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.
#1
up until about a year ago Ralph Peters was himself a bit clueless about jihad
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/16/2010 19:22 Comments ||
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#2
"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).
You got that right Colonel.
They are still looking for the pickup truck with the gun rack.
#6
and a two hour sexual harassment training. Just cause
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/16/2010 20:38 Comments ||
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#7
The Army ought to commision a new think tank. Instead of studying whether they can make a goat faint-- (**men that stare at goats movie reference**) or (**remote viewing** whoo hoo)No, The Army should instead study whether the clinical psychology and psychiatry fields attracts meatwad wack jobs?
#8
"The Army should instead study whether the clinical psychology and psychiatry fields attracts meatwad wack jobs"
Why waste the money, GT? The clear answer is "yes."
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/16/2010 22:25 Comments ||
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#9
You know it. I wouldn't waste the money, but hey, they need to "redeem" themselves so holding a meeting with some charts and diagrams or like doing, a uhhh, study, looks good.
The Money Shot: I may be a little optimistic, but my contacts in military intel tell me the unrest among military members is growing, and many would side with the people in a revolution, even the most rabid Marxist/Socialists in Congress must know this, and they must know that We The People are on the point of revolt, and are only waiting for the 2010 elections to try to PEACEFULLY take back our country. They also know that any further attempts for power grabs on their part before the elections could very possibly be the spark that would cause a revolt.
To survive as a party they must throw Obama, Reid and Pelosi under the bus, and stop pushing the radical Marxixt agenda. YIKES...!
I've been seeing comments along these lines in places where I would never have expected them and from people that have never shown a tendency towards this type of activity.
#8
I know I'm that pissed at our ruling elite. If the dhimocrats try to steal the 2010 election in a huge way, they can expect a huge revolution. And it won't be pretty and they will get no mercy.
By M. A. Niazi
Apparently, there is a powerful lobby for peace in the subcontinent. It does not include the Indian chief of army staff, or the Indian government as a whole, but the peace lobby had recently stepped up its activity, giving the impression that Pakistan was ready for peace, on Indian terms if necessary. This is even though India and Pakistan are not at war with one another, and if there is a ‘hot peace, it is one-sided, with India interfering in Balochistan, even though India still claims, rather vaguely at this point, that Pakistan had a hand behind the Mumbai massacres, now more than a year old.
The peace moves have to be seen in the context of an overwhelming US desire to end disputes between the two countries on any basis that would satisfy India, which is supposed to be the USAs main counterweight to China in the region. The USA does not grasp that the Indian establishment wants to achieve the freedom of action that is supposed to come with great-power status, and does not want the US tutelage beyond a certain point. Be that as it may, the USA wants Pakistan to settle its disputes with India, on Indian terms if necessary. The activists finally got down to tackling the main issue between the two countries, Kashmir, through a conference on the subject, where the main focus became the presence of Kashmiri leader Yasin Malik. Because of this, the conference did not provide as much ammunition to the peace activists as it was supposed to.
Peace is a very beautiful concept, but Indian and Pakistani conceptions are different. Pakistan sees India as just another neighbour, while India sees itself as a great power in its neighbourhood, its hegemonic position accepted by all. While Pakistan, by its very nature as a new state, has been trying to find a role for itself, India sees itself as the inheritor of the British legacy of the Raj, with the difference that many of todays states did not exist, or were British colonies controlled from London through the India Office. The Indian task, to rule in the region and establish a true Hindu society, is made all the more difficult. Because of this disconnect, India has always looked askance at Pakistan, even after splitting it in 1971 and managing the secession of Bangladesh, and has always been suspicious of what is the second largest power on the subcontinent and in the region, even though much smaller than India.
India wants Pakistan to stop doing what it has been doing since partition, which is exposing India as a regional bully, at international forums. It thought it had obliged Pakistan to do so in 1971, but it did not, and Pakistan has continued to raise the Kashmir issue wherever it could. This has grated on the USA because of three developments. First was the end of the Cold War, then was the overt nuclearisation of the subcontinents security environment, and then the War on Terror.
The end of the Cold War has meant that India, which had previously pursued a Soviet alliance, was now free to join the USA to do down China, but its main meaning is that a USA-USSR nuclear exchange is highly unlikely. Yet, the overt nuclearisation of the subcontinent means that an Indo-Pak war may now well be nuclear, with all the disastrous consequences for the entire world that that will entail. Though both countries lacked world-destroying ability at the time they went nuclear, the demands of the situation ensure that they will do so sooner than later, and they may have already done so. The War on Terror saw both India and Pakistan scrambling for American favour. The USA needed both, but for different reasons. India it needs as a future counterweight against China. Pakistan it needs to prosecute the War. Thus, it does not want the two nuclear-armed countries from going to war. At the same time, it does not want a just solution, but one which would satisfy India. As a result, it will not call on India to honour the UN resolutions on the subject, even though it was India which first approached that body, and though the USA has a vested interest in making the UN work. However, its need to keep India on its side is more important. Since it has in Pakistan leaders who will take care of its interests, it need not care too much about the wishes of its people, who might want peace, but only with honour and dignity.
