 By Douglas J. Hagmann, Director 20 January 2010: On 15 January, 2009, the U.S. Military released its 86-page report “Protecting the Force, Lessons Learned from Fort Hood,” an independent review by the Department of Defense of the causes behind the November 5, 2009 massacre by Islamic terrorist insider Nidal Malik HASAN. Thirteen were murdered, plus one unborn child and another 43 were injured. Omitted from the report was any direct reference to Islam, Islamic terrorism, or the motives of HASAN, which were clearly influenced by his beliefs or interpretation of the Muslim ideology.
These obvious omissions were explained by two of the report’s authors, former Army Secretary Togo West and former Navy’s Admiral, Vernon Clark, who spoke to reporters last week when the report was released. According to the investigators, they didn’t “drill down into HASAN’s motives.” Any person of reason would be compelled to ask why motive was not a factor in this investigation, when it must be considered as one of the primary factors in any normal investigation. The reason is obvious and became abundantly clear from the minute Barack Hussein Obama addressed the nation on the day of the massacre. To address HASAN’s motives would require a level of honesty about the Islamic ideology this administration is unwilling to discuss: true believers in fundamentalist Islam cannot legitimately serve in our armed forces due to a conflict of ideological interest. The fact that the authors intentionally omitted any doctrinal based assessment of the killings should be an indictment of not only the authors, but of our current administration.
To purposely omit the Islamic motivation that was the sole basis of HASAN’s murderous rampage is not only disingenuous, but traitorous as it places our armed forces at risk for future killings, sabotage, and treason. Therefore, the report is either a clear exhibit of our senior leadership’s knowledge deficit pertaining to the ideology of enemy we are fighting, or illustrates just how deeply entrenched the enemy really is within our military infrastructure and political bodies of policy and oversight. Perhaps even more disturbing than the reports omission of “Islam” or “radical Islam” within the report, the authors broadly imply that adherents to all religions are equally influenced to the possibility of radicalization. Recommendation 2.7 therefore suggests that Department of Defense (DoD) should “Promptly establish standards and reporting procedures that clarify guidelines for religious accommodation.” To argue in favor of this possibility is to completely ignore that Islam is unique among all other religions as its fundamental doctrine requires its adherents to wage war against non-Muslims or unbelievers, a fact that is not a hijacking of the faith, but mandated by the Qur’an and Hadith that is currently supported by every school of Islamic jurisprudence[i]. Yet another disturbing recommendation is contained in section 3.8 of the report. The authors also recommend a policy directing the Department of Defense to “review the need for DoD privately owned weapons policy,” somehow suggesting private gun ownership by members of the most heavily armed organization in the world might have been a contributing factor to the Fort Hood massacre. The fact that this subject was even given consideration should be disturbing to every individual concerned with their Second Amendment rights and suggests an agenda well above the scope of this investigation. To deny or fail to address our enemy’s motivation and their own stated doctrine is unacceptable and will only embolden their will and strengthen their abilities of infiltration. To incorporate all other religions and to state the need to review private gun ownership of military personnel into the Fort Hood threat assessment has more serious overtones of a shadowy agenda that is at war with democracy. Homeland Security 
 In a major victory for the increasingly embattled freedom of speech, the Texas Supreme Court has just denied a petition by the Islamic Society of Arlington, Texas and six other Texas-based Islamic organizations to review their case against human rights activist (and FrontPage Magazine writer) Joe Kaufman. The case has already gone against the Islamic groups in the initial decision as well as on appeal, but they seem determined to silence Kaufman, and could conceivably try now to take the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The suit itself is a manifestation of the global assault on free speech that is picking up steam more quickly than ever now, with conservative voices shouted down and physically threatened on college campuses, and warriors for free speech such as the Dutch politician Geert Wilders facing trial for exercising this fundamental right. The Islamic groups’ suit against Kaufman is a cynical attempt to silence him and prevent his dissemination of truths about them that they would prefer unwary Infidels didn’t know – specifically, the terror ties of Islamic groups in the U.S. Ironically, however, none of the groups that sued Kaufman were actually mentioned in the article they claimed libeled them. Kaufman explains: “In October 2007, I had a lawsuit and a restraining order brought against me by seven Dallas-area Islamic organizations, who objected to an article that I had written for FrontPage.
Not one of the groups was mentioned in the article. It was concerning information I had personally discovered linking the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) to the financing of terrorism abroad. My allegations regarding this were and are backed up by irrefutable proof.” As frivolous as their charges against Kaufman manifestly were, their implications were ominous. Leftists and their Islamic supremacist allies, unable to refute the evidence and arguments their opponents present, are resorting to intimidation both legal and physical.
