UPDATE # 4: How do we address the threat of radical Islam ? A committee.
Thinking Anew—Security Priorities for the Next Administration
A coherent strategy to address 21st century threats to the United States, one that treats national and homeland security as a seamless whole, has yet to emerge… To help fuel this process, in April 2008 The George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) established the Presidential Transition Task Force, comprised of national and homeland security experts, policymakers and practitioners… The goal was to determine the top strategic priorities to advance the nation’s security in the coming decade…
Event Participants:
…Amanda Halpern
U.S. House of Representatives
Beth Hampton
Homeland Security Institute
Nidal Hasan
Uniformed Services University School of Medicine
Donald Hawkins
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Eric Heighberger
Homeland Security Council…
Well, he certainly was an expert on threats.
UPDATE #3: Obama weighs in with a bushel of nonsense about diversity on his radio broadcast today.
Hasan reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar!” before the killings, wrote Internet postings justifying Muslim suicide bombings, considered U.S. forces the enemy, and opposed American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as wars on Islam. His rampage at Ft. Hood has the markings of an act of Islamic terrorism.
But in his weekly address, Obama says, “We cannot fully know what leads a man to do such a thing.” And while the killings were “heartbreaking” and “despicable” and “devastating,” the president says, it is important to remember not only that Hasan’s fellow soldiers responded bravely in coming to the aid of the wounded but also that “Americans of every race, faith and station” have served in the U.S. armed forces. “They are Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers,” Obama says. “They reflect the diversity that makes this America.”
What a load of crap !
UPDATE #2: here is the transcript of a call-in program that answers a lot of questions and provides some new information.
UPDATE: The shooter described his nationality as Palestinian. So much for his oath as an officer. WHy wasn’t this noticed ?
On a form filled out by those seeking spouses through a programme at the mosque, Hasan listed his birthplace as Arlington, Virginia, but his nationality as Palestinian, Khan said.
‘I don’t know why he listed Palestinian,’ Khan said, ‘He was not born in Palestine.’
Am Egyptian friend of mine, another physician, knows that is a bad idea. He got a wife from Egypt, arranged by his family, and she spent about 15 years in the US, then she divorced him, took all his money and went back to Egypt. Hie had a heart attack during the ordeal. I think he picked an American girl the next time.
I have a couple of observations that I haven’t seen much of so far.
1. It’s obvious that the legacy media is tying itself in knots to avoid the obvious fact that this was a “grass roots jihad.” This will be an increasing problem due to inflammatory rhetoric from Muslim mullahs. The New York Times earlier this morning was still maintaining:
Military records indicated that Major Hasan was single, had been born in Virginia, had never served abroad and listed “no religious preference” on his personnel records.
Now, at least, they are starting to face the truth, albeit reluctantly:
In an interview on NBC’s “Today” show, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone, a base spokesman, was asked about the reports that Major Hasan had yelled “Allahu Akbar.”General Cone said soldiers at the scene had reported “similar” accounts.
2. This physician had been using the army to pay for his education all the way through residency and fellowship. When it comes time to deploy, like a couple of other military trained physicians, he didn’t want to fulfill his obligation. I remember two cases (I can’t find the stories with Google), one a women physician in MIssouri during the first Gulf War, the other an Asian American physician in Washington state in 2003 or so. I apparently misremembered as he was not a physician. Note the reading he had been doing.
Anyway, the shooter had one other motivation, mentioned briefly by the cousin. His medical education, even at the Armed Service medical school, is worth $200,000 or more. He has an obligation to serve to repay it and wanted to get out of that obligation.
3. Finally, and the most significant perhaps, is the fact that, as a psychiatrist, he has been interviewing returned soldiers and their stories may have fed his Muslim rage about the war. Finally, it exploded in an act of personal jihad. As a psychiatrist, he was probably talking to young soldiers who may have witnessed disturbing things or even committed acts that bothered them. Nobody was thinking about this sort of stuff affecting the Muslim psychiatrist but I suspect it did.
If I were the military, I would be more concerned about Muslims now than gays. After all, it isn’t the first time.
Akbar, an African-American who grew up near Los Angeles, was born Mark Fidel Kools. He had his name changed when he was young by his mother when she married his stepfather, William Muhummad Bilal — a Muslim convert — more than 20 years ago.
Last night, as the FBI and Pentagon investigated his life, including interviewing members of the Los Angeles mosque where he worshipped, concerns were mounting over the effect his actions may have on the US military’s 4,700 other Muslim members, many of whom are Arab-Americans.
What has shaken the US military is the premeditation of Akbar’s alleged attack, and the political motives behind it.
That was 2003. Supposedly, other officers who knew Hasan had complained yet he was untouched.