait long after Tuesday’s devastating elections to give critics another reason to question his leadership, but this time the subject matter was more grim than a pair of governorships.
After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that the president would speak about the incident prior to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable stations went to the president. The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective.
But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a “shout-out” to “Dr. Joe Medicine Crow — that Congressional Medal of Honor winner.” Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?
Anyone at home aware of the major news story of the previous hours had to have been stunned. An incident like this requires a scrapping of the early light banter. The president should apologize for the tone of his remarks, explain what has happened, express sympathy for those slain and appeal for calm and patience until all the facts are in. That’s the least that should occur.
Indeed, an argument could be made that Obama should have canceled the Indian event, out of respect for people having been murdered at an Army post a few hours before. That would have prevented any sort of jarring emotional switch at the event.
Did the president’s team not realize what sort of image they were presenting to the country at this moment? The disconnect between what Americans at home knew had been going on — and the initial words coming out of their president’s mouth was jolting, if not disturbing.
It must have been disappointing for many politically aware Democrats, still reeling from the election two days before. The New Jersey gubernatorial vote had already demonstrated that the president and his political team couldn’t produce a winning outcome in a state very friendly to Democrats (and where the president won by 15 points one year ago). And now this? Congressional Democrats must wonder if a White House that has burdened them with a too-heavy policy agenda over the last year has a strong enough political operation to help push that agenda through.
If the president’s communications apparatus can’t inform — and protect — their boss during tense moments when the country needs to see a focused commander-in-chief and a compassionate head of state, it has disastrous consequences for that president’s party and supporters.
All the president’s men (and women) fell down on the job Thursday. And Democrats across the country have real reason to panic.
New York writer Robert A. George blogs at Ragged Thots. Follow him on Twitter.
Copyright NBC Local Media
R.E.A.L. Protests VDARE Speakers in Baltimore
On October 31, members of Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) protested VDARE speakers at a Baltimore-area conference of the “H L Mencken Club.” Members of the racist hate group VDARE at the event included Steven Sailer and Patrick Buchanan. While scheduled, VDARE’s Peter Brimelow had to cancel his involvement in the Mencken conference. The event was held at the Holiday Inn BWI in Lithicum, Maryland, near the Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) airport. (R.E.A.L. previously posted on this event in September.)
October 31, 2009 - Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) Protests at Baltimore Conference with VDARE Speakers
The VDARE Foundation has been listed as a “white nationalist” hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) , a designation that VDARE’s leaders state that they are “proud” to have. VDARE’s web site has also been described by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as “a Web site that features the work of racists, anti-Semites, and anti-immigrant figures.”
R.E.A.L. was pleased to see that VDARE had a low turnout for its H. L. Mencken Club conference, as our protesters braved the rainy weather to protest outside the Holiday Inn BWI. Aside from our protesters, numerous passers-by were shocked and disturbed to learn of the VDARE speakers at the Holiday Inn BWI, and many automobile drivers honked their horns in support and gave a “thumbs-up” to the R.E.A.L. street corner protesters. In terms of the positive response from many of the public versus VDARE’s slim turnout at their conference, the American public in Maryland clearly is against racist views.
Employees of the Holiday Inn BWI were shocked and greatly disturbed when learning of the VDARE speakers, as R.E.A.L. protesters handed out fliers about the VDARE speakers’ comments on race to the public. R.E.A.L. did contact the Holiday Inn BWI management in advance of the conference and faxed them a copy of our flier about the VDARE speakers. In addition, R.E.A.L. coordinated with the Anne Arundel Police Department.
As some VDARE supporters saw R.E.A.L. protesters on the street outside of the Holiday Inn BWI, their response was vulgar gestures.
Racial IQ writer Steven Sailer from VDARE gave a keynote speech at the Holiday Inn BWI on “Libreal [sic] Jews,” and went on to speak against human diversity on October 31. On the VDARE web site, President Obama has recently been described as the “Half-Blood Prince” by VDARE author Steven Sailer; VDARE editor Peter Brimelow praises this as part of “Steve’s scholarly interest in racial differences.” VDARE’s Sailer has used the website for a litany of articles regarding race, including articles focusing on issues such as the IQ of black Americans, “white guilt,” “race denial,” endless articles on “minority mortgage meltdown,” “Anti-White Discrimination,” “Anti-White Populism,” and “On What The Census Bureau’s Projected White Minority Will Mean For America.” VDARE’s Sailer has called Barack Obama a “wigger,” and VDARE’s Peter Brimelow calls Sailer a “genius.”