While Kaufman has been harassed in the courtroom for over two years now, conservative speakers at campuses all over the country routinely face the specter of being physically attacked simply for expressing views out of sync with politically correct dogma. Speaking at the University of Southern California on November 4, 2009, David Horowitz noted that this was a relatively recent development: “It used to be a pleasure for me to speak on a college campus like USC. I can remember the days when I could stroll onto the USC campus and walk over to the statue of Tommy Trojan where College Republicans had erected a platform for a rally to support our troops in Afghanistan after 9/11 at which I was to speak. Now, however, I can’t set foot on this campus – or any campus – without being accompanied by a personal bodyguard and a battalion of armed campus security police to protect me and my student hosts.” He said this while protected by a bodyguard and twelve armed campus security officers. Both of these forms of intimidation are being directed now at Geert Wilders, the Dutch Parliamentarian who produced the film Fitna, which shows how Islamic jihadists use violent passages of the Qur’an to justify violence and supremacism. For this and other alleged acts of “hate speech,” Wilders goes on trial in the Netherlands on January 20, for charges including having “intentionally offended a group of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion.” It is a sad day for the freedom of speech when a man can be put on trial for causing another man offense. If offending someone were really a crime warranting prosecution by the civil authorities, the legal system would be brought to a standstill.
But of course what Dutch authorities and Muslim groups in the Netherlands really want to bring to a standstill by trying Wilders is his truth-telling about the nature of Islamic jihad and Islamic supremacism – an honesty that has made his party one of the most popular in the Netherlands. The trial is an attempt by the nation’s political elites to silence one of their most formidable critics. Wilders delineates the implications of his trial: “On the 20th of January 2010, a political trial will start. I am being prosecuted for my political convictions. The freedom of speech is on the verge of collapsing. If a politician is not allowed to criticise an ideology anymore, this means that we are lost, and it will lead to the end of our freedom. However I remain combative: I am convinced that I will be acquitted.” Even if he does prevail, however, Wilders is still not free. “I would not qualify myself as a free man,” he has explained. “Four and a half years ago I lost my freedom. I am under guard permanently, courtesy to those who prefer violence to debate.” Will American defenders of the freedom of speech also soon have to be under permanent guard, and spending thousands of hours defending themselves in court from frivolous charges that are intended only to silence them? We have already started down that road.
Joe Kaufman has won another victory this week, but the Islamic supremacist machine in the United States has by no means given up its larger jihad against free speech and free thought. Those who are determined not to be silenced must settle in for a long, hard fight. FPM
 by Lt. Col. Ralph Peters
There are two basic problems with the grotesque non-report on the Islamist- terror massacre at Fort Hood (released by the Defense Department yesterday): * It's not about what happened at Fort Hood. * It avoids entirely the issue of why it happened. Rarely in the course of human events has a report issued by any government agency been so cowardly and delusional. It's so inept, it doesn't even rise to cover-up level. "Protecting the Force: Lessons From Fort Hood" never mentions Islamist terror. Its 86 mind-numbing pages treat "the alleged perpetrator," Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, as just another workplace shooter (guess they're still looking for the pickup truck with the gun rack). The report is so politically correct that its authors don't even realize the extent of their political correctness -- they're body-and-soul creatures of the PC culture that murdered 12 soldiers and one Army civilian. Reading the report, you get the feeling that, jeepers, things actually went pretty darned well down at Fort Hood. Commanders, first responders and everybody but the latest "American Idol" contestants come in for high praise. The teensy bit of specific criticism is reserved for the "military medical officer supervisors" in Maj. Hasan's chain of command at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. As if the problem started and ended there. Unquestionably, the officers who let Hasan slide, despite his well-known wackiness and hatred of America, bear plenty of blame. But this disgraceful pretense of a report never asks why they didn't stop Hasan's career in its tracks. The answer is straightforward: Hasan's superiors feared -- correctly -- that any attempt to call attention to his radicalism or to prevent his promotion would backfire on them, destroying their careers, not his. Hasan was a protected-species minority. Under the PC tyranny of today's armed services, no non-minority officer was going to take him on. This is a military that imposes rules of engagement that protect our enemies and kill our own troops and that court-martials heroic SEALs to appease a terrorist. Ain't many colonels willing to hammer the Army's sole Palestinian-American psychiatrist. Of course, there's no mention of political correctness by the panel. Instead, the report settles for blinding flashes of the obvious, such as "We believe a gap exists in providing information to the right people." Gee, really? Well, that explains everything. Money well spent! Or "Department of Defense force protection policies are not optimized for countering internal threats." Of course not: You can't stop an internal threat you refuse to recognize. The panel's recommendations? Wow. "Develop a risk-assessment tool for commanders." Now that's going to stop Islamist terrorists in their tracks. The Fort Hood massacre didn't reflect an intelligence failure. The intelligence was there, in gigabytes. This was a leadership failure and an ethical failure, at every level. Nobody wanted to know what Hasan was up to. But you won't learn that from this play-pretend report. The sole interesting finding flashes by quickly: Behind some timid wording on pages 