dallashistory

Earlier today, an Army officer (a major, a psychiatrist who had been at a Walter Reed and at this time practicing at Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood) Apparently went to the readiness center on ost and opened fire on the other soldiers there. 11 of then jilled, plus the said major. Thirty+ wounded, two apparently critically.

Shooter reported to be named Hasan (surname) and to be Muslim. Also said to be on orders to Iraq and upset about it. May have had at least one accomplice, though he seems to be the only identified shooter to date (two hand-guns). Supposed to have been shot on the scene by police (don't know if MPs or other).

Wife has a cousin whose son is at Fort Hood. He has (post on lock-down, but he texted) let his family know he is OK.

Very sad business. Certainly grounds for some VERY careful and urgent vetting of any Muslims with access to firearms and military isntallations, i;d then to think.

Also this to be said - pshrinks are almost by definition nut-cases, so it may have just been a matter of a nut going all the way off the rails.

My niece and her husband work at Hood and could not leave but called on their cells telling family they were ok . Their son is stationed at Hood but could not call till just a few minutes ago because of the lock down. Military were not supposed to use their cellphones.

I'm glad the shooter is alive. Hope he screams his head off about the whys.
Glad the female civilian who supposedly shot him is alive too. She had been reported to be dead too.

The mad (remember - he is a pshrink, by definition insance) major is alive? Lzst i saw reported him as one of the 12 dead.

Too bad he lived. Now the taxpayers will have to spend tens of millions of dollars on trial, jail (or mental health facility), etc. I felt sure that there was a spot in hell reserved for that sorry sob.


EDIT

Suspect said `Allahu Akbar!' before shooting

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091106/ap_ ... d_shooting

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_fort_hood ... ng_suspect

Troubling portrait emerges of Fort Hood suspect

By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE, Associated Press Writer
Quote:
WASHINGTON – His name appears on radical Internet postings. A fellow officer says he fought his deployment to Iraq and argued with soldiers who supported U.S. wars. He required counseling as a medical student because of problems with patients.

There are many unknowns about Nidal Malik Hasan, the man authorities say is responsible for the worst mass killing on a U.S. military base. Most of all, his motive.

For six years before reporting for duty at Fort Hood, Texas, in July, the 39-year-old Army major worked at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center pursuing his career in psychiatry, as an intern, a resident and, last year, a fellow in disaster and preventive psychiatry. He received his medical degree from the military's Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001.

While an intern at Walter Reed, Hasan had some "difficulties" that required counseling and extra supervision, said Dr. Thomas Grieger, who was the training director at the time.

Grieger said privacy laws prevented him from going into details but noted that the problems had to do with Hasan's interactions with patients. He recalled Hasan as a "mostly very quiet" person who never spoke ill of the military or his country.

"He swore an oath of loyalty to the military," Grieger said. "I didn't hear anything contrary to those oaths."

But, more recently, federal agents grew suspicious.

At least six months ago, Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades.

They had not determined for certain whether Hasan is the author of the posting, and a formal investigation had not been opened before the shooting, said law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the case.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Hasan's aunt, Noel Hasan of Falls Church, Va., said he had been harassed about being a Muslim in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and he wanted out of the Army.

"Some people can take it and some people cannot," she said. "He had listened to all of that and he wanted out of the military."

She said he had sought a discharge from the military for several years, and even offered to repay the cost of his medical training.

A military official told The Associated Press that Hasan was in the preparation stage of deployment, which can take months. The official said Hasan had indicated he didn't want to go to Iraq but was willing to serve in Afghanistan. The official did not have authorization to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

A second military official said Hasan's family has Palestinian roots. There have been reports that he was harassed for his Muslim religion, but the official says there is no indication Hasan filed a complaint within the military about that.

Terrorism task force agents plan to interview several of Hasan's relatives Friday, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the case.

Noel Hasan said her nephew "did not make many friends" and would say "they military was his life."

