Loyal Muslims should support being assigned to non-combat and less sensitive duty. Just as loyal Japanese soldiers served with distinction in Europe during America's WWII, Muslims could follow that example and help America by serving to America's bst advantage and not using identity politics as a club against the country and armed forces to which they swear allegiance.

Loyal Muslims should be filling the official channels with reports of disloyal Muslim activity within their mosque or community. Those are the only Muslims I assume are loyal to the USA abd have ignored their religion's injunction against loyalty to infidels.

Frankly, I don't think the loyal/disloyal Muslim problem is solvable by non-Muslims that's why I support an effort to deport non-citizen Muslims and disqualification of citizen Muslims from safety sensitive jobs. We can't read their minds and they aren't very forthcoming with details of the troublemakers around them.

Posted by: Scott M at November 7, 2009 12:23 AM

It might also be useful to make life less comfortable for citizen Muslims also, mostly by not giving them special treatment. Such special treatment includes allowance of time off for prayer (enforcable by employment law in the UK, don't know about the USA); exemption from animal cruelty laws (halal slaughter); being allowed to cover the face despite the security implications in many places; being allowed to refuse transport of seeing-eye dogs in taxis on religious grounds; instructions to law enforcement to respect mosques by only going in with permission and after removing shoes. It also includes provision of special diets for Muslims in prisons.

None of this requires harsh treatment of Muslims - not unless one thinks that society treats everyone else harshly as well. No special treatment.

"We do things a certain way here. We like doing them that way. If you don't like it, you know where the airport is."

One might say that Jews have some very similar restrictions and special requirements. The difference is that Jews are not trying to subvert the law of the land, and they are not trying to kill the rest of us.

Posted by: Fletcher Christian at November 7, 2009 2:14 AM

Hassan committed treason. This act should be punishable by immediate death.

Posted by: Cilla Mitchell, Galveston, Texas at November 7, 2009 4:02 AM

The indispensable Wretchard summed it up best in this comment on his Belmont Club blog:

"What I’m really scared of, especially after watching the self-flagellating clips on TV talk shows, is that the elite are finally on the road to giving the Openly Ridiculous Order. Hasan created a terrible dilemma for the politically correct. If they recognize his existence their whole house collapses; and rather than bend slightly and allow for the fact that America might just be facing an enemy, they’ve doubled down. It’s incredible, but a lot of them are upping the ante on a patently ludicrous proposition. ‘Hasan was just too compassionate. Hasan was just another victim of George Bush’s failed policy’.

And the net result of this, if the PC clowns can get away with their campaign of inversion they will practically ensure two things happen simultaneously. A: they will make any rational inquiry into traitors in the military impossible and B: they will put all Muslims, however patriotic, however brave under a cloud of suspicion from which they can never emerge. It will be like affirmative action in its worst sense all over again. Rather than promote integration it will promote fractionalization. If America doesn’t have a Muslim problem now it soon will — courtesy of political correctness.

But there’s worse.

Eventually you will have situations in which people who are actually not trusted may be put in formal positions of authority simply because they can’t be questioned. This is when the Openly Ridiculous Order situation comes in. When an elite starts to issue lunatic directives a certain something snaps. They lose legitimacy. People obey, but they do not comply. In other words, they start to obey only when the bosses are around. The moment the super leaves the room, they all start to laugh at him.

The really perverse thing about political correctness isn’t that they give you slops to eat; it’s that they give you slops to eat and expect you to smile and ask for seconds. The entire exercise is pointless except as an exercise and confirmation of power over you.

Societies don’t last long when their leaders become ridiculous. It’s a dangerous moment. In many ways the damage that Hasan created in Fort Hood, bad though it was, will be as nothing to the cannons he’s untied that are now rolling unsecured around the deck."

Posted by: mezzrow at November 7, 2009 4:24 AM

Eventually you will have situations in which people who are actually not trusted may be put in formal positions of authority simply because they can’t be questioned.

That happened with Obama.

Posted by: Joan of Argghh! at November 7, 2009 5:26 AM

There's less PC going on here than you think.

According to the AP, Va. Tech. announced that Hasan was never enrolled in ROTC there. As an honors graduate in biology from the university, he had no problem getting accepted in the Army's "become a doctor on our dime" program. The Army is near-desperate for doctors. I know - there are Army doctors in my church, near Ft Campbell, and they've told me.

