Don’t Hold Your Breath, Joe
UPDATE: Non-conclusive discrimination victim Nidal Hasan was trying to contact al-Qaeda. See below.
Lieberman, run out of the Democratic Party for making sense a couple of years ago, makes some more. NY Daily News: “Lieberman Calls Fort Hood a ‘Terrorist’ Act.”
Sen. Joe Lieberman called the Fort Hood massacre an act of “Islamist extremism” - even as top Army brass warned Sunday against guessing at a motive, fearing backlash against Muslim soldiers.
“There are very, very strong warning signs here that Dr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act,” Lieberman (I-Conn) told Fox News on Sunday.
“If the reports that we’re receiving of various statements he made, acts he took are valid, he had turned to Islamist extremism.”
Lieberman, the former Democratic vice presidential candidate, chairs the Senate Homeland Security committee.
Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people and wounding 30 more on Thursday, reportedly expressed moral concerns about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lieberman’s comments were in stark contrast to U.S. Army chief of staff George Casey, who told CNN he’s deeply worried “that the speculation could cause something that we don’t want to see happen.”
“It would be a shame - as great a tragedy as this was - it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well,” Casey said.
The former Iraq war commander said on ABC that focusing on Hasan’s religious roots might “heighten the backlash” against all Muslims serving in the armed forces.
The article does not indicate whether there is in fact any backlash to be heightened. It’s a little weird, all this concern about backlashes, seeing as there haven’t been any. First the president of the United States, now the chief of staff of the Army, everyone thinks Americans are a bunch of violent bigots. Regarding the military, from the American Muslim Armed Services and Veterans Affairs Council reports otherwise. And I’m still waiting for news of that big post-9/11 backlash, let alone the post-Fort Hood one.
Back to the first point, Lieberman may have been run out of his party for making sense, and they probably aren’t to happy with him on the health care thing, but he is still chairman of Homeland Security. The Hill reports he’s planning a hearing. A couple of ideas:
A: Call Janet Napolitano in to explain what’s with the screwing around with American political dissent when there are Islamic extremists running amok, and how come everyone missed this big fat homeland security threat. Call in Casey, too. That’s his Army that apparently was more worried about diversity than the Islamo-terror babble coming out of a particular soldier’s mouth.
B: Push for recognition of domestic terrorist acts on military facilities as acts of war. There is a precedent. It’s called 9/11. Lieberman notes that a couple of other acts terrorism targeting the U.S. military on American soil since. The foiled Fort Dix attack and the Little Rock recruiting center attack. Purple Hearts, military awards for valor and civilian honors to all that have earned them … to include the Combat Wounded, Combat Dead of Fort Hood. Military and/or civilian charges of desertion, treason, providing aid and comfort to the enemy for all that deserve them.
That could be a great congressional hearing. A real squirmer. Then, all Joe will have to do is get the rest of his committee, his ex-party, the president of the United States and the military establishment to go along with it.
UPDATE: ABC News reports that U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Hasan was attempting to contact al-Qaeda associates. What did they do? Unclear. I’m going with … nothing.
It will be interesting as this thing goes on to see how many hoops U.S. officialdom will jump through to keep Hasan from being labelled a terrorist and downplay the ennui exhibited by what now appear to be multiple and widespread levels of government. Waiting for everyone who wanted to hang George Bush because the intelligence community missed the significance of vague pre-9/11 jihadi chatter to start demanding Obama’s head over this one. He had a whole month longer in office to figure it out than Bush did, after all.
Calling Hasan criminally nuts would be a convenient way to dispense with the issue, but could be problematic, seeing as he had undergone counseling in the military and was being sent to Afghanistan anyway.
HotAir: “It sounds a lot like the law-enforcement model of counterterrorism that failed us so spectacularly from 1993 to 2001.”
Here is Hasan’s al-Qaeda symp imam, via Gateway: “Nidal Hasan did the right thing.”
via Malkin: Hasan’s awake and talking.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:31 am on Monday, November 9, 2009
4 Responses to “Don’t Hold Your Breath, Joe”
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November 9th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
If they knew he was a potential threat, why did they do nothing about it? Who made that call, and why?
November 9th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Robert Spencer posted this interview. He also recommends a book to read in order to try and understand the progressives love of dictators, tyrants and Islam.
Papa Ray
November 9th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Say, General - ya think we can maybe get his whack-a-doodle Imam locked up and deported for enabling? Or would that be, like, non-diverse?
November 9th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
If the politically correct go on keeping their eyes and minds shut, and these kinds of terrorist events keep happening, there eventually will be a violent backlash against Muslims. And the fault can be laid squarely at the feet of (1) Muslim terrorists, and (2) the politically correct.