A cousin, Nader Hasan, told The New York Times that after counseling soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder, Hasan knew war firsthand.

"He was mortified by the idea of having to deploy," Nader Hasan said. "He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there."

Federal law-enforcement agents ordered an evacuation of the apartment complex where Hasan lived in Killeen, Texas, Thursday night and conducted a search of his home, said Hilary Shine, director of public information for the city. She didn't say what was found during the search.

Officials said earlier that federal search warrants were being drawn up to authorize the seizure of his computer.

Retired Army Col. Terry Lee, who said he worked with Hasan, told Fox News that Hasan had hoped President Barack Obama would pull troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq. Lee said Hasan got into frequent arguments with others in the military who supported the wars, and had tried hard to prevent his pending deployment.

Hasan attended prayers regularly when he lived outside Washington, often in his Army uniform, said Faizul Khan, a former imam at a mosque Hasan attended in Silver Spring, Md. He said Hasan was a lifelong Muslim.

"I got the impression that he was a committed soldier," Khan said. He spoke often with Hasan about Hasan's desire for a wife.

On a form filled out by those seeking spouses through a program at the mosque, Hasan listed his birthplace as Arlington, Va., but his nationality as Palestinian, Khan said.

"I don't know why he listed Palestinian," Khan said, "He was not born in Palestine."

Nothing stood out about Hasan as radical or extremist, Khan said.

"We hardly ever got to discussing politics," Khan said. "Mostly we were discussing religious matters, nothing too controversial, nothing like an extremist."

Hasan earned his rank of major in April 2008, according to a July 2008 Army Times article.

He served eight years as an enlisted soldier. He also served in the ROTC as an undergraduate at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. He received a bachelor's degree in biochemistry there in 1997.
End quote

You guys are soooo insensitive. The poor man just simply did not want to have to go on Muslim soil and desecrate it and be disobedient by having to minister to American infidels (unbelievers).
He tried to tell the evil powers that be and they just would not listen! So he had no recourse but to kill as many of his fellow "unjust" American soldiers as possible before they desecrated the soil over there and or killed one of Allah's own.
He was driven to it by conscience. So give him some slack and understanding.

Btw, I, personally, am so eternally thankful, awed, amazed and grateful for GRACE and the whole Message of the 66 Books of the Bible after rereading huge portions of the translated Koran.

Odd duck, it appears. I saw one news report from somebody who had dealt with him, said he projected a rather cold personality and wasn't somebody the interviewee would want to be treating him or help him deal with PTS.

Unlikely he'll escape via an insnity plea - he'll (if he recovers from his wounds) get a GCM, referred capital, and will quite possibly be sentenced to death. And executed. Not (somewhat sadly IMO) by either the traditional hanging or musketry. Yeah - that would work: "To be shot to death by musketry", the old traditional sentence, though that was usually for military crimes instead of common-law offenses commited by soldiers (those usually brought a hang-man).

I just hope that the FBI doesn't, somehow, wrangle him away from the Army. Probably not likely (or legal) but with this administration, who knows. Maybe he'll just die & do us all a favor.

It (having the trial in civilian court) would be legal - Federal installation and the Assimilated Crimes Act (if not an allegation of some other - and there were several - violation of Federal criminal law as well as UCMJ violations) would apply, so you could assert jurisdiction in the Federal District Court if desired. As to how likely - dunno. Better (JMO) to leave this one to the Army as it is clearly a service-connected event and the amin injury is to service members. But - the crypto-Muslim might want to protect his fellow. I suppose we shall see.

"But - the crypto-Muslim might want to protect his fellow."

That's what I was concerned about. I just watched a news conference with Secretary of Army & Army Chief if Staff - they talked about everything except the problem - that his religion says to KILL the infidel. Maybe I'm too radical, but I don't think being a muslim is conducive to being in the US military - period! We ARE at war with those rag heads.