My second son wants to go to medical school after he graduates college (he's a senior now). I asked one of the Army doctors what he needed to do to get the Army to pay for it.

"First, get accepted to an accredited medical school," he answered.

"Then what?" I asked.

"That's pretty much it."

The reason Hasan never came under scrutiny for his incresingly-radicalized Islamism I think had less to do with PC than with the Army Medical Department's fear of losing a doctor, who by all accounts performed his medical duties well, and not having a replacement.

Posted by: Donald Sensing at November 7, 2009 5:50 AM

Islam is incompatible with western culture, practices and beliefs. The Koran is the word of god, directly transcribed my Muhammad. It therefore is not subject to revision or interpretation. it says, quite specifically, to subjugate and kill the infidel. It is not a religion of peace. It is a religion of hate. The history of its expansion throughout the middle east, the Balkans and India is replete with torture, bloodshed and wholesale annihilation of people. They do not belong in America.

Posted by: wildman at November 7, 2009 5:51 AM

My personal hope for him is that he recovers and is left a quadraplegic, imprisoned forever in his own body with his mind fully aware of the horror of his situation and dependent upon the good graces of his caregivers. I hope he lives a long life this way feeling the same terror he subjected his victims to every waking moment of his miserable life, afraid to live yet afraid to die.

Posted by: Stella Polaris at November 7, 2009 6:05 AM

Imprisoned forever, fully aware of the horror of his situation?

He was already a Muslim.

The attendant despair associated with that fact is the primary reason why all those people are dead.

I don't want his worthless carcass warehoused with the hundreds of thousands of other societal defects we already maintain in shiny rent-a-cages scattered across the country.

I want him tried for treason, and then dealt with according to the letter of the law.

This may bring down the Obama administration.

That would be a good thing.

Posted by: TmjUtah at November 7, 2009 6:48 AM

Colonel Ralph Peters:

"I want to puke."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fd_OEs71EA

Posted by: Cathy at November 7, 2009 6:48 AM

Eventually you will have situations in which people who are actually not trusted may be put in formal positions of authority simply because they can’t be questioned.

This is essentially how AIDS and other deadly auto-immune disorders bypass our defenses.

PAIDS: Politically Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

Posted by: Gagdad Bob at November 7, 2009 7:35 AM

It's total insanity. The US Government is spending trillions since 9-11-01 to kill thousands and thousands of "the enemy" overseas. The media and the President can't acknowledge that one worked for the US Government, swore an oath to defend and protect the Constitution, and absolutely committed treason against this country?

CITIZENS WAKE UP.

Posted by: JD at November 7, 2009 7:50 AM

Kim Philby stated that it is impossible to commit treason against a thing you were never a part of. That would include the Major, many politicians, most university professors, and all Muslims who take the big Mo seriously. But the Muslims are the result of a thing, not the cause. Let us deport the politicians and the professors under the emanation and penumbras clause of the Constitution.

Posted by: james wilson at November 7, 2009 7:59 AM

I've worked at an SRP as a JAG officer, writing wills and assisting the troops with whatever legal assistance they require before they deploy overseas. The soldiers -- and the officers, enlisted and civilians staffing the SRP areas -- are sitting ducks; no one is armed there, essentially turning this fenced-and-gated area into a shooting gallery.

The lunacy of trained soldiers not being allowed to carry their weapons, of a military post being a gun-free zone, is simply insane. The admonition that only security forces or MPs are sufficiently well versed in weapons handling to be armed, that there's no reason for soldiers to have access to their weapons, reminds me of nothing so much as the anguished cry of Pres. Merkin Muffley in Dr. Strangleove: Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room.

In Israel, soldiers are issued their weapons and take them home on leave, carry them to and from the base at the end of the day; take them on picnics; and therefore are always ready to come to the defense of society, ensuring that a terrorist does not have an unlimited opportunity to practice his marksmanship on cowering would-be victims.

At a minimum, the Army -- and all other branches of the military -- should revisit the decision to keep all weapons under lock and key. If the troops at Fort Hood had been armed, the death toll and the number of wounded would have been significantly lower.

Posted by: Mike Lief at November 7, 2009 8:06 AM

Furthermore, notwithstanding the fact that Hasan is a member of the Medical Corps and not a combat officer, he had a solemn obligation to care for the troops, not just as a psychiatrist, but as a commissioned officer. He betrayed not just his nation, but the men and women who willingly obey and follow the officers appointed by Congress to lead them.