Both countries peace movements have seen much progress since the two countries went overtly nuclear. Nobody wants to be at the epicentre of a nuclear holocaust. However, there seems to be little or no recognition of the fact that the ill feeling between the two countries goes back to the partition, which saw not just the biggest riot in history, but also its biggest migration, in which there was an exchange of population, mainly, but not entirely, in the Punjab, where most of the killing took place. One result is that about a quarter of Pakistans population comes from the refugee stock, from people whose families were shattered, not just neighbourhoods, by the partition, and who were brought up to regard this as the defining sacrifice of the creation of Pakistan. On the other hand, Indian refugees formed a much smaller proportion of the Indian population, and did not see it as Indias defining moment. If any Indian attitude towards the partition is to be discerned, it is that of Savarkar, Godse and others, who assassinated Mohandas Gandhi for letting it happen. However, while the Indian refugees regret a lost childhood, Indian refugees remember what they left behind, the material possessions.
Those who went through the partition are dwindling in number, and even those who were children at the time are now in their 70s. However, though the generation in charge now does not remember the gory events firsthand, Pakistanis must not forget that, behind it lay a peculiar Congress hegemonism which is still unopposed in India because the opposition BJP is even more hegemonistic. This desire is to dominate the entire region, which might be defined as the Indian Ocean littoral. Even though oil is on its way out, India still wishes to dominate the Middle East as a major source. Thus, peace movements in both countries serve Indian purposes not just for Pakistan, but also for the entire region.
Though the present government will probably not be fooled by the peace movement, it will suit it to go along, for one of its aims is a solution of the Kashmir problem. However, if it rubberstamps an unjust solution cobbled together in New Delhi and approved in Washington, with no input from Muzaffarabad or Srinagar, it will not solve the problem, but merely provide the grounds for another grievance.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/16/2010 00:00 ||
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In an article in the UAE English-language daily The National, titled "We Need a Nelson Mandela Who Knows When To Go," Sultan Al Qassemi, whom the paper notes is a non-resident fellow at the Dubai School of Government, writes about the dearth of democratic practices in the Arab world, particularly the absence of presidential term limits and other restraints on absolute power. He asks, "Where is the Arab world's Nelson Mandela? He too was hugely popular when his second term expired, and yet he followed the constitution to the letter -- stepping down and allowing others the opportunity to run and be elected."
The following is the article:
"Almost Every Leader in the Region Seems to Find a Good Reason to Amend Their National Constitutions As and When They See Fit"
"There are 22 countries in the Arab world, and not a single one is a true constitutional democracy. Almost every leader in the region seems to find a good reason to amend their national constitutions as and when they see fit: Apparently there is always a 'special case.'
"In Syria, for example, Dr Bashar Al-Assad was 34 years old when his father, President Hafez Al-Assad, passed away in 2000. Inconveniently, the constitution stipulated that only persons above the age of 40 could become president. Lawmakers and parliamentarians instantly came together and decided to amend the constitution to allow a 34-year-old to assume the office. This is a country where judicial, economic and political reform may take years to become a reality.
"One state that I had high hopes for was Algeria. I always admired this country that fought the French for freedom and gave a million lives for their liberty. When Abdelaziz Bouteflika was elected president of Algeria in 1999, I thought it was the beginning of the end of dictatorships in the region; this former fighter in the Front de Liberation Nationale would value his country's struggle and not try to perpetuate his term of office, as has happened in some failed states in the region.
"But I was proved wrong. Last November Mr Bouteflika's Council of Ministers announced a constitutional 'revision' removing the presidential two-term limit. In February, following more than three years of uncertainty over his health after several lengthy periods in hospital, Mr Bouteflika announced that he felt fit enough to run for a third term. And in April it was announced that he had won the presidential election, and would serve for a third five-year term.
"Yemen is a case on its own. I detailed the ills that have befallen the impoverished state in an article in The National a year ago, entitled 'Can a weed really destroy a country?' Sadly, matters have only grown worse since then. The country's lifetime president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, in power since 1978, repeatedly states that he is seeking a peaceful transfer of power to the next president, but always 'succumbs to the will of the people' by extending his term.