I suspect that he had personal reasons, personal problems, beyond his religious beliefs.
Maybe similar in some ways to those of the D.C. sniper and the Muslim soldier who went wacko in the early days of the second Iraq war.

adam wrote:I suspect that he had personal reasons, personal problems, beyond his religious beliefs.
Maybe similar in some ways to those of the D.C. sniper and the Muslim soldier who went wacko in the early days of the second Iraq war.

He can take care of his personal problem, if sufficiently severe, by eating his gun - not by killing or injuring other soldiers. I have less than zero sympathy for the guy who fragged some folks before Gulf War Two or the DC Sniper.

Or, for therapy they could let returning troops tear him apart with their bare hands.

adam wrote:Or, for therapy they could let returning troops tear him apart with their bare hands.

Yes, that would work. Or the families of the slaughtered...

My niece works at the hospital where they took the perp immediately after, apparently with a bullet in his spine. She speculated that when he awakes from medically induced coma, he could be a quadriplegic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadriplegia
Quote;
Quadriplegia, also known as tetraplegia, is paralysis caused by illness or injury to a human that results in the partial or total loss of use of all of their limbs and torso; paraplegia is similar but does not affect the arms. The loss is usually sensory and motor, which means both sensation and control are lost. It is caused by damage to the brain or the spinal cord at a high level C1 - C8 - in particular, spinal cord injuries secondary to an injury to the cervical spine. The injury, known as a lesion, causes victims to lose partial or total function of all four limbs, meaning the arms and the legs. Quadriplegia is defined in many ways; C1-C4 usually effects arm movement more so than a C5-C7 injury; however all quadriplegics have or have had some kind of finger dysfunction. So, it is not uncommon to have a quadriplegic with fully functional arms, only to have their fingers not work.[

adam wrote:My niece works at the hospital where they took the perp immediately after, apparently with a bullet in his spine. She speculated that when he awakes from medically induced coma, he could be a quadriplegic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadriplegia
Quote;
Quadriplegia, also known as tetraplegia, is paralysis caused by illness or injury to a human that results in the partial or total loss of use of all of their limbs and torso; paraplegia is similar but does not affect the arms. The loss is usually sensory and motor, which means both sensation and control are lost. It is caused by damage to the brain or the spinal cord at a high level C1 - C8 - in particular, spinal cord injuries secondary to an injury to the cervical spine. The injury, known as a lesion, causes victims to lose partial or total function of all four limbs, meaning the arms and the legs. Quadriplegia is defined in many ways; C1-C4 usually effects arm movement more so than a C5-C7 injury; however all quadriplegics have or have had some kind of finger dysfunction. So, it is not uncommon to have a quadriplegic with fully functional arms, only to have their fingers not work.[

Why do I find myself without sympathy except for those who will have to care for him until he is (presuming the evidence is as reported) put to death judicially following trial and conviction?

No idea what this means, but probably won't show up in msm!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... rists.html

Good write up. I continue to think that a combination of personal, religious, and professional factors led him to do it (that is, commit what they call "suicide by police"). He couldn't see any other way out of his various dilemmas, and unlike the guy who might go in a shoot up a MacDonald's hamburger joint in the expectation that police would kill him, he decided to make a personal political statement. Coward's way out, IMO.

Telegraph Co. UK

Fort Hood shooting: Texas army killer linked to September 11 terrorists
Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a "spiritual adviser" to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001.
By Philip Sherwell and Alex Spillius
Published: 8:17PM GMT 07 Nov 2009
Quote:
Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother's funeral was held there in May that year.

The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.

Hasan's eyes "lit up" when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki's teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday's horrific shooting spree.

As investigators look at Hasan's motives and mindset, his attendance at the mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw. Al-Awlaki moved to Dar al-Hijrah as imam in January, 2001, from the west coast, and three months later the September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour began attending his services. A third hijacker attended his services in California.

Charles Allen, a former under-secretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security, has described al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, as an "al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader to three of the September 11 hijackers... who targets US Muslims with radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home in Yemen".

