Sickened Over Ft. Hood Shootings

I'm still sickened on many levels over the massacre at Ft. Hood post in Texas on November 5, 2009.  Where to start?

• Backstabber - Baldilocks uses the term "backstabber" for Nidal Malik Hasan,and writes: "...this incident takes us back to when another Muslim called Hasan turned on his fellow soldiers.  Recalling that, I began to wonder how often U.S. military have turned their weapons on those who trusted them most."
  
• Negligence
- I'm dumbfounded by the incredible negligence of the U.S. Army that kept and promoted Major Nidal Malik Hasan, given the many warning signs over years.  Read this NPR transcript, which discusses Hasan's statements at a Grand Rounds at Walter Reed hospital: "Hasan apparently gave a long lecture on the Koran and talked about how if you don't believe, you are condemned to hell. Your head is cut off. You're set on fire. Burning oil is burned down your throat." The staff was very concerned, another Muslim doctor objected to what Hasan said, and nobody does anything?  Hasan is later promoted to Major?  

• Treason - Jerry Pournells gets it exactly correct: it doesn't matter if Hasan was "a crazy guy who happens to be Muslim."  What matters is that political correctness in the military allowed this horrible massacre to happen. 

Pournelle: "I will argue that political correctness led to the madness of having someone who does not believe in the legitimacy of the war in Iraq practice psychiatry by counseling some of the most severely traumatized in the Iraqi war: that the instant he began to show doubts about the legitimacy of the War and an unwillingness to be deployed to participate in it, he ought at the very least to have been stripped of his commission and suffer whatever other consequences of failing to fulfill his part of the contract under which the United States paid for both his undergraduate and his medical education in return for his service as a medical officer....the idea of Political Correctness has consequences we can't afford. Corruption of the Legions is one danger the Republic cannot endure....Why was his failure of loyalty to the armed forces not detected earlier? But of course he was a Muslim, and it would not be politically correct to wash someone out of an armed forces medical school for lack of loyalty to the armed forces of these United States." 

"Devout" Muslims in the Military - It's past time to ask the hard questions about whether "devout" Muslims can serve in the U.S. military.  The record of treasonous "devout" Muslims in the military is growing: US Army Sargeant Hasan Karim Akbar murdered two officers and twelve soldiers at Camp Pennsylvania, Kuwait in March 2003: "Akbar threw hand grenades into a tent during early morning when the majority of troops were sleeping. He then fired his rifle into the ensuing chaos."  We had Muslim convert Hassan Abu-Jihad who provided classified information about his battleship's location and vunerability to Al-Quaeda financiers in London in 2000 and 2001. The Wall Street journal wote about this matter yesterday:

"The push to boost Muslim representation has proven to be a double-edged sword for the military, which desperately needs the Muslim soldiers for their language skills and cultural knowledge, but also worries that a small percentage of those soldiers might harbor extremist ideologies or choose to turn their guns on their fellow soldiers."  Might harbor!?  Is it time to start profiling and questioning Muslims in the military?  I'm sure there are a few pointed questions one could ask about loyalty to one's country versus loyalty to other Muslims, opposition to fighting Muslims or fighting in Muslim countries.  People who subscribe to an Islamist ideology get booted out. Yes, the liars would get past you, but someone like Nidal Malik Hasan - who openly voiced his beliefs - would not. Muslims who are loyal soldiers (the majority) ought to be able to recognize the problem here and be willing to be questioned.  We face a unique problem here, in our military and in our society.  There simply is no other religious group who present this problem.  Enough senseless deaths already. If someone has a better idea, I'm all ears.

"Tough Cookie" Herione - On the plus side,the hero from last Thursday is Kim Munley, the 120 pound 5'2" civilian police officer who shot and subdued Hasan, taking three gunshots herself in both legs and her wrist. Wow, what a wonderful, brave person. She saved many lives.

Donations - You can find organizations who are supporting the victims and their families on the Ft. Hood webpage.   One group is the Chaplain's Fund Office, Bldg 44, 761st Tank Battalion Ave.
Fort Hood, TX 76544-5000.  The American Red Cross, Fisher House and USO are also taking donations for the families.

Finally, my religion requires that I pray for Nidal Malik Hasan. That's going to be a tough one, but  Christians are called to pray for our enemies. From First Things:

"We should pray for the dead, pray for the wounded, pray for the victim’s families . . . and pray for Nidal Malik Hasan."

"Although he swore an oath to protect his homeland against all enemies—foreign and domestic—Hasan became a traitor to his country and a murderous enemy to his fellow soldiers. His actions make him an enemy of the state and an enemy of his fellow citizens. He is our enemy now. As such the duty of those who call ourselves Christian is crystal clear: We must love and pray for Hasan."