13 and 14, a daring soul managed to insert the observation that we aren't currently able to keep violence-oriented religious extremists from becoming chaplains. (Of course, they're probably referring to those darned Baptists . . .) To be fair, there's a separate, classified report on Maj. Hasan himself. But it's too sensitive for the American people to see. Does it even hint he was a self-appointed Islamist terrorist committing jihad? I'll bet it focuses on his "personal problems." In the end, the report contents itself with pretending that the accountability problem was isolated within the military medical community at Walter Reed. It wasn't, and it isn't. Murderous political correctness is pervasive in our military. The medical staff at Walter Reed is just where the results began to manifest themselves in Hasan's case. Once again, the higher-ups blame the worker bees who were victims of the policy the higher-ups inflicted on them. This report's spinelessness is itself an indictment of our military's failed moral and ethical leadership. We agonize over civilian casualties in a war zone but rush to whitewash the slaughter of our own troops on our own soil. Conduct unbecoming. Ralph Peters' latest book is "The War After Armageddon." NYPost
 What? "Terrorism," you say? I thought the "war on terror" was over! Wasn't this a "man-caused disaster"? I thought it was vicarious Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder! Anyway, that Tim McVeigh is incorrigible! He must be stopped! "Fort Hood shooting was terrorism, U.S. says," by Phil Stewart for Reuters, January 15 (thanks to Weasel Zippers): WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The shooting rampage at a U.S. Army base in November was "an act of terrorism," an Obama administration official said on Friday, as the Pentagon ordered an overhaul of protocols to spot threats within the military. Reviews ordered on Friday by the Pentagon and White House exposed shortcomings in both intelligence and oversight before the November 5 shooting, which authorities blame on a military psychiatrist. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said his department was still "burdened by 20th century processes and attitudes mostly rooted in the Cold War," and needed to do more to combat self-radicalization. "Our counterintelligence procedures are mostly designed to combat an external threat such as a foreign intelligence service," Gates told reporters at the Pentagon, adding there was not enough focus "on internal threats."... Watch for the new emphasis on "internal threats" to focus not on Islamic jihadists, at least after the Hasan heat is off, but on "right-wing extremists." With thanks to JihadWatch
 by Lt.Col.Ralph Peters
Our terrorist enemies are out-thinking us. It’s not only embarrassing, but deadly. The Taliban’s latest innovation was on display again last week, when a suicide bomber, reportedly garbed in an Afghan army uniform, killed seven Americans, including a CIA mission chief. The terrorists are “inside the wire.” Everywhere. From eastern Afghanistan to Texas. And we’re stalled. For all of our wealth, technology and power, our enemies have the strategic and psychological initiative. The low-tech nature of most reported combat in our recent conflicts obscures the advent of four powerful innovations in warfare. Unfortunately, three of those revolutionary techniques belong to our enemies. The single breakthrough we’ve exploited has been Unmanned Aerial Vehicles — UAVs, commonly known as “drones.” They’re a terrific stand-off targeting tool. Our enemies, though, have mastered new forms of the tactical fight — with strategic effects. They still lose every classic firefight, but they are pioneering the means to win without directly confronting our combat troops. The first terrorist and insurgent innovation of this conflict era was the bulk employment of suicide bombers, dirt-cheap weapons with a high probability of success — the poor man’s precision arsenal. Their second innovation was another cheap-but-powerful tool, the Improvised Explosive Device, the IED or roadside bomb. We still can’t beat it. Then, over the last year or so, we’ve seen the ever more frequent use of their most insidious psychological weapon: the suicide assassin disguised as “one of ours.” This is an anti-morale nuke. Our linchpin effort in Afghanistan is the development of Afghan security forces. (The Obama Doctrine: “When they stand up, we’ll run like hell.”) And building up the Afghan army and police relies on trust between our trainers and advisers and “their” Afghans — as well as between Afghans themselves. Last year, we saw incident after incident in which a Taliban cadre within the Afghan security forces gunned down our officers at meetings (the Brits took a really bad hit), turned their weapons on our combat troops or, most devastatingly, blew themselves up when we embraced them as comrades. Don’t let this weapon’s low-tech nature fool you. This is the big one. President Obama’s desperate “strategy” for Afghanistan relies on building trust — between Afghans and their government, but above all on the security front. Our enemies have done what we refuse to do. They’ve analyzed the problem objectively and engineered ruthless solutions. And we won’t even block their Internet sites. We make up fairy tales about the power of development projects to deter religious fanatics. We impose rules of engagement on our troops that protect our enemies. We ground our air power. We grant terrorists “legal” rights with no basis in existing law. And our enemies do whatever it takes to win. I want to see every one of those enemies dead. But I have to acknowledge their commitment, their maddened courage and their genius at waging war for peanuts. Our troops in the field know all too well what a self-imposed mess we’re in. But the gulf between our grunts and their generals is immense and growing wider. It’s a (literally) bloody disgrace that our ragtag enemies innovate faster and more effectively than our armed forces and the legion of overpaid contractors behind them. They ask themselves, “What works?” We ask ourselves what the lawyers will say. The crucial difference? Our enemies believe in victory, even if we don’t. Exile Street
 Less than a month after major Nidal Hasan allegedly killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, the Pentagon's top intelligence officer sent the White House a report detailing an earlier failure to connect the dots.