Last night Hasan remained in a coma under guard at a military hospital in San Antonio, Texas, and was said to be in a "stable" condition. Born in America to a Palestinian family, Hasan, 39, was an army psychiatrist who had chosen to sign up for the US military against his parents' wishes.

But he turned into an angry critic of the wars America was waging in Iraq and Afghanistan and had tried in vain to negotiate his discharge.

He counselled soldiers returning from the front line and told relatives that he was horrified at the prospect of a deployment to Afghanistan later this year – his first time in a combat zone.

Whether due to his personal convictions, his stress over his deployment or other reasons, Hasan is alleged to have snapped and gone on a murderous rampage with a powerful semi-automatic handgun after shouting "Allahu Akhbar" ("God is great"), according to survivors. He had earlier given away copies of the Koran to neighbours.

Five of the 13 victims were fellow mental health professionals from three units of the army's Combat Stress Control Detachment, it was disclosed yesterday.

It is understood that Hasan had been due to be deployed with members of those units in coming months. Whether he deliberately singled out other combat stress counsellors is another key question.

Fellow Muslims in the US armed forces have also been quick to denounce Hasan's actions and insist that they were the product of a lone individual rather than of Islamic teachings. Osman Danquah, the co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen, said Hasan never expressed anger toward the army or indicated any plans for violence.

But he said that, at their second meeting, Hasan seemed almost incoherent.

"I told him, 'There's something wrong with you'. I didn't get the feeling he was talking for himself, but something just didn't seem right."

He was sufficiently troubled that he recommended the centre reject Hasan's request to become a lay Muslim leader at Fort Hood.

Hasan had, in fact, already come to the attention of the authorities before Thursday's massacre. He was suspected of being the author of internet postings that compared suicide bombers with soldiers who throw themselves on grenades to save others and had also reportedly been warned about proselytising to patients.

At Fort Hood, he told a colleague, Col Terry Lee, that he believed Muslims should rise up against American "aggressors". He made no attempt to hide his desire to end his military service early or his mortification at the prospect of deployment to Afghanistan. "He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there," said his cousin, Nader Hasan.

Yet away from his strident attacks on US foreign policy, he came across as subdued and reclusive – not hostile or threatening. Soldiers he counselled at the Walter Reed hospital in Washington praised him, while at Fort Hood, Kimberly Kesling, the deputy commander of clinical services, remarked: "Up to this point, I would consider him an asset."

Relatives said that the death of Hasan's parents, in 1998 and 2001, turned him more devout. "After he lost his parents he tried to replace their love by reading a lot of books, including the Koran," his uncle Rafiq Hamad said.

"He didn't have a girlfriend, he didn't dance, he didn't go to bars."

His failed search for a wife seemed to haunt Hasan. At the Muslim Community Centre in the Washington suburb of Silver Spring, he signed up for an Islamic matchmaking service, specifying that he wanted a bride who wore the hijab and prayed five times a day.

Adnan Haider, a retired professor of statistics, recalled how at their first meeting last year, a casual introduction after Friday prayers, Hasan immediately asked the academic if he knew "a nice Muslim girl" he could marry.

"It was a strange thing to ask someone you have met two seconds before. It was clear to me he was under pressure, you could just see it in his face," said Prof Haider, 74, who used to work at Georgetown University in Washington. "You could see he was lonely and didn't have friends.

"He is working with psychiatric people and I ask why the people around him didn't spot that something was wrong? When I heard what had happened I actually wasn't that surprised."

Indeed, many of the characteristics attributed to Hasan by acquaintances – withdrawn, unassuming, brooding, socially awkward and never known to have had a girlfriend – have also applied to other mass murderers.

Hasan was born and brought up in Virginia to parents who ran restaurants after emigrating to America from the West Bank. He graduated from Virginia Tech university – coincidentally, the scene of the worst mass shooting in US history in 2007 – with a degree in biochemistry and then joined the army, which trained him as a psychiatrist.