VDARE's Steven Sailer
VDARE’s Patrick Buchanan also spoke on October 31. On August 31, 2009 on the 70th anniversary of the beginning of World War II, VDARE’s Patrick Buchanan wrote an article on VDARE’s web site, arguing how misunderstood Adolf Hitler was, titled “70 Years After — Did Hitler Really Want War?” . Buchanan has used VDARE to defend accused Nazi John Demjanjuk, who is currently on trial in Germany for 27,900 counts of accessory to murder. Buchanan’s previous article that questions “Was World War II Worth It?” has been widely promoted by the Neo-Nazi Stormfront organization as well as by David Duke and others.
VDARE's Patrick Buchanan
Individuals who were also reported to be part of the H L Mencken Club convention included: Patrick Deneen, Gene Edward Veith, E. Christian Kopff, James Kurth, Lee Congdon, Kevin Gutzman, George Csatary, John Derbyshire, Richard Spencer, Jeff Frazee, professor and VDARE contributor Paul Gottfried (Gottfried: “Did Pre-MLK America Really Need Redemption?”), and “Youth for Western Civilization” (YWC) leader Kevin DeAnna. As Kevin DeAnna has previously claimed to not support racial supremacism, R.E.A.L. wrote Kevin DeAnna to confirm that he would not attend this event. DeAnna never replied.
The H. L. Mencken Club conference was co-sponsored by the Vienna, Virginia-based Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation, which is also on the SPLC list of white nationalist hate groups.
The Fitzergerald Griffin Foundation prominently promotes the writing and work of Sam Francis, such as “Race and the American Prospect: Essays on the Racial Realities of Our Nation and Our Time,” and “Shots Fired.” (The writings of white nationalist Sam Francis are also promoted by the VDARE web site.) Sam Francis, who died in 2005, was notorious for his white nationalist views and also was chief editor for the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC). The CofCC, founded in Georgia, is not headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. White nationalist Jared Taylor, who is also promoted by VDARE, was a key speaker at the 2009 CofCC national convention.
Source: Dallas News
Hat Tip Jeffrey Imm
Ft. Hood suspect reportedly shouted `Allahu Akbar’
By JEFF CARLTON
Associated Press Writer
FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) — Soldiers who witnessed the shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 people dead reported that the gunman shouted “Allahu Akbar!” – an Arabic phrase for “God is great!” – before opening fire, the base commander said Friday.
Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said officials had not yet confirmed that the suspected shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, made the comment before the rampage Thursday. Hasan was among 30 people wounded in the shooting spree and remained hospitalized on a ventilator.
All but two of the injured were still hospitalized, and all were in stable condition.
Military officials were trying to piece together what may have pushed Hasan, an Army psychiatrist trained to help soldiers in distress, to turn on his comrades. Cone said the 39-year-old Hasan was not known to be a threat or risk.
“I’m not aware of any problems here,” said Col. Steve Braverman, the Fort Hood hospital commander. “We had no problems with his job performance.”
An imam from a mosque Hasan regularly attended said Hasan, a lifelong Muslim, was a committed soldier, gave no sign of extremist beliefs and regularly wore his uniform at prayers.
The motive for the shooting wasn’t clear, but Hasan was apparently set to deploy soon and had expressed some anger about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Retired Col. Terry Lee, who said he had worked with Hasan, told Fox News said Hasan had hoped President Barack Obama would pull troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq and got into frequent arguments with others in the military who supported the wars.
Braverman said at a news conference early Friday that Hasan was on deployment orders to Afghanistan. A military official later told The Associated Press that Hasan was to be deployed to Iraq. It was not immediately possible to verify the discrepancy.
The military official, who did not have authorization to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, said Hasan had indicated he didn’t want to go to Iraq but was willing to serve in Afghanistan.
A neighbor at the apartment building near Fort Hood where Hasan lived said they had recently discussed his impending deployment to Afghanistan.
“He seemed OK with it,” said Edgar Booker, a 58-year-old retired soldier who now works in a cafeteria on the post. “I asked him how he felt about going over there, with their religion and everything, and he said, `It’s going to be interesting.’”
Cone said authorities have not yet been able to talk to Hasan, but interviews with witnesses went through the night.
Terrorism task force agents planned to interview several of Hasan’s relatives Friday, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the case.
Officials are not ruling out the possibility that some of the casualties may have been victims of “friendly fire,” that in the mayhem and confusion at the shooting scene some of the responding military officials may have shot some of the victims.