It reads like a dress rehearsal for the Detroit bomber case, reports CBS News chief national security correspondent David Martin.
According to that still-classified report, the terrorism task force responsible for determining whether Hasan posed a threat never saw all 18 e-mails he exchanged with that radical Yemeni cleric Awlaki whose communications were being monitored under a court ordered wiretap.
After the Washington task force decided Hasan was not dangerous, it never asked to see his subsequent communications with Alwaki.
"I think it's a real problem that you didn't have in one place at one time all of the communications being evaluated," said CBS News security analyst Juan Zarate.
None of the e-mails specifically mentioned Hasan's plans for a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, but because he was a member of the military the FBI showed them to a Pentagon investigator with the note "comm" written on it. To the FBI that meant "commissioned officer." The Pentagon investigator thought it meant "communication."
As a result, there were no red flags that an army officer was e-mailing a radical cleric suspected of being a talent spotter for al Qaeda.
Bottom line: the lessons of the Fort Hood shootings were not learned in time to avert the near disaster on Christmas day.
 A startling fact just emerged in the course of some routine maintenance work on the mailing lists for www.DanielPipes.org: One "Dr. Nidal Malik Hasan" has been subscribed as nidalhasan@aol.com since March 2009 to all the Middle East Forum mailing lists, including my own. He opened some but not many of the mailings. In addition to the name, there are several reasons to think this is the butcher of Ft. Hood: He received the mailings for over half a year before his identity became notorious; he has not opened any e-mails in a while, presumably since he has been jailed; and a search for nidalhasan@aol.com on the internet finds this address associated with the Texas jihadi (for example, by the Northeast Intelligence Network).. Comments: (1) I have never assumed that all the Middle East Forum's or my readers share our outlook. To the contrary, the lively debates carried on in the more than 100,000 published reader comments show that readers have all outlooks. Still, I never imagined that a future terrorist would subscribe himself to our writings. (2) Why, I can't help but wonder, would Hasan have wanted to see the Middle East Forum's work? Opposition research? Or might he have been stalking us? (3) This subscription gives new urgency to the concerns I addressed at "Am I Helping the Terrorist Enemy?" and I hereby rededicate myself to assuring that the Middle East Forum does not inadvertently provide guidance to the country's foes. (4) On a sad note, this news brings to the mind that I learned just two months earlier, again while doing routine chores, that my articles were still being sent to the late Daniel Pearl's Wall Street Journal e-mail address, which had been initially subscribed before his murder nearly eight years ago. (December 30, 2009) Daniel Pipes
 With the FBI cutting off ties to the Council on American-Islamic Relations and now subpoenaing some 12,000 internal CAIR documents under temporary restraining order as part of the bureau’s ongoing criminal investigation of CAIR, the terrorist front group is suddenly cooperating with the FBI — or at least making a show of it. Suddenly CAIR, an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator, is acting like a good citizen.
Suddenly it’s concerned about young Muslim-American men going on jihad. Suddenly it’s concerned about “certain” passages of the Quran inspiring jihadists. It’s all too little, too late. Thanks to CAIR, 42 brave American soldiers were gunned down by an Islamic nut in Texas. That’s right, thanks to CAIR. How so? For starters, it was the intimidating and ruthless CAIR that almost single-handedly created a climate of fear of reporting any suspicious anti-American behavior on the part of Muslim soldiers like Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, accused of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. The CAIR-induced mass silence led to mass murder. Fear in the military of being seen as anti-Muslim also blocked intellectually honest discussion of violent Islamic ideology in the ranks. Thanks to CAIR, the military along with everyone else in government is terrified of associating terrorism with Islam. No one dares utter the M word, lest they be sued for discrimination or branded an “anti-Muslim bigot” or “Islamophobe” by CAIR’s smear merchants. “There were definitely clear indications that Hasan’s loyalties were not with America,” said Lt. Col. Val Finnell, one of the Army doctors who served with Hasan. But nobody said anything because “there’s a political correctness climate in the military,” and everybody’s “afraid of an equal opportunity lawsuit.” CAIR’s lawyers have filed thousands of EEOC complaints and lawsuits since 9/11. They’ve even gone after John Doe citizens who alerted airline crew to Muslim men behaving as menacingly and suspiciously as the 9/11 hijackers. CAIR’s “Flying While Muslim” anti-profiling campaign has had a chilling effect throughout the aviation security industry. CAIR gulled non-Muslims into the kind of see-no-evil dhimmitude that allowed Hasan to carry out his alleged terror. Had anyone dared officially protest Hasan’s extremist views, they would have not only risked their military careers but potentially faced a lawsuit sponsored by CAIR. Hasan was treated with kid gloves because CAIR demanded it. Thanks to CAIR, a dozen soldiers lay dead, along with 29 wounded, some so severely they’ll never be deployed in the war on terror again, which is just fine by CAIR. Since 9/11, the Saudi-funded front group has consistently and vehemently protested the war, even in Afghanistan, while defending the Taliban and other terrorists. More at FPM