Relatives said that he was subjected to increasingly ugly taunts about his religion and ethnicity from other soldiers after the September 11 attacks. But his uncle insisted yesterday that Hasan would not have been driven to mass murder by revenge or religion.

Speaking in the West Bank town of al-Bireh, Mr Hamad said his nephew "loved America" and could only have been caused to snap by an as yet unexplained factor. "He always said there was no country in the world like America," he told The Sunday Telegraph. "Something big happened to him in Texas. If he did it – and until now I am in denial – it had to have been something huge because revenge was not in his nature."
End quote.

Thanks Ernie. Interesting read.
He sounds like a "true believer" - a fanatic in mind set. There were many signals sent out, but again I say:

Like Boyd here in Cary/Raleigh any present day American man who demands his wife be hidden by a barbaric hijab should send out signals of fundamentalism fanaticism.

At the Muslim Community Centre in the Washington suburb of Silver Spring, he signed up for an Islamic matchmaking service, specifying that he wanted a bride who wore the hijab and prayed five times a day.

Sharon Marsalis wrote:Like Boyd here in Cary/Raleigh any present day American man who demands his wife be hidden by a barbaric hijab should send out signals of fundamentalism fanaticism.

In my opinion, anybody in the USA that holds those whacked out beliefs, should be sent back to the s##thole country where that is the norm - without passing "GO" or collecting $200.

Ernie.... thanks for posting the UKTelegraph article. So far the US MSM has not had the guts to investigate or even quote. Good sleuthing!

Pshrinks don't really look much at each other as best I can tell. And nothing that has come out so far looks like a real red flag for predicting this - though I find it interesting that people who knew him have said "Well, i wasn't really surprised" when the news broke. But - I'll bet a nickel they wouldn't have picked mass murder as the way he'd snap if you'd asked them before the event. Maybe "he was gonna pop" in some way, but I'll bet they wouldn't have predicted that.

Actually - I've only had a handfull of clients over thirty years that I'd have predicitd to kill, and maybe half of them did. And only one did somebody I'd have thought was in the danger zone. Prediciting killers isn't all that easy.

This reminds me of Bateson's theory of "Double Bind" where the person is conflicted by contradictory messages. Classic example of Bateson's double bind was described in the book "Catch 22".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind

Quote:
A double bind is a dilemma in communication in which an individual (or group) receives two or more conflicting messages, with one message negating the other. This creates a situation in which a successful response to one message implicates a failed response to the other, so that the person will be automatically wrong regardless of response. The person can neither comment on the conflict, nor resolve it, nor opt out of the situation.
End quote.

The guy was a walking contradiction.

Memorable quotes from Joseph Heller's Catch 22.

Anyone who wants to get out of combat isn't really crazy,

Yossarian: The only friend I had was Snowden and I didn't know him.

Yossarian: Let me see if I've got this straight: in order to be grounded, I've got to be crazy and I must be crazy to keep flying. But if I ask to be grounded, that means I'm not crazy any more and I have to keep flying.

DUNN ON TERROR AFTER FORT HOOD

November 08, 2009


http://www.americanthinker.com/printpag ... error.html

The left and terror

By J.R. Dunn

The Jihadis will return. We know this, in the same way that we know about death and taxes. Thanks in large part to the weakening of our defensive efforts under the new administration, there will be further attacks against this country's population, perhaps even worse than those of 9/11. (This week's attack by Nidal Malik Hasan serves to underline the threat.)
When this attack occurs, we will see an end to all the nonsense. Our present drift regarding terror policy is occurring only because Americans have been encouraged to put unpleasant realities at a distance, to live in a dream world where all the bad stuff happens to other people. 9/11 has ceased to signify. Terrorism has become a matter of bad manners. As my grandfather might have put it, this country is in for a rude awakening.