The officer who shot the gunman, Kimberly Munley, also was wounded.
“She happened to encounter the gunman. In an exchange of gunfire, she was wounded but managed to wound him four times,” Cone said. “It was an amazing and aggressive performance by this police officer.”
Cone said some 300 soldiers had been lined up to get shots and have their eye tested at a Soldier Readiness Center when the shots rang out. He said one soldier who had been shot told him, “I made the mistake of moving and I was shot again.” The commander said survivors told him that during the rampage, soldiers “would scramble to the ground and help each other out.”
Cone acknowledged that it was “counterintuitive” that a single shooter could hit so many people. But he said the massacre occurred in “close quarters.
“With ricochet fire, he was able to injure that number of people,” Cone said. He said authorities were investigating whether Hasan’s weapons were properly registered with the military.
The gunfire broke out around 1:30 p.m. Nearby, some soldiers were readying to head into a graduation ceremony for troops and families who had recently earned degrees.
Pastor Greg Schannep had just parked his car along the side of the theater and was about to head into the ceremony when a man in uniform approached him.
“Sir, they are opening fire over there!” the man told him. At first, he thought it was a training exercise – then heard three volleys and saw people running. As the man who warned him about the shots ran away, he could see the man’s back was bloodied from a wound.
Schannep said police and medical and other emergency personnel were on the scene in an instant, telling people to get inside the theater. The post went into lockdown while a search began for a suspect and emergency workers began trying to treat the wounded. Some soldiers rushed to treat their injured colleagues by ripping their uniforms into makeshift bandages to treat their wounds.
“I was confused and just shocked,” said Spc. Jerry Richard, 27, who works at the center but was not on duty during the shooting. “Overseas you are ready for it. But here you can’t even defend yourself.”
The wounded were dispersed among hospitals in central Texas, Cone said. Their identities and the identities of the dead were not immediately released.
Friday was designated a day of mourning at Fort Hood. There also will be a ceremony at the air base to honor the dead.
For six years before reporting for duty at the Texas post in July, Hasan worked at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center pursuing a career in psychiatry, as an intern, a resident and, last year, a fellow in disaster and preventive psychiatry. The 39-year-old Army major received his medical degree from the military’s Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001.
But his record wasn’t sterling. At Walter Reed, he received a poor performance evaluation, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly. And while he was an intern, Hasan had some “difficulties” that required counseling and extra supervision, said Dr. Thomas Grieger, who was the training director at the time.
Faizul Khan, a former imam at a mosque Hasan attended in Silver Spring, Md., said “I got the impression that he was a committed soldier.” He said Hasan attended prayers regularly at the mosque in Silver Spring, Md., and was a lifelong Muslim. He spoke often with Hasan about Hasan’s desire for a wife.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Hasan’s aunt, Noel Hasan of Falls Church, Va., said he had been harassed about being a Muslim in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, and he wanted out of the Army.
“Some people can take it and some people cannot,” she said. “He had listened to all of that and he wanted out of the military.”
At least six months ago, Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades.
Investigators had not determined for certain whether Hasan was the author of the posting, and a formal investigation had not been opened before the shooting, said law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the case.
The FBI, local police and other agencies searched Hasan’s apartment Thursday night after evacuating the complex in Killeen, said city spokeswoman Hilary Shine. She referred questions about what was found to the FBI. The FBI in Dallas referred questions to a spokesman who was not immediately available early Friday morning.
—
Associated Press Writers Lara Jakes and Devlin Barrett in Washington, April Castro in Killeen and Matt Curry in Dallas contributed to this report.
© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.
Hat Tip: Mari Ana/Rose
Let me see if I understand all this…
- IF YOU CROSS THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET 12 YEARS HARD LABOR.
- IF YOU CROSS THE IRANIAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU ARE DETAINED INDEFINITELY.
- IF YOU CROSS THE AFGHAN BORDER ILLEGALLY, YOU GET SHOT.
- IF YOU CROSS THE SAUDI ARABIAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE JAILED.
- IF YOU CROSS THE CHINESE BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU MAY NEVER BE HEARD FROM AGAIN.
- IF YOU CROSS THE VENEZUELAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE BRANDED A SPY AND YOUR FATE WILL BE SEALED.
- IF YOU CROSS THE CUBAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE THROWN INTO POLITICAL PRISON TO ROT.