 Authorities have also uncovered a connection with the Fort Hood jihadist's imam, Anwar al-Awlaki. (Pictured)"Officials: Only A Failed Detonator Saved Northwest Flight," by Brian Ross and Richard Esposito for ABC News, December 26: Officials now say tragedy was only averted on Northwest flight 253 because a makeshift detonator failed to work properly. Bomb experts say there was more than enough explosive to bring down the Northwest jet, which had nearly 300 people aboard, had the detonator not failed, and the nation's outdated airport screening machines may need to be upgraded. "We've known for a long time that this is possible," said Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar and ABC News consultant, "and that we really have to replace our scanning devices with more modern systems." Clarke said full body scans were needed, "but they're expensive and they're intrusive. They invade people's privacy." Al Qaeda, said Clarke, is aware of this vulnerability in the U.S. airport security system. "They know that this is a weakness and an Achilles' heel in our airport security system and this is the second time they've tried it." [...] According to investigators, the bomb on Northwest flight 253, which was en route from Amsterdam to Detroit when suspect Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab allegedly detonated it, contained more than 80 grams of PETN.
The material was allegedly sewn into Abdulmutallab's underwear, and was not detected by airport security. The bomb was built and the plot organized, say U.S. officials, by al Qaeda leaders in Yemen, just north of the capital city of Sanaa. Authorities say the 23-year-old suspect spent months in Yemen being trained for the Christmas Day suicide mission. Investigators believe Abdulmutallab was connected to al Qaeda by the same radical imam, American-born Anwar Awlaki, who is linked to the American Army major accused of opening fire at Fort Hood in November. According to investigators, the bomb used yesterday was built in Yemen by a top al Qaeda bomb maker. [...] Abdulmutallab, who flew from Nigeria to Amsterdam and then Detroit, was taken into custody at the Detroit airport and was interviewed by authorities there. He was then taken to an area hospital to be treated for burns. Abdulmutallab was on a terrorism watch list, but not on a no-fly list. Said Clarke, "So once again, we have the U.S. government, as in the case of the Fort Hood attacks, knowing about someone, knowing that they were suspicious, but that information didn't get to the right people in time."
 Jim Hoft The Ft. Hood jihadist’s spiritual advisor Anwar al Awlaki was reportedly killed today in an air strike on a Yemeni terrorist camp.
Reuters reported: A Yemeni air raid may have killed the top two leaders of al Qaeda’s regional branch on Thursday, and an American Muslim preacher linked to the man who shot dead 13 people at a U.S. army base may also have died, a Yemeni security official said. Nasser al-Wahayshi, the Yemeni leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and his Saudi deputy, Saeed al-Shehri, were believed to be among 30 militants killed in the dawn operation in the eastern province of Shabwa, said the official, who asked not to be identified. U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki may also have died in the air strike which targeted a meeting of militants planning attacks on Yemeni and foreign oil and economic targets, he said. If all the deaths are confirmed, the air strike would appear to have struck a severe blow against AQAP, seen as the most dangerous regional offshoot of Osama bin Laden’s network. With thanks to Gateway Pundit
 As the United States prepares to try Nidal Malik Hasan for 13 counts of murder and 32 counts of attempted murder at Fort Hood last month, few question the suspect’s guilt, but many disagree about his motives. Yet the evidence is now conclusive: the Fort Hood massacre was an act of Islamic terror. Before his shooting spree, Hasan told colleagues that non-Muslims were infidels condemned to hell and that they should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats. Hasan traded 18 e-mails with Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida recruiter. On the morning of the massacre, he gave his neighbor a Koran as he was departing for the base, telling her that he was going to do “good work for God.” Wearing Pakistani garb, Hasan shouted “Allahu akbar” as he began firing at U.S. troops. Despite the plentiful evidence, however, leftists refuse to accept Hasan’s Islamic inspiration.
We’ve heard the rationalizations: Hasan was a nut; the stresses of serving in the military drove him crazy; he experienced anti-Islamic discrimination; anyone is capable of “losing it” under such stressful conditions; and so on.