That an officer would deliberately gun down soldiers is almost beyond comprehension, at least until Sudden Jihad Syndrome enters the equation.

Lethal injection is too good for this guy. If I remember correctly, the last member of the military to be executed climbed the gallows in 1963. The Fort Hood shooter deserves nothing better than a date with the hangman, even if they have to carry his paralyzed carcass up the steps and prop him up.

Posted by: Mike Lief at November 7, 2009 8:12 AM

Okay, I turned my comment, above, on why PC was not the main reason Hasan was given a pass by his superiors, into a longer post on my own blog.

Mike Lief, excellent points. However, in Israel only the soldiers assigned to combat units carry their military weapons with them everywhere.

After Columbine, I posted on my previous blog that school districts should consider deputizing for specialized duties retired military officers and NCOs who had combat-arms specialties to volunteer patrolling schools while armed. Fortunately, after Columbine the civilian police agencies got a clue and have mostly adopted "active shooter" protocols to deal with this kind of event. Ft Hood police Sgt Munley was so trained, for example, and that's how she responded.

But even her heroic actions serve only to prove the adage, "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away." In the three minutes it took for Sgt Munley to enage the shooter, he fired 100 rounds and shot more than 40 people.

At the minimum, the services should require anyone whose assigned weapon is a pistol to pack heat while they are on the post. I had one assignment as an artillery lieutenant where I had to draw an M1911A1, .45-caliber, with ammo from the arms room every morning and turn it in on the way home. I had special dispensation from the Provost Marshal to take it in my car. Frankly, this routine was a pain in the butt but had an incident happened (which thankfully one never did) at least I could have shot back.

Posted by: Donald Sensing at November 7, 2009 9:08 AM

Donald, the ability of societies (and military organizations) to forget lessons learned from history is disheartening and infuriating. The Israelis learned after the massacre of children at a school that it did little good to have police respond after the fact. In the aftermath of that attack, the Israelis began allowing teachers to be armed, ensuring that children were not gathered together into an inviting, gun-free target-rich environment.

When I was in Israel back in '79, I saw a family on a picnic; mom had the basket and one child; dad was holding the other kid's hand -- and had an M16 slung over his shoulder. When I rode the bus and it was standing room only, a female soldier's uzi kept poking me in the side. Once I got past the strangeness of seeing military-grade weapons everywhere, I quickly realized that I felt safer, thanks to the ready availability of firepower in the service of the good guys.

The inability to change the way business is done is nothing new with the military; I recently read an account of how, in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines (where U.S. Army Air Corps planes were lined up wingtip-to-wingtip, making them easy targets for the strafing runs by the enemy), the military continued to leave planes gathered together and -- wait for it -- lined up wingtip-to-wingtip, because it made it easy for sentries to guard them.

I agree with your suggestion regarding sidearms, but am unwilling to concede that at least noncoms ought not to have their rifles with them, too.

Posted by: Mike Lief at November 7, 2009 9:29 AM

Donald Sensing -- By all accounts, Hasan did not perform his medical duties well -- at least by the accounts of those who spent the most time with him, at Walter Reed. We've read over and over that he had sub-par evaluations, but NPR (of all places)is more specific via a report by Daniel Zwerdling:

“I was talking just a little while ago with a psychiatrist at Walter Reed who worked closely with Hasan, and he says there were a couple of things about Hasan that worried a lot of people at Walter Reed. The first thing, which might or might not be relevant, is that he, for most of his four years at Walter Reed, in training as a psychiatrist, he was lazy, the psychiatrist said. He was counseled a number of times by supervisors; he didn’t show up for work on time often; he wasn’t focused in his work; he didn’t seem to take it seriously...

"A couple of years ago, two or three years ago, he gave a Grand Rounds presentation, you know, that’s when all the doctors come into a big auditorium, and you take turns giving a lecture on, you know, the correct treatment of schizophrenia, the right drugs to prescribe for personality disorder, that sort of thing. But instead of giving an academic paper, he gave a lecture on the Koran, and they said it didn’t seem to be just like an informational lecture, but it seemed to be his own beliefs. That’s what a lot of people thought. He talked about how if you’re a nonbeliever the Koran says you should have your head cut off, you should have oil poured down your throat, you should be set on fire. And I said well couldn’t this just be his educating you? And the psychiatrist said yes, but one of the Muslims in the audience, another psychiatrist, raised his hand and was quite disturbed and he said you know, a lot of us don’t believe these things you’re saying -- and there was no place where Hasan couched it as ‘this is what the Koran teaches but you know I don’t believe it.’ And people actually talked in the hallway afterwards about ‘is he one of these people that’s going to freak out and shoot people someday?’"