When it comes (and sad to say, it will need to be even worse than the Hassan attack) people will want answers and action. They will get both. Few things move faster than a frightened politician, particularly a politician frightened by his own constituents. Fearful pols will see to it that current efforts to undermine American security will come to an abrupt halt. The law enforcement paradigm will be overturned. The attempts to "Mirandize" Islamist terrorists -- to turn them into esoteric versions of American street criminals, protected by the same legal constraints -- will cease. Contingent efforts to criminalize American security officials doing their best to protect the country will be curtailed. All the deeply complex questions fabricated over the past few years will be abruptly simplified.

But there is one thing that will not be addressed: the role of the American left.

The American left is unparalleled at wriggling out of deadly cul-de-sacs of its own creation. Consider how many times since the Vietnam War this country's left has involved itself in activities that in saner epochs would have resulted in lengthy jail sentences. Support for the Sandinistas and the Salvadoran FMLN, the Nuclear Freeze movement (a KGB operation from start to finish), cooperation with Palestinian and related terrorist groups. In each case, the left continued its involvement until the bitter end; and in each case skipped off with no consequences. This offhand attitude toward sedition has its roots in the excesses of the witch-hunt era. The aura of martyrdom donned by the left since the early 50s has bought them a free pass for over half a century.

The myth concerning the left and the terror conflict asserts that American leftists pulled together with the rest of the country until such Republican Saurons as Cheney, Rove, Ashcroft, and their puppet W simply went too far: persecuting innocent citizens, impugning the Constitutional rights of the poor Jihadis, and shocking the world with their viciousness and brutality. As the sole exemplars of moral purity in the millennial world, the left had no choice but to begin "speaking truth to power".

My own experience suggests otherwise. In September 2001 I had a part-time position as copy-editor for a small but well-known national magazine. Within days of 9/11 -- and I mean days; not weeks or months -- while the smoke was still rising, I began receiving copy containing pieces suggesting that the terrorists -- Moussaoui in particular -- were poor, misunderstood victims in need of therapy. That there was far more to the event than appeared -- one short piece contained the first suggestion I saw of what was to become known as the "Truther" movement. But possibly the worst was a call for the assassination of John Ashcroft by one of the magazine's regular writers. Calling the editor's attention to this, I was told that it was not necessarily Ashcroft, since the writer did not mention his full name. (It was "John A.", or something of that sort.)

I simply exploded. I've seen a lot from lefties - we all have. There's no limit to their nastiness, their vindictiveness, their callousness. It's this lack of everyday morality that truly distinguishes them from the mass of Americans. So I shouldn't have been shocked. But I was, and I was not willing to accept it. My main gig at the time was five blocks from the WTC, and hundreds of people I had known in passing were no longer of this earth. My patience for the kind of thing I was seeing was strictly limited.

I wrote a short memo outlining my objections. What I got in reply was a blast of vituperation accusing me of slander, McCarthyism, and promoting censorship. That last was quite true; that's exactly what I was doing. But wartime changes things -- certain activities that are perfectly acceptable in times of peace have to go by the board. Or did (editor's name here) really think that he'd breeze through airport security as usual on his next business trip?

In the midst of the exchange I received further copy. It contained more of the same. I sent it back with an ultimatum. I got more abuse in reply, and so I walked.

That's how it looked from my small corner. No lag time, no hesitation -- left-of-center writers knew what was required of them and produced it. There were similar signs on the wider public stage -- Michael Moore berating the Jihadis for their choice of targets, Some obtuse blurt from Susan Sontag. That nameless pol in San Francisco blaming America first. But much of the left decided the better part of valor lay in keeping their mouths shut -- courage is not a widely-displayed trait in that crowd either.

