Fort Hood Report Faults Army Officers [Archive]

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Warrior-Mentor

01-15-2010, 09:04

COMMENT: Don't you love how this title implies that the attack was the fault of Army Officers, rather than Hasan himself?

Yes, some officers passed this guy on. Clearly, this is unacceptable. And I'm glad that this may ultimately help end the political correctness and encourage others to report jihadis in the ranks.

We'll see what actually comes of it... :munchin

January 15, 2010
Report on Fort Hood Said to Fault Army Officers
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- As many as eight Army officers could face discipline for failing to do anything when the alleged shooter in the Fort Hood rampage displayed erratic behavior early in his military career, two officials familiar with the case said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates was expected to refer findings on the officers to the Army for further inquiry and possible punishment. The report on what went wrong in the case of Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is accused in the shootings that killed 13 people at the Texas Army base on Nov. 5, is expected to be released Friday.

Several midlevel officers overlooked or failed to act on red flags in Hasan's lax work habits and fixation on religion [islam - God forbid we state the FACT he was motivated by islam.], the officials said Thursday. Hasan was an odd duck and a loner who was passed along from office to office and job to job despite professional failings that included missed or failed exams and physical fitness requirements, the review found.

Findings about Hasan and those who supervised him are contained in a confidential addendum to a larger report about the Pentagon's handling of potential extremism in the ranks and readiness to handle the sort of mass casualties Hasan allegedly inflicted.

An official familiar with both documents detailed their findings on condition of anonymity because the larger unclassified report has not yet been released, and the one dealing with Hasan in detail will not be publicly released.

Earlier, another official familiar with the findings said the five- to eight officers who could face discipline were supervisors who knew about Hasan's shortcomings and looked the other way or who did not fully reflect concerns about Hasan in professional evaluations.

The officers supervised Hasan when he was a medical student and during his early work as an Army psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

Findings about Hasan are limited to a one-page summary in the main report. The report, called "Protecting the Force," concludes that the Defense Department had outdated and ineffective means to identify threats from inside as opposed to outside the military. It also says the department's means of sharing and collating information about a potential troublemaker are inadequate, one official said.

The inquiry also questions whether the Pentagon is fully committed to FBI-run Joint Terrorism Task Forces. The report calls on the Defense Department to fully staff those teams of investigators, analysts, linguists and others so the Pentagon can quickly see information collected across government agencies about potential links between troops and terrorist or extremist groups.

The report found that although emergency response at Fort Hood was generally good, there are gaps elsewhere and sometimes a failure to link emergency response operations on military installations with those in the surrounding communities.

The findings are the result of two months of work by a panel convened by Gates to look for holes in Pentagon policies and procedures revealed by the Hasan case. The review, which was led by retired Adm. Vernon E. Clark and former Army secretary Togo D. West Jr., did not consider whether the shootings were an act of terrorism and did not delve into allegations that Hasan was in contact with a radical cleric in Yemen. Those questions are part of the separate criminal case against Hasan.

Hasan got passing grades and a promotion in part because disturbing information about his behavior and performance was not recorded by superiors or properly passed to others who might have stepped in, the report found.

As Hasan's training progressed, his strident views on Islam became more pronounced as did worries about his competence as a medical professional. Yet his superiors continued to give him positive performance evaluations that kept him moving through the ranks and led to his eventual assignment at Fort Hood.

Recent statistics show the Army rarely blocks junior officers from promotion, especially in the medical corps.

The report does not answer whether intervention by one of Hasan's superiors might have prevented the shootings[COMMENT: Could anything short of throwing him in jail (on what charges?) prevented the attacks? This implies that it is possible to know if something could have been done to prevent the attack, which is unknowable - again bad reporting at best, clearly skewed at worst.], one official said. It is possible that full knowledge by some superiors or a more proactive response to disturbing aspects of Hasan's behavior could have either helped him or gotten him fired, that official said, but there is no clear evidence that anything would have been different.

Hasan was often late or absent, sometimes appeared disheveled and performed to minimum requirements. The pattern that was obvious to many around him yet not fully reflected where it counted in the Army's bureaucratic system of evaluation and promotion, investigators found.

Hasan nonetheless earned some good reviews from patients and colleagues. His promotion to major was based on an incomplete personnel file, one official said, but also on performance markers that Hasan had met, if barely.

Hasan showed no signs of being violent or a threat. But parallels have been drawn between the missed signals in his case and those preceding the thwarted Christmas attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner. President Barack Obama and his top national security aides have acknowledged they had intelligence about the alleged bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, but failed to connect the dots.

SOURCE:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/15/us/AP-US-FortHood-Pentagon.html

RELATED STORIES:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/15/AR2010011500428.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/15/national/main6098977.shtml

HowardCohodas

01-15-2010, 09:32

Richard

01-15-2010, 09:59

The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.
- Edward R. Murrow

Richard

T-Rock

01-15-2010, 11:47

The officers who will be faulted for bad decisions made those decisions in what they thought was in their best interests for their careers. The real fault is the environment that helped them believe that these decisions were in their best interests. US Chief of Army Staff, General George Casey Jr. would be my choice of where to start laying blame, only because of his comment

Well….we certainly wouldn’t want to create that nonexistent backlash towards a certain religion would we - our diversity is at stake here…what’s 13 killed and 30 wounded?