These reflexive denials are a logical continuation of the Left’s long tradition of denying the evil of our totalitarian enemies—or, when forced to acknowledge them, blaming them on the United States. This was the pattern throughout the Cold War, and it’s continued during the War on Terror. When it’s proven beyond reasonable doubt that jihadism was in fact Hasan’s motive, here’s a prediction: leftists will either fall into apathetic silence or respond that it was American racism, oppression, and Islamophobia that forced Hasan’s hand. To recognize the evil of Nidal Hasan and his ideology, to admit the existence of pernicious enemies, is to concede that there are societies, cultures, and systems that are much more unjust than ours. This is an untenable step for leftists to take, because it means acknowledging that there is something superior about our civilization that’s worth saving and defending. The notion that his own society is evil and unjust is the bedrock of the leftist’s vision. Wicked capitalists trample on the poor, the oppressed, and the downtrodden; the leftist appoints himself to rescue these victims.
He is a self-styled social redeemer, leading a movement to liberate the masses, even if it results in the destruction of his own society. This political mission provides him with immense moral indignation and, therefore, moral superiority, dispositions from which, in turn, he derives emotional self-gratification. His whole belief system provides him with a sense of belonging; he joins other social redeemers, as well as the victims, real or imagined, who wait for him to break their chains. Thus, the leftist’s political disposition is a faith that reinforces his personal identity and sense of belonging. Admitting that Hasan is a jihadist would undermine that faith. It would also expose the leftist to potential excommunication from his social community.
He’d become politically suspect to his peers, perhaps even accused of becoming a reactionary right-winger. That’s why we will continue to witness more Fort Hood denial from the Left, with all of its irrationality and disregard for human life. To get the whole story on the Left’s Jihad Denial, read Jamie Glazov’s new book, United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror. FPM
 An attorney for the man charged in the deadly shootings at Fort Hood says the Army has prohibited his client from praying in Arabic with his family. Attorney John P. Galligan said police stopped a phone conversation between Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and his brother on Friday because it was not in English.
Galligan told the San Antonio Express-News that police at Brooke Army Medical Center refused to let Hasan pray in Arabic. Galligan says he thinks that's illegal and violation of Hasan's religious rights. Hasan has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the Nov. 5 attack. The military has imposed restrictions requiring Hasan to speak only in English on the phone or with visitors unless an interpreter is present. SFGate
 Nidal Hasan, who was shot in the chest by a police officer during the November 5 rampage at the sprawling Fort Hood military base in Texas, will likely never walk again and has no control over basic bodily functions. It will likely be some time before he is ready to face trial, said John Galligan, Hasan's civilian attorney. "He's permanently paralysed from the upper chest area down,'' Galligan told AFP. "He still has significant collateral issues... he's an invalid.'' Galligan has asked the army to move Hasan to a hospital closer to his office near Fort Hood so that he can more easily meet with his client. Hasan remains under guard at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, about 190 kilometres away from where the massacre took place. The Pentagon has launched an elaborate investigation into the shootings to determine whether warning signs were missed and to prevent such an assault from happening again. Hasan is being investigated for links to Islamic extremism, including his contacts with a radical cleric who blessed the killing spree. He faces 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. Twelve soldiers and one civilian were killed in the attack. Another 42 people were wounded. Galligan said he was worried that his client would not be given a fair trial at Fort Hood given the publicity surrounding the case and the way prosecutors are "rushing things.'' "My job is to make sure that Major Hasan gets a fair, free day in court. That's what our service members fight for,'' Galligan said. "When I defend Major Hasan, I feel like I'm defending every soldier in uniform. Too many Americans, from high level politicians on down to some people in my local community have forgotten the significance of that.'' Galligan said he was not given the opportunity to be present when investigators interviewed Hasan at the hospital or when he was formally charged and cannot get the company commander to return his phone calls. Hasan is also facing unusually heavy restrictions in hospital, Galligan said. He is being monitored by a video camera, he has been told that all communication must be in English, his correspondence is being monitored and copied, his visitors are strictly limited and Galligan cannot be present at the same time as Hasan's family. "I love the military justice system,'' Galligan said. "If it's done right you can get a better trial, sometimes a fairer trial than you can in state court or federal court. If it gets derailed there is nothing worse than having the army coming against you.'' The Australian
 By Chris Neefus
Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, says the Obama administration is stalling in providing information to the leaders of the House and Senate and the congressional intelligence committees on the multiple murders allegedly committed by a radical Muslim Army officer at Fort Hood more than a month ago.
So far, the committee chairman and congressional leaders have received no detailed, substantive briefing on the event and what is known about its perpetrator.
“You know, they’re playing out the string,” Hoekstra said Thursday. “We’re going home next week, (and) they will have effectively made it through three months with giving no substantive briefings on Fort Hood.”
CNSNews.com asked Hoekstra whether it was “a constitutional affront not to have the Gang of 8 briefed on this?”
“Oh yeah, sure, absolutely,” said Hoekstra.
The Gang of 8 is a group of leaders from the House and Senate who by law are supposed to be briefed on U.S. intelligence activities when the matter is too sensitive to share with the full intelligence committees.
The group includes the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees and the majority and minority leaders of each chamber.
Additionally, the law holds that the administration must “ensure that the congressional intelligence committees are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States.”