Of course, it didn't remain that way. First came the niggling over the Patriot Act, followed by Fahrenheit 911, the incisive foreign policy analyses of Ward Churchill, and Cindy Sheehan's assorted campouts. But it was Iraq that proved to be the crack through which the left wriggled back to its accustomed status. Abu Ghraib was the fulcrum by which leftists were able to turn public trust and support of the anti-terror campaign to nagging doubt. Justified shock and disgust at the Abu Ghraib photos was amplified by the media in their expert fashion. Within months, such doubts had expanded to include not only the war effort in Iraq, but the overall conduct of the war against terror. Rarely has the misbehavior of a few malcontent backwoodsmen had such heavy consequences.

Not a single aspect of the U.S. policy was left unaffected. The foreign wiretapping program ("listening in on U.S. citizens"), the bank surveillance effort, the terrorist rendition program, and of course Gitmo, all received the Abu Ghraib treatment. Those images of tormented Iraqi prisoners had a deep and extended impact: if Abu Ghraib could happen, why couldn't all the rest happen too? That quivering sense of doubt was all the left needed to put themselves back in the sedition business big time.

We know where it led to. We have reached the point where successful programs are being abandoned, where national defense has taken a back seat, and where decent men out to protect their homes and fellow citizens are being targeted for legal sanction. The left has gained a shoddy and partial triumph. Though they could not destroy the despised Bush administration or throw away Iraq, they have the consolation prize of shutting down all those evil programs and betraying the people of Afghanistan. No fall of Saigon or Watergate this time around, but they'll make do.

There is only one way this will end: people are going to die. Americans will be killed in large numbers and under the most horrifying circumstances in attacks that could very likely have been prevented. And when this occurs -- as it must -- what will the left do? The same as they did after 9/11. Grab a kid-size American flag from somebody else's hand and stand waving it frantically until the moment of potential retribution is safely past.

What motivates this kind of behavior? The answer lies in the leftist worldview, which is simplicity itself. (It has to be simple, designed as it is to be comprehended by workers, peasants, and college students.) The world is divided into oppressors and victims, with history a dialectical struggle between the two. The oppressor is anyone who holds power, the victims everyone else. By definition, the U.S., as the worlds reigning power, is an oppressor state. In fact, the greatest of all oppressor states, worse than Assyria, worse than Rome, worse than Hitler's Germany, because it has craftily convinced much of the world that it is no such thing.

As for the Jihadis, they are victims in arms -- revolutionaries acting against the imperial state, like the Viet Cong and the Sandinistas before them. Islam, reactionary politics, contempt for women -- none of that matters, as long as they are active against the common enemy. And the role of the Western leftist is to support and assist these heroes, exactly as occurred with all the revolutionary movements in the past. By "speaking out", by "defying authority", and above all by undercutting any efforts to combat the new revolutionary vanguard. But what of the real victims, you ask, all the innocents left scattered like broken, burnt dolls in New York, and Bali, and London, and Madrid? "Little Eichmanns", in the immortal words of the renowned plagiarist, Ward Churchill. Or perhaps you prefer ancient the leftist slogan: "You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

Clearly, American leftists cannot act otherwise. They can never be truly patriotic in the real sense, in the sense of sacrifice and overcoming doubts, of valuing their country as a larger expression of family and neighborhood. To ask that of them is to ask them to give up their higher allegiance, to demand that they stop being leftists, stop being progressives, stop being the world's holy fools. And that is to ask too much.

This is a historically unique situation, a product of the modern temperament. Never before would effective treason by a large minority have been tolerated, particularly involving such crucial sectors as media, academia, and education. This is not a stable condition, and it cannot be maintained for long. There is no reason why it should be.

So how do we respond? We'll pause here to allow the loud cry of "Hang ‘em all!" to roll over us and commend everyone involved for their enthusiasm, if not their prescription. But what we need, though perhaps not as final, is something effective and workable within with contemporary social norms.