"We object to, and do not believe, that anti-Muslim sentiment should emanate from this, (Janet Napolitano)…" as if we citizens are too dumb to distinguish between the radical ideology of Islam vs. its peaceful practitioners…

Unfortunately for those Officers, exerting critical thought about Islam gets you labeled as a bigot, a racist, or someone who needs counseling by a Psychiatrist for some sort of ethical illness - take note of all the apology CZARs that come forth out of the darkness when one dares speak out critically against Islam - how can one seriously blame those Officers when their indoctrinated environment disallows dissent towards a fascist ideology.

Fort Hood just goes to show that political correctness can be deadly, yet our current administration is laying the groundwork for future carnage. :(

Warrior-Mentor

01-15-2010, 12:37

Fort Hood just goes to show that political correctness can be deadly, yet our current administration is laying the groundwork for future carnage. :(

T-Rock - I agree with the first half of your statement. YET, I hope that the outcome of any disciplinary action serves as an example which will help end the political correctness. If nothing is done, I would be inclined to agree.

The outcome is yet to be seen... :munchin

Dozer523

01-15-2010, 13:25

I must be off my meds, because this so infuriates me that I'm on the verge of another rant.

The officers who will be faulted for bad decisions made those decisions in what they thought was in their best interests for their careers. The real fault is the environment that helped them believe that these decisions were in their best interests. US Chief of Army Staff, General George Casey Jr. would be my choice of where to start laying blame, only because of his comment
I sincerely hope I have not offended anyone here, but rants tend to leave collateral damage in their wake. OH well. . . that's different.
Change headlines to "ENTIRE US ARMY OFFICER CORPS TO BLAME, Leavenworth Braces for resident course".

HowardCohodas

01-15-2010, 15:16

OH well. . . that's different.
Change headlines to "ENTIRE US ARMY OFFICER CORPS TO BLAME, Leavenworth Braces for resident course".

A couple of good choices would do wonders in focusing the mind. My nomination for number one holds. :)

Sigaba

01-15-2010, 15:47

The officers who will be faulted for bad decisions made those decisions in what they thought was in their best interests for their careers.Do you have information from the still classified report that supports this comment? Or is this speculation on your part?:confused: The real fault is the environment that helped them believe that these decisions were in their best interests. US Chief of Army Staff, General George Casey Jr. would be my choice of where to start laying blame, only because of his comment.Where does personal accountability fit into things? Does your argument mean that environmental issues can serve to excuse instances of misconduct in other professions or in civilian life? ("For fear of X, I did Y.")

FWIW, more than twenty years ago, I was one of two or three civilians in a military science course on military law and professional ethics. At one point, the instructor, a soft spoken lieutenant colonel who had fought in Vietnam, looked at the ROTC cadets and asked softly what they would do if their CO asked them to falsify a report. Without waiting for an answer, he turned back to his lecture.

From that lesson and others, he taught his students that, ultimately, professional officers are responsible for the decisions they make.

(His expression of dislike for Oliver North was startling. During another lecture, he looked up from his notes and mentioned that he and a number of his colleagues would like to have a "moment alone with Mr. North.")

HowardCohodas

01-15-2010, 23:11

Do you have information from the still classified report that supports this comment? Or is this speculation on your part?:confused:

Where does personal accountability fit into things? Does your argument mean that environmental issues can serve to excuse instances of misconduct in other professions or in civilian life? ("For fear of X, I did Y.")

I base my comments on more than 10 years in middle management of a Fortune 500 company. Those who care about getting ahead more than their personal integrity will do remarkably corrupt things. There is tremendous pressure to go along to get along. I personally did things I am not proud of. Eventually I was eased out for being outspoken. During one counseling session with my boss he asked me, "Don't you care about supporting your family?"

Setting an example is about more than just direct accountability. My comments concerning General Casey are related to his general incompetence. In civilian life we would call his promotion to Army Chief of Staff as being "kicked upstairs." His comments are, in my view, prima facie evidence of incompetence. The fact that his statement is a demonstration of incompetence that is related to Muslim political correctness is a happy side benefit that should be used to maximum advantage to send the message. To bad for him that his pulic record serves so well to indict him.

Sigaba

01-15-2010, 23:43

I base my comments on more than 10 years in middle management of a Fortune 500 company. Those who care about getting ahead more than their personal integrity will do remarkably corrupt things. There is tremendous pressure to go along to get along. I personally did things I am not proud of. Eventually I was eased out for being outspoken. During one counseling session with my boss he asked me, "Don't you care about supporting your family?"

Setting an example is about more than just direct accountability. My comments concerning General Casey are related to his general incompetence. In civilian life we would call his promotion to Army Chief of Staff as being "kicked upstairs." His comments are, in my view, prima facie evidence of incompetence. The fact that his statement is a demonstration of incompetence that is related to Muslim political correctness is a happy side benefit that should be used to maximum advantage to send the message. To bad for him that his pulic record serves so well to indict him.Bluntly, it sounds like you are very angry at your former employer.