How damn desparate is the Army to allow someone like this to counsel troops whose psyches have been ripped in a war zone, fighting crazed Islamists? I think Gerard is being too kind: let's try not only Hasan, but every damn superior officer that allowed this guy to stay in the service.

Posted by: JBean at November 7, 2009 9:37 AM

Isn't it strange that from the moment the victims breathe their last we never hear about anger. If the perp is Muslim we immediately hear about law enforcement going on alert to protect Muslims in case of revenge attacks (which never seem to occur). Anger however, is verboten. We immediately begin to hear about the healing process, start lighting candles and film clips of anguished relatives. God knows nobody in the media gets angry, but nobody in the military? Is an expression of anger yet another PC victim? So the victims must suck it up otherwise they will be considered barbarous villagers storming the castle with pitchforks and burning torches? Surely some anger can be expressed, no, some outlet for honest expression? In my worst moments I think that we have no leadership and that this whole thing is going into s**tslide, free-fall...

Posted by: Das at November 7, 2009 9:54 AM

What does it say about us that we as a culture are apparently unwilling to allow the securing of our own soldiers, in their own base, on our own soil because of fear of offending an openly hostile fan-boy of a self-proclaimed enemy that we are at war with? I was at our local NG PX last week and the only armed person I saw on base was a single commercial security guard at the gate armed with a pistol. This is crazy! We are at war for Schumersake!

Does a "man-caused disaster" doer have to wear a 'Death to America' shirt and have a signed Al-qaeda membership card tucked under their turban for us to act in our own national security interests? ...On our own damned soil?

Our internal security apparatus has cast more of a suspicious eye upon our own veterans and the domestic political rivals of the current administration than they have upon our nation's self-avowed enemy.

It's almost as if the goals of our leadership class and those of our enemies somehow align...

Col. Peters was spot on in expressing the urge to puke. Thank God there was a civilian police officer present. God bless her.

Posted by: monkeyfan at November 7, 2009 9:57 AM

You will not get change until there are enough bodies, over a short period of time (weeks or a few months). Only that will break the inertia.

Posted by: Mikey NTH at November 7, 2009 10:11 AM

George Bush has class unlike the Pretend President.

Posted by: ligneus at November 7, 2009 11:02 AM

JBean - you got a link to the NPR page? I'd like to read the whole thing. Thanks.

I looked up promotion rates to major for selection boards that met in 2008, which was when Hasan would have been selected to be promoted last spring.

For non-special branch officers (that is, specialties such as infantry, engineers, etc, but not including the medical corps of which Hasan is a member), 90 percent of captains eligible for promotion to major got promoted to that rank. Ninety percent! This according to Army Times.

I could not find a report specifically about Medical Corps rates, but if the general Army is at 90%, I guarantee that the MC rate was above that, almost certainly near 100%.

Posted by: Donald Sensing at November 7, 2009 1:07 PM

JBean correctly asks that we try every person who allowed a nutcase like this to stay in the military, or worse, promoted him.

The problem perfectly illustrates the wrath we call on ourselves when political correctness rules over law, common sense and scientific reality. Blindly following it is a curse on Liberty and God.

Posted by: AskMom at November 7, 2009 1:25 PM

"However, in Israel only the soldiers assigned to combat units carry their military weapons with them everywhere."

Negative. I've seen numerous female Israeli soldiers, who cannot be assigned to combat units, carrying both M-16s and Galils off-duty. Uzis on occasion, too. I was last in Israel 16 years ago, but I doubt this policy has changed since then.

Posted by: waltj at November 7, 2009 10:05 PM

Donald Sensing -- Sorry to respond so late. That was transcribed from an audio segment on NPR, linked by Instapundit, on 11/6, who had a problem, as I did, re-finding the original link (they change the web addresses as they go along). Link.

Note: my transcription is a bit different, after listening to the actual MP3 download, which I'd be happy to share, if you care to post an email addy.

There was a later broadcast, which I also downloaded, that was slightly different. (i.e. omitting the speculation that Hasan might be one of those people who would freak out and shoot people someday.)

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