We Could Have Stopped The Terror At Fort Hood
Washington Post February 6, 2011 Pg. B1
By Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman and Susan M. Collins
Maj. Nidal Hasan, accused in the murders of 13 people and the attempted murders of 32 others in the shooting spree at Fort Hood, Tex., in November 2009, appears to be the toughest kind of terrorist to spot: a lone wolf who plots without the overt support of domestic cells or foreign sponsors.
Still, the attack did not come as a complete surprise to some in the Army and the FBI, and that makes this incident all the more tragic. Our Senate committee's 14-month investigation of the Fort Hood killings has concluded that the Department of Defense and the FBI “collectively had sufficient information to have detected Hasan's radicalization to violent Islamist extremism but failed both to understand and to act on it.”
The deaths at Fort Hood could and should have been prevented. The Defense Department's failure to acknowledge the threat of violent Islamist extremism within its ranks, coupled with organizational and communication flaws in the FBI's counterterrorism operations, contributed to the tragedy.
Phi Beta Iota: This is ideological intellectual fluff. Neither of these otherwise intelligent Senators is being serious about the FACT that suicide terrorism is directly, explicitly, and rigorously connected to US occupations of Muslim lands, and that “cognitive dissonance” in one's own ranks is the single best early warning of the disconnect between ideologically-justified adventures and reality. Jim Clapper was told this by Robert Steele, directly, but evidently the job of USDI or DNI does not include telling the President the hard truths that need to be told. Similarly, Leon Panetta is all over the lot chasing smoke from the Directorate of Operations, and not focusing on the basics. He is useless to the President, ostensibly his most important client. We went to Iraq at the direction of an Administration whose Vice President was demonstrably guilty of 23 impeachable acts, who led a team that told 935 documented lies. This Op-Ed is outrageous for its facile dismissal of probability that Maj Nidal Hasan was an earnest officer who was not listened to. Hubris in the chain of command, as well as a lack of integrity in the chain of command, have consequences. We equate his suicide and related murders as the US equivalent of a burning monk or activist. We said this at the time, no one wanted to listen. Closer to home, no one is listening to the secessionists from Vermont to Hawaii–they have legitimate grievances, Obama is not Lincoln**, and America is not going to tolerate an internal war when the “Empire” is so obviously in the wrong. It's time to reconnect to reality.
REVOLUTION 21: New Dots & Old Basics
TRUTH: Another Way of Looking at the Shooting
Graphic: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) 101 (Wrong Way)
Graphic: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) 102 (Right Way)
Journal: CIA Leads the “Walking Dead” in USA
Journal: Vermont Takes First Step Toward Secession
Journal: Hubris Loses to Angst & Reality–Every Time
Journal: Fort Hood Cognitive Dissonance
Journal: Fort Hood Cognitive Dissonance Round-Up
Journal: True Cost of War–Insanity & Murder at Home
Journal: Cognitive Dissonance, Military Suicides, and an Alternative Interpretation of the Fort Hood Deaths
Journal: Division with US Army over Muslim Dissidents–LtGen Jerry Boykin, USA (Ret) Sounds Off
Journal: Muslim Tide Arousing US Heartland Anger But Loss of Moral Legitimacy Via Israel and Loss of National Intelligence Shackles America
Reference: The Hasan Slide Presentation
Reference: Paul Williams on America Now
Review: Radical Man–The Process of Psycho-Social Development
Review: Dying to Win–The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Hardcover)
Review: Driven to Death–Psychological and Social Aspects of Suicide Terrorism
Review: In the Name of Democracy–American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond
Review: Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude
Review: National Suicide: How Washington Is Destroying the American Dream from A to Z
Worth a Look: Suicide Terrorist Database and Technology for Transparency
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Institutionalized Ineptitude
** The Civil War being about freeing the slaves is a revisionist myth. It was about the North needing to loot the South during its 12 years of occupation to further develop the North's industrial base. Lincoln did not free the slaves in the North and the West; he issued the Emancipation Proclamation “reluctantly, out of military necessity,” and he violated the Constitution at least twice, once in suspending habeas corpus and the second time in waging war on signers of the compact to create the United STATES of America, each of whom was legally and morally entitled to secede from that voluntary union. Below are book reviews advancing this deeper interpretation of a sordid element of our past.
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Self-Determination & Secession
Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Negative)
Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Positive)