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No surprise here: Nidal Hasan has officially been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder in last week's Fort Hood shootings. More charges could follow, subject to investigation. Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty for Hasan.
The president has ordered government agencies to disclose what they knew about Hasan, including who he was talking to, how thoroughly suspicious behavior was monitored and why his behavior at Walter Reed wasn't taken more seriously.
The decision to try Hasan in a military court reflects the belief that Hasan acted alone and was not involved with a larger terrorist organization.
While military trials tend to sentence fewer people to death, they're considered more thorough than civilian cases.
Military law experts speculate that the case could take up to two years to go to trial due to the amount of pre-trial publicity.
Meanwhile, finger-pointing over Fort Hood officially began in Washington.
The Pentagon claimed that two anti-terrorism task forces failed to inform the military about e-mails Maj Nidal Hasan sent to a radical Islamic cleric. For its part, the FBI insists that the information wasn't shared because officials had decided the communiqués were 'benign" and didn't warrant further investigation. In fact, members of the military were part of the task forces and apparently agreed with the assessment that the information shouldn't have been shared.
The "possible communication lapse" is "striking" because the task forces "were created in large part to make sure information is more easily and routinely shared."
Some of the best background work is being done by NPR, which early on dug up Hasan's troubling years at Walter Reed.
In addition to being seen as a lazy student and substandard worker, doctors and staff who oversaw Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's medical training were also worried about his overzealous religious views and argumentative nature. Officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center went as far as to consider whether Hasan was psychotic. Hasan was even ordered to attend a university lecture series on Islam due to his outspokenness about the issues.
While there were no discussions about whether to remove him from the service, it was concerns about his substandard performance that led officials to send him to Fort Hood because supervisors figured he would just fade into the woodwork as other doctors in the huge facility could pick up the slack if he continued to perform poorly.
So, why was he made a major? The Washingon Post explains that there is such a severe shortfall of majors that "virtually all Army captains are being promoted." Despite claims by his aunt to the contrary, officials say Hasan never made a formal request to leave the military.
It's only natural to try and sort out why what happened at Fort Hood happened but there's another likely and, I think, more plausible explanation: It may not be possible to avoid events like the kind that occurred at Fort Hood, TX.
Perhaps that's too bleak and too barren a notion for us to contemplate, let alone accept.
The incident is relatively familiar. It doesn't happen often but it happens often enough for us to know the telltale signs. An angry person. A person with no recourse. Targets. Guns, Victims. These days, instead of suicide notes, telephone threats or scribblings in a diary, the internet provides a digital trail that tempts us into thinking we could have prevented such a tragedy had we only known.
Every time a horrific event like this occurs, we always ask, "How did this happen?" And that's always followed by our own second-guessing over what we could have done to prevent it and what can we do to make sure it doesn't happen again.
I'm not sure we can always take preventive measures because sometimes --maybe a lot of times-- things have to happen first before we realize that such a thing could happen --because we can't imagine a world in which they would. Since we don't imagine that they would, we don't bother to prepare for them as if they will.
There are countless examples of this. The storm won't be that bad. I'll never have an accident. Floods rarely happen, who needs insurance? The value of housing will keep rising.
How many times in our health care debate has it been said that prevention would significantly reduce the cost of health care? But many of us forego routine exams despite warning signs, and thus we never learn that our blood pressure is too high, or that we might have polyps or a blood disorder.
And what's our response when a tragedy occurs? "How could this happen?"
Take the shooting at Virginia Tech. What did we hear? The student sought advice. He saw psychologists and teachers. Everyone said he seemed odd and distant and nobody said anything to anyone about his odd behavior. He bought guns. No one connected any dots.
The man in Pittsburgh who shot up a health club last August left plenty of clues, even writing on his blog in very plain English that he had gotten his guns ready, that he was prepared to commit mayhem, even marking the specific day he would do it. But no one paid any attention. If you ran across his blog you'd think: "Just another kook on the web." It's only afterwards when we're left slack jawed by a horrific act that we wonder predictably whether we could have prevented such a tragedy.
So here comes a psychiatrist who, long before any contact with any radical Islamic elements, had been regularly written up by his supervisors, who'd been known to have an extreme view of Islam and who'd also expressed his concerns over the possible religious conflict of Muslims killing Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. Colleagues at Walter Reed had remarked off and on that this seemed like the kind of guy who could suddenly snap and shoot up an office. Did anyone do anything about it?
Makes you wonder if you work with someone like that at your office? No one working at an Orlando high rise would've considered that until the day after Fort Hood when a former employee burst in, guns blazing in despair and frustration.
When someone commits a heinous act such as happened at Fort Hood or in any mass shooting we've seen over the years, we're only able to look back at it through the prism of the shootings --after the fact. By then, anything and everything that has a bearing on such behavior looms large.
But if there were no shootings and you looked at these very same behaviors, they might appear as benign.
It's like that loner kid in 10th grade everyone makes fun of, jokingly predicting, "He's gonna wind up a serial killer." Ten years later he's a serial killer. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold didn't even wait that long. Who could've known? Should you have said something? How? We generally expect good out of people --or at least normal-- and when something goes bad, you can't look back and say "shoulda, woulda, coulda."