The first step is not to buy their story. There is nothing wrong with the fact that we believed the left the first time around -- it involved an unprecedented event. They assured us that 9/11 was different, a good war, the war against reaction, that they could support in good conscience. We were obliged to listen -- they were fellow citizens, after all, those who had died screaming amid flames their friends and acquaintances as well. But now we know it as a lie, one that they will inevitably repeat. So we must turn away. And that can be a problem. Understanding the limitations of human nature, conservatives have a tendency to hand out second chances whether deserved or not. This is commendable under most circumstances, but not these, not when lives are at stake. We yank drunk drivers out of cars; we must also yank leftists out of the public sphere.

The second step is to identify them. Call them out by name, relentlessly and repeatedly. Note how scarcely a day goes by without some (often dozens) of disparaging references to Gov. Palin. The left knows how this is done, how to assure that the public overlooks nothing and forgets nothing. Turnabout is fair play. Again, conservatives tend to be squeamish, to hesitate before pointing fingers. There is no excuse for that here. As the old saying goes: don't bring a knife to a gun fight.

The third step is to target them, isolate them and render them harmless. The question is how we go about it. The left itself may well have put the weapon in our hands. The attacks against Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh, among many others, have been so noxious and vicious as to change the way such tactics are currently received. The public has become hardened to such attacks. Much is accepted now that would not have been accepted even a few years ago. We need to take advantage of this. Ask questions, poke around, find out where the bones are buried and use the shovel. The left threw out the rulebook: now they need to pay the consequences. (This is not unprecedented. In fact, it's a historical commonplace. Few are aware that Joe McCarthy was supported by the Communist Party in his Senate run -- the CPUSA loathed his opponent, Robert LaFollette, Jr., as the son of one of their deadliest enemies during the Progressive era. The Tailgunner is supposed to have studied their tactics of bullying and humiliation with interest.)

Van Jones should act as our model. A few years ago, it wouldn't have mattered that Jones was associated with a nut cult like the Truthers. Now everything matters, and everything goes under the microscope. Jones was a critical figure to the administration, one for whom they were willing to put their reputations on the line to save. It made no difference. Once exposed, and hammered, and spotlighted, he was shown the door and wished luck with his further endeavors. For this outcome, he has no one to thank but his own comrades on the left.

Need we ask if all of them have something hidden, something they'd truly rather not see in the light of day? They all do. Consider Barney Frank. Consider Bill Ayers. Consider Ward Churchill. Under the old dispensation, he might well have been given a pass for his more vicious remarks under "freedom of expression" as understood in this fallen age. But that wasn't all -- far from it. Ward turned out to be a plagiarist, hustler, cheat, and poser of master status. When it all poured out, even as left-wing a campus as Boulder had to cut him loose.

Nobody on the planet earth quite equals the left for simple worldly corruption. The Renaissance princes might have been able to teach them a thing or two, but nobody else. Dig, and you will find. While digging, we might wish that things were different, that we could operate in as civil a manner as many of us would prefer. But we are not at the moment living in a civil epoch. No one reading these words ever has. We know of such a world once -- where decency is honored and nobility is a way of life, only because we have read about it. We are living in a different period now, a period in which our opponents feel completely at home. We cannot allow ourselves to be backed down by thugs such as these. To paraphrase Boccaccio: any tactic against such would-be tyrants is legitimate.

There is a difference between dissent and desertion, criticism and undermining. That difference has been lost amid a fog of relativism in the past few decades. But behind that fog, the hard stone of reality remains. It's no longer a game. People are going to die because of the actions taken by this country's leftists. Recognizing those differences has become a matter of life and death.

The terror conflict is a two-front war. It always has been, as reluctant as we have been to admit it. The time to open the second front is coming.

J.R. Dunn is consulting editor of American Thinker.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/ ... error.html at November 08, 2009 - 05:15:51 PM EST

MikeM wrote:Ernie.... thanks for posting the UKTelegraph article. So far the US MSM has not had the guts to investigate or even quote. Good sleuthing!

So far NO major US newspaper, source, etc. has picked it up - only a few local papers. See link below.

http://news.google.com/news/story?pz=1& ... &scoring=d