Putting the Major Hasan Hysteria in Perspective

Hasan is a mentally disturbed individual, and it should have been clear to his psychiatric/medical colleagues that he is mentally ill. Because they saw all of the signs of mentally disturbance, but did nothing to investigate or examine his mental stability, I can’t help but believe that it was political correctness that was the fundamental problem. No one wanted to be the one to initiate anything on Hasan because they didn’t want to be accused of being anti-Muslim.

As far as the FBI is concerned, I disagree with you Larry. I believe that if a person is contacting Al-Qaeda, they most certainly should be the target of an investigation; if Hasan had been investigated–like Moussawi should have been investigated–they could have intervened.

The red flags on Hasan were so bright, they were on fire. But no one took any action. It’s such a tragedy. But there ARE people who should be held accountable–in the FBI and ranking officers.

Another example of there being too many guns that are too easy to get in this country. This country needs much stronger gun legislation. Too much violence in this culture of violence.

my fear is that our minds and discussions will be finally settled for a long time on this issue with another tragedy. that will set the hounds loose for a long time. the actions and attitudes i see expressed by muslims in europe give me pause and we would do well not to ignore that.

having said that i do support everyone’s right to speech and practice whatever religeon they prefer. the degree of policial correctness that pervades throughout the government agencies, media, and schools in the long run is not helping. what a shame we don’t a democratic party to lead us out of the wilderness rather than wandering deeper into it.

larry adds a note of sanity and thought to these discussions and for that i thank him.

Larry

With all due respect, for you to say that there was very little the FBI or CIA could do about Hasan is absolute horseshit! It don’t take a genius to figure that out.

There are so many unanswered questions. Was his superiors aware of his extremism? Did they attempt to do something about it but was ordered not to? NO one has even reported from that angle…….YET!

I have a very hard time believing that all of the agencies simply dropped the ball on this……I think that there is a WHOOOLE lot more to this story.

Something isn’t right and isn’t making sense. Surprisingly, even some left wing MSM outlets are choosing NOT to wear the blinders with this story and are pursuing getting to the truth b/c they see that something aint adding up!

Political correctness goes a long way in this country at this time. It’s been used to drive charges of “racism” whenever criticism or protests are directed against the current administration and no doubt was responsible for many, many votes cast for the current occupant of the White House. In our P.C. environment, genuine dissent is labeled “a distraction.” I think P.C. is like poison in this country … it’s been taken to absurd extremes. Hysteria? Isn’t that was extreme P.C. is? To even see it being questioned since the Ft. Hood massacre is refreshing.
As for Maj. Hasan, I’d like a public congressional hearing to learn more about this soldier/doctor. I’ve never been in the military so I don’t know how people are expected to behave. But if you’re a soldier, do you get to talk trash about the U.S. in public places or while on base or with your peers? What about loyalty to the country you serve?
A few nights ago, I watched Anderson Cooper’s show (360) and saw a report on the Muslim extremists who talk trash outside the big mosque in Manhattan on E. 96th Street. Inside the Mosque, peace-loving Muslims who can’t seem to get those trash talkers outside the front door away from their peace-loving Mosque. Outside, it’s death to America all day long. I thought we were at war with Islamic extremists. I thought NY was attacked by same. I am disgusted with the P.C. environment that lets this go on.
During WWII, did we allow Nazi sympathizers to trash the U.S. on a NYC street corner? Look what P.C. has wrought.

Larry, thanks for this information and perspective.

I think we need to wait until the facts come out about this situation before we claim this was Islamic terrorism. In fact, his life path seems to counter that assertion.

Either way, as an atheist (part of the group most discriminated against in the US), I hope this does not result in more intolerant hysteria. There is enough of that going around right now, and it doesn’t do anybody any good.

There was little the FBI could do.

They could and should have been keeping an eye on him.

You may not like him talking about jihad and voicing sympathy for the likes of Al Qaeda but he is an American citizen and has the freedom and the right to express those views. If you want to start drawing the line on what muslims can say then be prepared to have the same standard applied to Jews and Christians.