When a reporter said he thought the Gang of 8 had been briefed on the intelligence report regarding the attack, Hoekstra said the committees had been given a preliminary briefing a few weeks ago that lacked substantive information.
 by Daniel Greenfield The thirteen US soldiers murdered at Fort Hood were killed by the bullets fired by Malik Nidal Hassan, but there were those who helped Nassan fire his bullets, who did everything but hold his gun and pull the trigger for him.
The initial FBI review has found that the Justice Department guidelines for opening a criminal investigation were too high, in turn investigators have said that it now requires a very high standard of evidence in order to convict a terrorist plotter. Pursuing charges before all the evidence is in hand can backfire – suspects have sued authorities before, claiming they were falsely imprisoned victims of witch hunts… Five Muslim immigrants were convicted last year of conspiring to kill U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey, but they were acquitted of attempted murder after prosecutors acknowledged they were probably months away from acting.
... In January 2006, agents watched as a young man suspected of links to terrorists walked out of an Atlanta Home Depot with materials that could be used to make a bomb. They knew Syed Haris Ahmed had researched bombmaking techniques online and shaved his head, as some jihadis have done before an attack. However, they decided to wait to arrest him and keep building a stronger case – and risk a potential terror attack. Not being able to stop a terrorist before he strikes. Not being able to remove Muslims who are engaging in threatening behavior on a plane. Not able to take action against a terrorist plot for fear that the terrorists will be allowed to walk free. That is what the domestic version of the War on Terror looks like today. Those are the wages of Lawfare, the legal campaign on behalf of terrorists waged by well known liberal legal advocacy groups such as the ACLU, and the much wider base of liberal organizations and newspapers who lobbied on behalf of captured terrorists and republished every single one of their claims of torture… to the extent that the Al Queda manual made it a default for captured terrorists to cry abuse once on trial. Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard and driver, who was captured together with Al Queda operatives, became a cause celebre for liberals and liberal groups from Amnesty International to People for the American Way to the American Jewish Committee to George Clooney who was interested in making a movie about him and starring as his lawyer.
They turned Salim Hamdan into a martyr and breathlessly repeated every single one of his statements. And they won. They won with Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld. And they won again at trial. Hamdan was freed a few months after sentencing to return to Yemen. The liberal establishment had fought its hardest for Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard… and they won. America lost. That wasn’t the only time they won.
From day one every terrorist in Gitmo, every terrorist plotter seized on American soil plotting to murder Americans had the liberal establishment in their corner and fighting on their behalf.
From trial lawyers queuing up to defend them to the editorial pages of every liberal newspaper in America clamoring that they had been victimized, that the charges against them were worthless and that America had besmirched itself by not bowing to the wishes of the aforementioned trial lawyers. And they won. From Abu Ghraib to Gitmo, from Hamdan to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, they won. They successfully smeared US soldiers and interrogators and CIA agents as monsters, torturers and kidnappers.
They successfully portrayed Al Queda terrorists as sensitive victims and martyrs of a latter day Gulag. The same press that wouldn’t report on any of Castro’s atrocities a few miles south of Guantanamo Bay if you put a gun to their heads, put on their novelist hats and transformed butchers into loving fathers, and dedicated fanatics into misunderstood patriots. And they won. More at CFP
 The admonition not to rush to judgment or jump to conclusions might sound fair and prudent enough, perhaps even statesmanlike when uttered by the president, as long it's borne in mind that such advice is itself a judgment that is more than halfway to a conclusion. What it plainly implies in the present case is that the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan should not be assumed in any meaningful way to be related to his Muslim faith. Perfect subjective knowledge of the major's possibly disordered mind is not available to me, but nor is it available to the host of damage-control commentators and FBI drones who have had things mostly their own way so far. In order to demonstrate the absence of a connection, however, the following facts would have to be regarded as relatively random or secondary: 1) Hasan had been in direct correspondence with a notorious preacher of violence, Anwar al-Awlaki, whose enthusiasm for the teachings and actions of al-Qaida has long been well-known to researchers and intelligence agencies. 2) He bought weapons for himself well in advance of a murderous assault on unarmed soldiers awaiting treatment at a clinic—people to whom, in addition to his responsibilities as a human being, he also owed, as a physician, a sworn duty of care. More at Slate
 FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - The Army has charged the suspect in the Fort Hood shooting spree with 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. The charges are in addition to the 13 premeditated murder charges filed against Maj. Nidal (Nee-DAHL) Hasan (Huh-SAHN') in the Nov. 5 massacre at Fort Hood. The Army says the attempted murder charges filed Wednesday are related to the 30 soldiers and two civilian police officers injured in the shooting at a soldier processing center on the central Texas post. Hasan's attorney, John Galligan, says the additional charges may not affect Hasan's punishment if he is convicted, because premeditated murder carries the death penalty. Authorities haven't said whether they plan to seek the death penalty. Breitbart
 By Evan Kohlmann The NEFA Foundation has obtained an English-language statement regarding the Ft. Hood massacre that was posted by the administrators of the Ansar al-Mujahideen online jihad forum.