But we can't live in a society where everyone's a suspect, either. You can't have freedom if you are going to make presumptions about people's sanity and demand we detain anyone who seems odd, eccentric, tightly wound or slightly malevolent.
The startling and difficult conclusion from events like Columbine, Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, Fort Hood or Orlando, may well be that murder is one of the prices we pay for living in a free society. Freedom allows criminals to commit crimes, even murder, and there is no perfect system of which I am aware that can prevent it. Do you know of any?
Comments
Jihad Watch -- You comments were deleted because they are boring, unfounded and accusatory.
"It is people like you...
"twisted faith"
"The far left..."
"appeasing..."
"You defenders are responsible..."
A bad broken record. This poster "waynegaines" had more to say than you: "You can get instant full medical coverage at the lowest price from www.---.ly/39pFJx"
You missed the whole point of the column: Hindsight is 20-20, and even with hindsight, you are completely devoid of insight.
The truth is a terrible thing to TWIST!
YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE!
So, Hasan's faith was not "twisted"? Are you a fool?
Even Obama said so. I did not Islam was twisted as you presume, but Hasan's was.
I will say again. YOUR type are so afraid to offend the sensibilities of those like Hasan but are lightning fast to offend millions of Americans who believe he IS a Islamic terrorist. And that fright has lead to the death of thousands.
This world of the left is so damn twisted it will ruin this country.
"“It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy. But this much we do know – no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor." BHO
Delete your Gods statement if you choose. You are a coward!
Only it was not a "tragedy". it WAS an act of premeditated terrorism. Deny all you want, even Chris (I get a thrill) Matthews says it is.
Stop with the bomb-throwing and let the justice system sort things out. I can guarantee you they'll do a far better job with a more measured, reasonable and factual effort than you are demonstrating. No rational person is defending Hasan's actions; Investigators will attempt to determine motive. You, on the other hand, are presumptive. You attack a faith based on the actions of a few; your evidence is entirely circumstantial and because of an APPARENT hatred for Islam or Middle Easterners, you cannot be taken for anything other than an angry, bomb-throwing lunatic. And you have no proof that colleagues acted out of political correctness. Let's hope investigators can make that determination and learn from mistakes. But again, you missed the point of the column: The freedoms we cherish in this country allow people of all stripes to behave in ways that are questionable but too dismissed until tragedy strikes. You are nothing but an expert at second-guessing, and you do it tastelessly.
Bruce, you say "the actions of a few"?
what percentage of Muslims doyou think are radicalized world wide?
Has there been a more than "a few" homicide bombings around the world?
Why do you deny that radical Islamists have ACTUALLY declared war on America and the infidels?
When people like you and NBC,CBS, CNN etc and all the bloggers write stories giving excuse after excuse for his actions but FAIL continually to even mention his radical statements and his religion, THAT is defending him.
This is prevalent in the media from Darfur to Somalia.
"what percentage of Muslims doyou think are radicalized world wide?"
There are 1.57 billion Muslims in the world. How many of them do you think? You behave as if none of them can be trusted. Do you not trust a single one?
And once again: Please learn to read more carefully, and while you're at it, re-read this sentence over and over and over: "The rush to judgment is typical and it's also easy because you can close the book on the story and say, oh, jihadist Muslim. IT COULD BE, but to automatically decide that just because he's a Muslim is assinine, primitive and prejudiced."
I wrote that the day after the shooting (www.examiner.com/x-15870-Populist-Examiner~y2009m11d6-Fort-Hood-shooting-portrait-of-a-lone-misfit-begins-to-emerge).
I stand by it today. I trust our law enforcement system to parse out the facts; why can't you? What is your hurry? IF the findings in court prove you wrong, what will you say? Will you deny them?
Nice dodge!
If 1% are radicalized, that would be 15 million. Not a 'few".
And I stand by mine and MILLIONS of others belief that this was the act of a radical Islamic terrorist. NO ONE, NO ONE, hollers Alu Akbar before shooting people except devout Islamic terrorists.
"I stand by mine and MILLIONS of others belief..."
Belief isn't fact. Don't tell me about dodges when you don't answer my questions and the ones you answer you answer with vagueries like "1%."
Where do you one percent? According to who? Did you just pull that out of thin air? Where are your facts? Besides, I asked what percentage YOU thought were terrorists.
Pew Research estimates 2.5 million Muslims in the United States. What do you, Jihad Watch, want to do with them? Be specific.
Let me ask this question: What would have to happen to all the Muslims in the world for Jihad Watch to be able to sleep at night, and maybe even reveal his real identity?
"NO ONE, NO ONE, hollers Alu Akbar before shooting people except devout Islamic terrorists."
--Again, you miss the point of the column. You're using hindsight. Do you have magical powers to discern who's a terrorist before they act? Can you predict the future?
Jihad Watch sounds like some crusty old fart white guy, over 65 and no life. He makes the same comments all over the internet starting in the middle of the night. Dude, turn off the spigot and go hang out with your grandchildren. Or get a dog or something.
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