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Why was Akbar still in the Army?
 Am I missing something? Two years ago, just days before his unit was set to join the invasion of Iraq, an Army sergeant threw grenades into the tents of fellow soldiers and shot those able to flee the flames. When he was done, two soldiers lay dead, 14 wounded. The sergeant, Hasan Akbar, a 34-year-old Muslim convert who grew up in south-central Los Angeles, was captured, not killed, that night in Kuwait, and returned to the United States to become the first American since the Vietnam War to be prosecuted for killing a fellow soldier during wartime. A 15-member military jury sentenced him to death last week, making him the sixth inmate on military death row at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan.Akbar said he'd endured anti-Muslim taunts and threats and felt that his life was in danger. He claimed that he had no choice but to launch the March 2003 attack on the U.S. soldiers who threatened him. His own defense attorneys said Akbar was mentally ill. But prosecutors said that Akbar made it his mission to stop his fellow soldiers from killing other Muslims and that he had wanted to kill Americans for some time. Akbar's diary, one he kept by computer for 13 years, spoke loudest: In 1992, he wrote: "I made a promise that if I am not able to achieve success because of some Caucasians, I will kill as many of them as possible." In a 1996 entry, he wrote: "Destroying America is my greatest goal." In 1998, he joined the Army. And in 2003, in the week before he went to Kuwait, he wrote: "As soon as I am in Iraq, I am going to try and kill as many of them as possible." (Prosecutors say he was referring to fellow soldiers). Akbar's former platoon leader testified during his trial that Akbar was unfit for duty. He got fired from a leadership position just before the invasion. "He really was kind of fired and forgotten," Capt David Storch told a jury. So which question is the right one: How could the U.S. military send an obviously mentally ill man who abhorred fellow soldiers and walked around talking to himself to Kuwait with those soldiers? Or: How could officers be so fed up with Akbar's poor performance that they removed from him a leadership position, but didn't relieve him of duty because it was "too complex" at a chaotic time? Or: Why isn't the case of a domestic terrorist who infiltrated the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., and later attacked his own unit at the top of the news? No matter where the truth lies, one thing is clear: Somebody messed up. Somebody slipped up. Somebody wasn't paying attention. Now two soldiers are dead; one is on death row. And 14 bear scars. Hasan Akbar's hatred may have been borne of racism or frustration or lunacy. But whatever its origin, he should not have been allowed to carry that hatred into battle. When he joined the Army in 1998 to pay off college loans, someone should have kept up with where his mind went. Soldiers still fighting in Iraq need to know that their comrades have their backs, and not get fatally shot in the back as Capt. Christopher Seifert, 27, was as he tried to escape Akbar's grenade attack. (Air Force Major Gregory Stone, 40, died in that blast.) News networks spent more time on a runaway bride than with stories about how a man who pledged to destroy America could be shipped to Kuwait with men he believed were enemies. I'm not interested in the bride. I want to know how officials missed Hasan Akbar and whether there are others like him still in the ranks.
Posted by: Steve White 2005-05-06 |
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