"In the Palestinian territories, Hamas won parliamentary elections in January 2006 and now controls Gaza, but fails to comprehend the basics of governance. For instance, Article 38 of the Palestinian constitution states that any accused person 'is innocent until proven guilty by a fair trial wherein he shall be afforded the guarantees of self-defense.' Hamas is known for its summary executions of individuals it suspects of being spies for Israel.
"Meanwhile the current Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, whose constitutional term expired on January 9, simply stayed in office and quietly extended his term by a year without much media scrutiny. And the most notorious case of amending an Arab state's constitution is possibly that of Lebanon in 2005, when President Emile Lahoud's term was extended by Syria."
"However... Two Individuals Stand Out" -- The Leaders of Kuwait and Morocco
"However, all is not lost. Two individuals stand out, in my opinion. Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem Al Sabah, who introduced the Kuwaiti constitution in 1962 and after whom the current parliament hall is named, is the father of the modern democratic movement in the monarchies of the Gulf. He also introduced parliamentary elections in the midst of the backwardness that came with the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser's encouragement of replacing kings with dictators in the region.
"And the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, who ascended to the throne 10 years ago this week, introduced reforms allowing for a truth and reconciliation commission that presented the Arab world for the first time with the most moving accounts of civilian torture and abuse during the rule of his father, King Hassan II. These accounts were recorded and broadcast live on television. Because of the truth and reconciliation committee, Morocco is a stronger nation, not a weaker entity."
"Where is the Arab World's Nelson Mandela... [Who] Followed the Constitution to the Letter [?]"
"Many leaders in the region have an opportunity to leave behind a better legacy than the one they inherited when they assumed office. Regardless of a person's popularity, he or she must respect the sacred document that governs the state. Where is the Arab world's Nelson Mandela? He too was hugely popular when his second term expired, and yet he followed the constitution to the letter -- stepping down and allowing others the opportunity to run and be elected.
"We desperately need a visionary leader in the Arab world, monarch or republican, who steps aside and oversees in his lifetime a peaceful democratic transfer of power. That would truly be a 'special case' that we could all be proud of."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/16/2010 00:00 ||
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#5
Nelson Mandela was convicted of leading a group that perpetrated a number of terrorist bombings that killed several people. A charge he has never denied and his statements from the time, including his statements in court, are almost exclusively concerned with justifying these terrorist murders.
The ANC website claims responsibility for the bombings, although avoiding Mandela's direct involvement.
The airbrushing of these facts out of the history would have made Stalin proud.
Excerpt: What the Left refuses to acknowledge is that the road to serfdom is littered with efforts to guarantee happiness and equal results. They attempt the impossible in vain. What Mr. Sensing said next is eerily prophetic:
In spite of this and even with all our generosity and aid, most of the world will continue to hate and envy us. They are jealous of our wealth and our standard of living. They do not understand that the reason we are powerful and wealthy and that we live so well, is because we are free, at least for now.
If the US becomes a Third World country, the next Hait will have to rely on emergency aid from the UN, Cuba, and China. Just think, guys, toothpaste from China!
#4
Folks, we are a third world country, the debts have just started to come in. Bambi has no way to pay for any of this except by more and more crushing taxation. Sooooo cuts to everything but entitlements will grow and grow, even as the borrowing makes the entitlement dollars real net value evoporate into an hyper-inflationary spiral. How does an emerging third-world status show itself here in the US even now? Drive the highways in the Workers Paradise of California and tell me how they differ from a number of 3rd world sh*tholes you have all been in? Go wait in line at the DMV or an emergency room, and look around as you wait 2-4 hours or more. Feel like America or Guatemala?
These are all the emerging future as the systems and structures of the rich past meet the poverty of the present. Just a taste you say, wait and see. The Dems are going to pass socialst healthcare shortly, and then the giant money suck will really begin.
#5
Generally a third world country has leaders that rob and steal and cheat to enrich themselves at the expense of the nation as a whole. We are scary close to that right now which is why the people are rebelling.
#6
It's already happening. The elites who are running this country, both Republican and Democrat, want masses of poor and ignorant people. They want cheap labor and illiterate voters and they are importing them just as fast as they can. Infrastructure is crumbling under the burden and the bankrupt local, state and federal governments can't afford to fix it. Twenty years from now all of southern California will look like Mexico City.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/16/2010 14:38 Comments ||
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#7
Importing them? Hell - ever been to a Public School lately? They ae growing ignorant, illiterate voters right under our noses.
#8
CA public schools test scores, sortable by every major ethnic group, every grade level, every school and every school district in the state. Here are the results for "Hispanics" across all grade levels:
http://star.cde.ca.gov/star2009/SearchPanel.asp?lstTestYear=2009&lstTestType=C&lstCounty=&lstDistrict=&lstSchool=&lstGroup=12&lstSubGroup=224
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