IF YOU CROSS THE U.S. BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET A JOB, A DRIVERS LICENSE, SOCIAL SECURITY CARD, WELFARE, FOOD STAMPS, CREDIT CARDS, SUBSIDIZED RENT OR A LOAN TO BUY A HOUSE, FREE EDUCATION, FREE HEALTH CARE, A LOBBYIST IN WASHINGTON AND IN MANY INSTANCES YOU CAN VOTE!
HUH?????
Source: WND
Planned Parenthood’s abortion quotas exposed
Ex-director: We’d have client goal every month
By Chelsea Schilling
 Former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson with Coalition for Life Director Shawn Carney (photo: Coalition for Life) |
A former director of a Texas Planned Parenthood branch who resigned after she watched an ultrasound-guided abortion told WND the clinic was pushing employees to strive for abortion quotas to boost profits.
“There are definitely client goals,” former clinic director Abby Johnson said. “We’d have a goal every month for abortion clients and for family planning clients.”
Johnson, 29, said the Bryan, Texas, Planned Parenthood clinic performed surgical abortions every other Saturday, but it began expanding access to abortion to increase earnings.
“One of the ways they were able to up the number of patients that they saw was they started doing the RU-486 chemical abortions all throughout the week,” she said.
RU-486 chemical abortions kill the lining of the uterus, cutting off oxygen and nutrients, resulting in the death of an unborn baby. Johnson said the chemical abortion costs the same as an early first-trimester abortion: between $505 and $695 for each procedure.
She told WND the clinic was experiencing financial difficulties due to the economic downturn.
“Abortion is the most lucrative part of Planned Parenthood’s operations,” she said. “Even though they’re two separate corporations, all of the money goes into one pot. With the family planning corporation really suffering, they depend on the abortion corporation to balance their budget, help get them out of the hole and help make income for the company.”
She continued, “They really wanted to increase the number of abortions so that they could increase their income.”
Now Planned Parenthood has retaliated against Johnson, filing a restraining order against her because the clinic fears she may leak confidential information.
The Brazos Valley Coalition for Life, a pro-life group that recently moved its headquarters several hundred feet away from the clinic, is named on the temporary restraining order as well. The injunction temporarily prevents her from releasing information until after a hearing scheduled for Nov. 10 in the 85th District Court.
Planned Parenthood claimed in court documents that Johnson copied private personnel files and other documents before she quit her position Oct. 6. The abortion provider’s lawyers expressed concern that Johnson would disclose client medical records, doctor information and clinic security procedures. The restraining order contends Planned Parenthood would be irreparably harmed by an information leak.
However, Johnson told WND, “I don’t have any confidential documents, so I’m not sharing anything because I don’t have anything. I have no patient information. I’d never do anything to compromise patient safety or confidentiality. For them to even make that type of statement is so offensive.”
Planned Parenthood of Southeast Houston released the following statement Oct. 30: “We regret being forced to turn to the courts to protect the safety and confidentiality of our clients and staff, however, in this instance, it is absolutely necessary.”
 Coalition for Life photo illustrates how close pro-life group’s building is to Planned Parenthood clinic. |
Johnson said she’s not sure why Planned Parenthood is so concerned.
“Planned Parenthood is an organization that really runs on fear. If somebody crosses them, they are quick to threaten that person. I’ve worked for them for a long time and seen them threaten lawsuits multiple times,” she said. “I’m not sure what they’re scared of. When I first got the restraining order, I was so surprised. My initial response was, what do they think I know? What are they feeling guilty about?”
Asked whether she believes Planned Parenthood is concerned that information about its quotas will become public, Johnson responded, “Probably, yeah. I think they’re just scared of the whole thing.”
She said she believes the injunction is simply a scare tactic meant to keep her quiet.
“Clearly, that kind of backfired,” she said.
Johnson explained that she resigned after she saw an ultrasound-guided abortion in which an unborn baby was vacuumed out of a woman’s uterus.
“Ultrasound-guided abortions are not typically done in Planned Parenthood abortion centers because they’re more time-consuming, and that’s just not something that centers like that do,” she said. “I’d never seen one of those done before. For whatever reason, the physician had called me back to assist with the procedure. When I saw that, that was really when my heart was changed.”
Johnson, who was employed at the clinic for eight years and served as a director for two years, said the issue of abortion was “unsettling” for her the whole time she worked with Planned Parenthood. She said she kept “pushing down the guilt” and felt spiritually unsettled.
“There’s no religion and there’s no spirituality in an abortion clinic. There can’t be,” she said. “Whatever side you are on, pro-life or pro-choice, it is what it is – and that’s taking a human life.”
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