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twitterSUN EDITORIAL:
Warning signs missed?
Fort Hood shooter, a career Army officer, had shown disturbing behavior
Saturday, Nov. 7, 2009 | 2:06 a.m.
There are more questions than answers about the horrific shooting rampage Thursday at Fort Hood that law enforcement officers say was carried out by Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, an Army psychiatrist.
Officers say Hasan sprayed bullets inside a medical processing center at the Texas Army post, killing and wounding many soldiers and civilians.
Included among the wounded was Kimberly Munley, a Fort Hood civilian police officer who shot the suspect and ended the bloodshed.
Hasan was hospitalized and unable to be immediately interviewed. But President Barack Obama vowed to “get answers to every single question about this horrible incident.”
One aspect of the investigation should be whether the Army — knowing many of its soldiers are under extreme stress — is doing enough to detect warning signs within its ranks.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, was quoted in The New York Times as saying the shooting had prompted Army officials to examine procedures in tracking people who may have problems. “Was enough done?” she said, adding, “I think it’s a legitimate question.”
News reports have uncovered earlier actions by Hasan that could have triggered inquiries into his state of mind. For example, Hasan, a devout Muslim, was once overheard by a colleague at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where Hasan worked for six years, to say, “Muslims should stand up and fight the aggressor.” The aggressor he referred to was the United States.
Stories have also disclosed that Hasan attracted interest from law enforcement officials a few months ago when a posting on an Islamic Web site, authored by “NidalHasan,” equated Islamic suicide bombers with heroes. Hasan was known to have vehemently argued with fellow soldiers against the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Such signs from an officer in the United States Army should have come to the active attention of Hasan’s superiors. They also could have learned — as his aunt told The Washington Post — that he was dreading his pending deployment to Afghanistan. Perhaps they could have detected that he was disturbed and intervened before such horror struck.
Discussion: 14 comments so far…
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Go figure, a Muslim gone wild with a gun. Give that female police officer a gold medal and $100,000 bonus for shooting the quack.
"News reports have uncovered earlier actions by Hasan that could have triggered inquiries into his state of mind. For example, Hasan, a devout Muslim, was once overheard"
That is what happens in a PC world
Our military seems to be going the same way as our schools. Forget trying to use common sense or basic discipline, because you might offend somebody, who will then bring a lawsuit and cost you time and money that will be your loss, not theirs.
I think it's ironic that this ultra-liberal-stance newspaper with often soft-thinking editorials now wonders why, after the fact, somebody didn't do something.
If this guy had been kicked out of the army, your editors would be writing about his religious rights being trampled, and him being discriminated against, and let's all give a Muslim a hug.
Warning signs missed? Look in the mirror.
Nobody, I say again, nobody should be allowed to have side arms on a military base, not even an officer. The only people to have weapons are those who do the guarding of the base.
A psychiatrist has no need to carry a weapon, this smells of an inside job, for how could this man have 2 weapons and loads of ammo.
Why is being against blowing-up people into millions of pieced, and not being afraid to express that "Disturbing Behavior"?
pieces
Exactly Future. The Army was so concerned with being PC that they were afraid to touch him with a ten foot pole. I hope the Libs are happy now. This poor, misunderstood Muslim just wasn't treated fairly. This is all Bush's fault. I'm an Atheist, however, even an Atheist can see if this guy was a white Christian he would already be booked in absentia for committing terrorist acts and hate crimes. But BO gave a shout out to his pal right after it happened so I'm sure he is on top of the matter.
This clown was not "disturbed", he just preferred shooting and killing Americans as opposed to shooting at and possibly killing his fellow Muslims. The bigger question is why these American haters are allowed to live in this country? Where is the screening process with the immigration department?
"News reports have uncovered earlier actions by Hasan that could have triggered inquiries into his state of mind. For example, Hasan, a devout Muslim, was once overheard"
That is what happens in a PC world
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Absolutely right my friend. It's unbelievable that the leftwingers like the editors of the LVSun will whine about the "missed signs". But, they're the first to yelp about "profiling" if some police agency actually acted on those signs before a carnage like this took place. Unfortunately, because of the PC atmosphere the liberal/leftwingers have burdened us with you can expect more carnage like this on these shores.
On person's hero is another person's terrorist nut case. WHAT DID THE British say about Nathan Hale, or the swamp fox?
Look closely at this article and you will see the liberal PC machine in full swing. The key sentence to what they want you to think after reading this is;
"One aspect of the investigation should be whether the Army -- knowing many of its soldiers are under extreme stress -- is doing enough to detect warning signs within its ranks."
They want you to think that this was just a another stressed out PSD patient who is a victim of the war. Nevermind the fact that the guy was never deployed anywhere and therefore could not possibly be "stressed" from the war. Nevermind the fact that the guy got into trouble at Walter Reed for trying to convert patients to Islam. Nevermind the fact that he was dressed in full Jihadist suicide attack garb and shouted "Allah Akbar" prior to murdering the unarmed US soldiers. Nevermind the fact that the guy posted jihadist ideas on the web, the FBI knew it, and chose to ignore it. Kind of like the flight school in Arizona where the 9-11 hijackers wanted to learn to fly but didn't want to know how to land. FBI told their agent NOT to investigate them, and we all know what they ended up doing.
Within 15 minutes of this attack at Ft. Hood, the FBI was telling us that this was not an act of terrorism. Really? How would they know, they didn't even have anyone at the scene yet and the situation was still developing. Then Chairman Obama gets on the tube giving shout outs and talking about his political agenda before ending with a side note of "Oh yeah, about that thing in Texas...." Way to go Commander-in-Chief.
This guy was a muslim terrorist. He killed these people with the motivation to advance a political/religious movement. We are involved in religious war against radical Islam, and until we come to grips with that we will continue to be "blindsided" by these types of terrorist attacks. Our enemy knows that this is our weakness and will exploit it in the future. If we can't even bring ourselves to publicly acknowledge this as a terrorist attack, it tells the enemy exactly which tactic will work for future operations.
Born and raised in the USA.
Homegrown.