The statement noted, "We issue this statement in support of the actions of brother Nidal Malik Hassan; as a congratulations for his brave and heroic deed, as well as the jealousness he displayed for the pains suffered by the Muslim Ummah as a result of the modern Zionist-Christian Crusades against it. We ask Allah to accept this great feat of yours and make you an example for others to follow." Further, "It is not permissible for Muslims to aid the infidels in any way in war against the Muslims, whether physically, morally, financially, or strategically.
There is a consensus amongst the scholars that whoever does so, even by a mere gesture, has committed an act of apostasy and has left the fold of Islam."
It should be noted that the Ansar al-Mujahideen forum has been recently endorsed by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Taliban) as one of their officially approved web venues.
The entire statement from Ansar al-Mujahideen in support of Maj. Hasan can be viewed on the NEFA Foundation website. Counterterrorism Blog
 Because the warrant was rescinded, authorities say they missed a golden opportunity to detain Awlaki. The morning after the warrant was cancelled, October 10, 2002, Awlaki stepped off a Saudi Airlines flight from Riyadh to New York. Because Awlaki was on the early version of the federal terrorism watch list, authorities were allowed to detain him for questioning.
According to immigration documents, Awlaki was intercepted by immigration agents before 6:15 in the morning. "Sujbect was escorted to INS primary and secondary by U.S. Customs. He is a match." Agents believed they had an individual who was both on the terror list and had an outstanding warrant. After his release from JFK, Awlaki returned briefly to Northern Virginia. According to the Washington Post, while there he visited a radical cleric named Ali al-Timimi and asked about recruiting young Muslims for jihad. In 2003, federal agents raided al-Timimi's home and seized documents and cassettes. He is now serving a life sentence after being convicted of inciting 11 young Muslim men, most of them American citizens, to fight with the Taliban against the U.S. in Afghanistan after 9/11. Awlaki left the U.S. before the end of 2002 and moved to the U.K. He returned to Yemen permanently in 2004. He was arrested by Yemeni officials in 2006, allegedly at the request of the United States, and held until late 2007. He has now established himself in Yemen as one of the leading international voices calling for violent jihad against the West. Awlaki's lectures and messages have been found on the computer hard drives of terror suspects in Toronto and New Jersey. One of the men convicted of plotting to attack Fort Dix can be seen on a videotape expressing admiration for the cleric and recommending an Awlaki lecture. Awlaki also exchanged emails with Nidal Hasan starting in 2008. In one message revealed by ABC News, Hasan wrote, "I can't wait to join you" in the afterlife. After the Fort Hood attacks, Awlaki called Hasan a hero on his Web site. "The only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the U.S. Army," he wrote, "is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal." "Investigators are mad as hell," said Paul Sperry, "and they have a valid point in asking whether a dozen soldiers would be alive today if they'd been allowed to put the screw to Awlaki when they had the chance." ABC
 “What should we make of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who apparently killed 13 innocent people at Fort Hood?” asks Thomas Friedman. He’s a New York Times columnist, so he takes a while longer than most of us to work things out: Here’s my take: Major Hasan may have been mentally unbalanced — I assume anyone who shoots up innocent people is.
But the more you read about his support for Muslim suicide bombers, about how he showed up at a public-health seminar with a PowerPoint presentation titled “Why the War on Terror Is a War on Islam,” and about his contacts with Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni cleric famous for using the Web to support jihadist violence against America — the more it seems that Major Hasan was just another angry jihadist spurred to action by “The Narrative.”
By “The Narrative”, Friedman means the general anti-Western, anti-democratic sentiment clung to throughout the Arab-Muslim world:
This narrative suits Arab governments. It allows them to deflect onto America all of their people’s grievances over why their countries are falling behind. And it suits Al Qaeda, which doesn’t need much organization anymore — just push out The Narrative over the Web and satellite TV, let it heat up humiliated, frustrated or socially alienated Muslim males, and one or two will open fire on their own. See: Major Hasan.
So much for the “pre-traumatic shock” theory and other Islam-dodging excuses offered in the wake of Hasan’s slaughter. At the NYT, it takes nearly an entire month for a fellow’s blindingly obvious motives to become clear. Fog lifted, Friedman ends with a request that Barack Obama deliver this speech to an Islamic audience:
Why is it that a million Muslims will pour into the streets to protest Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, but not one will take to the streets to protest Muslim suicide bombers who blow up other Muslims, real people, created in the image of God? You need to explain that to us — and to yourselves.
The first of 688 reader responses to Friedman’s piece: “Pretty ironic that Tom Friedman would complain about The Narrative in a paper that is guilty as any other for promoting it.” Tim Blair
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By Douglas J. Hagmann, Director
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