The Fort Hood massacre that took place on November 5, 2009 at Fort Hood, the most populous U.S. military installation in the world, located just outside Killeen, Texas, was the worst shooting ever to take place on an American military base. In the course of the shooting, Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army Major serving as a psychiatrist and a Muslim, killed 13 people, one of whom was pregnant, and wounded 29 others.
Hasan is an American-born Muslim most likely radicalized by other American-born Muslims. Internal Army reports indicate officers within the Army had discussed what they characterized as Hasan’s tendencies toward radical Islam since 2005. Additionally, investigations before and after the shooting discovered e-mail communications between Hasan and Yemen-based cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who quickly declared Hasan a hero, as “fighting against the U.S. army is an Islamic duty.”
According to U.S. government officials Anwar al-Awlaki was a senior talent recruiter and motivator who was involved with planning operations for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda. Al-Awlaki was considered to be such a threat that the U.S. deployed unmanned aircraft in Yemen to search for and kill him. He was finally killed in a drone attack in Yemen on September 30, 2011.
Now we learn that the Defense Department has reclassified the Fort Hood massacre as “workplace violence.” We know that Maj. Hassan shouted “Allahu Akbar” (Arabic for “God is Great”) after firing a total of 214 rounds at his fellow soldiers. When the shooting ended, he was still carrying 177 rounds of ammunition in his pockets, contained in both 20- and 30-round magazines.
The act was premeditated. A senior law enforcement official said that a review of Hasan’s computer and his multiple e-mail accounts revealed that he visited websites espousing radical Islamist ideas.
It’s typical of the Obama administration to deny any link between Islam and violence, even when it is shouted at them and dead bodies are the result. As you can suspect, lots of people are terribly upset and are speaking out, as Fox News reports:
Sen. Susan Collins on Wednesday blasted the Defense Department for classifying the Fort Hood massacre as workplace violence and suggested political correctness is being placed above the security of the nation’s Armed Forces at home.
During a joint session of the Senate and House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday, the Maine Republican referenced a letter from the Defense Department depicting the Fort Hood shootings as workplace violence. She criticized the Obama administration for failing to identify the threat as radical Islam.
Rep. Peter King of New York, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said military service members are “symbols of America’s power, symbols of America’s might. And if [military personnel] can be killed, then that is a great propaganda victory for al Qaeda,” King told Fox News.
King takes his argument a step further. He claims that “there is a serious threat within the military from people who have enlisted who are radical jihadists.” Radical Islamists use our constitutional freedoms to sabotage our system of government from the inside. Once inside, they will work to shut the door on any dissent. That’s what organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (C.A.I.R.) have been doing.