He was condoning violence against Americans and particularly American soldiers. I think that might be a NO – NO when you’re in the military. I don’t recall any Southern Baptist suicide bombers, or Methodist, or Catholic or Orthodox Jews or Hassidic Jews advocating or carrying out suicide missions against the army. You know, maybe keeping an eye on him and reprimanding him instead of worrying about diversity to the point of incompetence might have been warranted and certainly within the prerogative of his superiors to do so.

Army Wasn’t Told of Hasan’s Emails
Pentagon Says It Only Learned of Shooting Suspect’s Contacts With Cleric After the Fort Hood Killings

The Wall Street Journal
Nov. 11, 2009

.The Pentagon said it was never notified by U.S. intelligence agencies that they had intercepted emails between the alleged Fort Hood shooter and an extremist imam until after last week’s bloody assaults, raising new questions about whether the government could have helped prevent the attack.

A top defense official said federal investigators didn’t tell the Pentagon they were looking into months of contacts between Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki. The imam knew three of the Sept. 11 hijackers and hailed Maj. Hasan as a “hero” after the shooting last week at Fort Hood that left 13 people dead.

“Based on what we know now, neither the United States Army nor any other organization within the Department of Defense knew of Maj. Hasan’s contacts with any Muslim extremists,” the official said.

The Pentagon comments fueled a growing dispute among various branches of the government about whether Maj. Hasan should have been more deeply investigated before he allegedly walked into a crowded soldier-readiness center at Fort Hood and opened fire.

.A person familiar with the matter said a Pentagon worker on a terrorism task force overseen by the Federal Bureau of Investigation was told about the intercepted emails several months ago. But members of terror task forces aren’t allowed to share such information with their agencies, unless they get permission from the FBI, which leads the task forces.

In this case, the Pentagon worker, an employee from the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, helped make the assessment that Maj. Hasan wasn’t a threat, and the FBI’s “procedures for sharing the information were never used,” said the person familiar with the matter.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama had ordered all agencies involved in national and homeland security to review Maj. Hasan’s case to find out if warning signs were missed after the suspect first drew law-enforcement attention last year. “That’s what we want to figure out,” Mr. Gibbs said.

Federal investigators are scrutinizing Maj. Hasan’s email exchanges with Mr. Awlaki for any signs of a broader relationship between the suspected Fort Hood shooter and overseas Islamic extremists, according to officials familiar with the matter. To date, investigators haven’t found such a link, the officials said.

.Federal law-enforcement officials said Maj. Hasan, who is recovering in a Texas hospital under an armed guard, communicated 10 to 20 times by email with Mr. Awlaki, the onetime spiritual leader of a mosque in Virginia that Maj. Hasan attended with several of his relatives. Mr. Awlaki now lives in Yemen.

Maj. Hasan’s emails to Mr. Awlaki were intercepted as part of a continuing National Security Agency effort to monitor the electronic communications of suspected Islamic extremists world-wide.

A federal investigator said the FBI contacted Maj. Hasan’s then-employers at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington to find out more about his background and professional occupation, but acknowledged that such background checks were fairly routine and that the emails in question appeared benign.

Army officials declined to comment about whether officials at Walter Reed conducted a follow-up investigation into Maj. Hasan or alerted others within the Army hierarchy after they had received the FBI inquiry.

“That’s all part of the investigation,” said Col. Catherine Abbott, an Army spokeswoman.

.The intensifying criminal investigation into Maj. Hasan is proceeding along two related tracks, according to officials familiar with the matter.

Army and FBI investigators are looking for signs that Maj. Hasan received encouragement or logistical support from Islamic radicals in the U.S. or abroad, the officials said. So far, they haven’t found evidence of such a link, the officials said.

The investigators are also trying to get a clearer picture of Maj. Hasan’s state of mind in the weeks before the attack. One official said the U.S. was trying to determine if the attack was motivated by the suspect’s Islamic religious beliefs, which appear to have hardened markedly during the years he spent in the Army, or by other factors, like his anger over a pending deployment to Afghanistan.

—Peter Spiegel contributed to this article.
Write to Yochi J. Dreazen at yochi.dreazen@wsj.com and Evan Perez at evan.perez@wsj.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal,

I take your perspective to heart, Larry. I do think we need to tamp down the crass bigotry while remaining viligent. From what we know now [or at least what has been released], Hasan demonstrated a number of disturbing positions that were noted by his medical collegues at Walter Reed. And yet no one called him on it or reported his “out there” mentality. There seems to have been a breakdown within the Army hierarchy to report, reprimand and deal with Hasan. And that probably had to do with his Muslim background and the fear of being seen intolerant.

It’s a difficult balance but one we need to perfect in order to maintain our own safety without diminishing our freedoms as American citizens.

I caught part of the Memorial Service yesterday. A very sad affair, particularly for the families. A solemn and difficult moment for us all.

islam…………HAS NO REDEEMING QUALITIES.
It is a filthy religion that offends the sensibilities of any sane person.
islam preaches murder, slavery, pedophilia, beastiality and the superislamicman complex that denigrates and wishes to subjegate every other person, place or thing not islamic.
islam hates women, hates life, love and loves bloody death.
islam reminds me most of the bloody gods of Meso America. ripping out the hearts of sacrificial victims to please their bloody god.

Who knew of Fort Hood suspect’s radical contacts?

Devlin Barrett,
Associated Press Writer
– Wed Nov 11, 2009
WASHINGTON
– The mystery over whether the military knew Fort Hood shooting suspect Nidal Hasan was communicating with a radical Muslim imam lapsed into finger-pointing ahead of congressional investigations looking into the Army psychiatrist’s contacts with any extremists.

Even as President Barack Obama remembered those killed at the Texas Army post and condemned what he described as “the twisted logic that led to this tragedy,” federal agencies reacted to conflicting claims about whether a Defense Department terrorism investigator looked into Hasan’s contacts months ago with Anwar al-Awlaki. Awlaki, an imam who was released from a Yemeni jail last year, has used his personal Web site to encourage Muslims across the world to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. A military official Tuesday denied knowing Hasan had such contacts.

Two government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case on the record, said the Washington-based joint terrorism task force overseen by the FBI was notified of communications between Hasan and the imam overseas, and the information was turned over to a Defense Criminal Investigative Service employee assigned to the task force. The communications were gathered by investigators beginning in December 2008 and continuing into early this year.

That defense investigator wrote up an assessment of Hasan after reviewing the communications and the Army major’s personnel file, according to these officials. The assessment concluded Hasan did not merit further investigation — in large part because his communications with the imam were centered on a research paper about the effects of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan and the investigator determined that Hasan was in fact working on such a paper, the officials said.

The disclosure came as questions swirled about whether opportunities were missed to head off the massacre in which 13 died and 29 were wounded last Thursday — a familiar, early stage in the investigation of headline-grabbing crimes when public officials involved in a case often speak anonymously as they try to shift any blame to rivals in other agencies.

The Senate already has launched its own inquiry into the Hasan case. Sens. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, plan to hold a hearing on the shootings next week.

The disclosure Tuesday of the defense investigator’s role indicated the U.S. military was aware of worrisome behavior by the massacre suspect long before the attack. Following the disclosure, a senior defense official, also demanding anonymity, directly contradicted that notion.

The senior defense official said neither the Army nor any other part of the Defense Department knew of Hasan’s contacts with any Muslim extremists. But the defense official carefully conceded this view was based upon what the Pentagon knows now.

Hours later, the same senior defense official reiterated that the Defense Department was not notified before the Fort Hood massacre of investigations into Hasan, despite the participation of two Defense Department investigators on two joint task forces run by the FBI that looked at Hasan. This defense official asserted that the task force ground rules barred any members from telling their home agency about task force findings without approval of the other investigators and wasn’t aware of whether there was ever any discussion of doing that.

FBI officials were not immediately available to comment late Tuesday on what ground rules prevailed in the joint task forces or whether they were applied in this situation or not. One government official, however, pointed out that to complete the assessment the Defense Criminal Investigative Service representative had to access Hasan’s Defense Department personnel file and determine what research he was conducting at the time.

The FBI has opened its own internal review of how it handled the early information about Hasan. Military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies also are defending themselves against tough questions about what each of them knew about Hasan before he allegedly opened fire in a crowded room at the huge Army post.