HowardCohodas

01-16-2010, 00:36

Bluntly, it sounds like you are very angry at your former employer.

Nope.

I'm angry with myself for succumbing to weakness on those occasions when I went along with what I knew was wrong without speaking out.

Stingray

01-16-2010, 02:27

Nope.

I'm angry with myself for succumbing to weakness on those occasions when I went along with what I knew was wrong without speaking out.

We will deal one of two pains. The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The great thing is we get to choose.

HowardCohodas

01-16-2010, 04:57

We will deal one of two pains. The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The great thing is we get to choose.

Now that we have segued into psychoanalysis, I'll expand. A good way to prepare for tough choices is to imagine the worse that could happen. If you can live with that outcome, then you can choose with more logic than emotion. I chose to speak out. They chose to ease me out. So be it. It was my choice.

When relating my analysis to a friend, he suggest that my story reminded him of the joke about the ship's captain who stayed at the wheel after being torpedoed while shouting, "They didn't sink me, I'm taking it down." ;)

Warrior-Mentor

01-16-2010, 09:05

Hood massacre report gutless and shameful
By RALPH PETERS
January 16, 2010

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."

SOURCE:http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/hood_massacre_report_gutless_and_yaUphSPCoMs8ux4lQ dtyGM

The Reaper

01-16-2010, 09:28

Warrior-Mentor

01-16-2010, 12:33

HowardCohodas

01-16-2010, 12:50

Looking for a link to the actual report if any one's got it...please post.

Found the transcripts Sec Gates' here:
http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4535

Still looking for the actual report.

Thanks.

DOD Report On Ft. Hood Shooting (http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/DOD-ProtectingTheForce-Web_Security_HR_13Jan10.pdf)

Warrior-Mentor

01-16-2010, 20:42

DOD Report On Ft. Hood Shooting (http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/DOD-ProtectingTheForce-Web_Security_HR_13Jan10.pdf)

Thank you much!

Surf n Turf

01-17-2010, 18:02

Exactly.
And the report (as well as GEN Casey's comments on the matter) is irrefutable evidence of the bias in the system towards PC.
Anyone daring to speak the truth about Hasan before or after the event, would have been called in, sat down, grilled, made to change their comments, probably sued by CAIR or the likes, been investigated themselves, branded as Neanderthals and racists of the worst kind, forced to publicly apologize to Hasan, and their own career likely ended as the result.
Today, I am ashamed of my Army.
TR

The open source report confirms what I have observed for a while – many of our Top Military Leaders are a bunch of “ticket punchers” standing in the atta-boy line.:mad:
If reform doesn’t come from the top – like a GO calling “bullshit”, and putting his AD career on the line --- it ain’t gonna happen.
Any one remember the officer corps of the early ‘70’s ? – It took a dedicated (and much maligned) group of O’s /SrNCO’s to fix that. We also lost a lot of talented people who just had enough, and quit the force.
TR says it all – especially GEN Casey’s comments.
(rant off)
SnT

Warrior-Mentor

01-19-2010, 18:39

Secure Freedom Radio
Tuesday January 19, 2010
Ralph Peters, Michael Mukasey, Andy McCarthy
January 19, 2010

14:45 Ralph Peters wraps with Frank Gaffney on the hollow sham known as the Fort Hood Report.

No one is better than former Attorney General Michael Mukasey to accurately understand the FBI process for obtaining phone records in terrorist cases. He breaks it down with Frank.

Finally, terrorist fighting intellectual ninja, Andy McCarthy also weighs in on the FBI partnering with the phone companies to fight terror as well as the national security angle on the Mass. Senate special election and more!

LINK:
http://live.radioamerica.org/loudwater/player.pl?name=sfr

LINK:
http://www.securefreedomradio.org/2010/01/19/tuesday-january-19-2010-ralph-peters-michael-mukasey-andy-mccarthy/

Warrior-Mentor

01-21-2010, 07:51

Pentagon on Fort Hood: Jihad? What Jihad?
Robert Spencer
21 Jan 2010

In Human Events this morning I discuss the Pentagon's ridiculous report on the Fort Hood jihad massacre:

The Defense Department released its report Friday on the jihad massacre at Fort Hood, and it is hard to imagine a document more full of denial and deception. Above all, the Pentagon seems intent on ignoring and obfuscating the reasons why Nidal Hasan murdered thirteen people at Fort Hood in November.

Although there were numerous signs that Nidal Hasan was an Islamic jihadist who believed it part of his religious responsibility as a Muslim to wage war against Infidels, the words "jihad," "Muslim," "Islam" and even "Islamist" never appear in the 86-page mélange of droning bureaucratese.

Echoing hapless Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's reaction to the Christmas Day attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253, the report claims that, despite the thirteen murders, the system worked well at Fort Hood: "Leaders at Fort Hood had anticipated mass casualty events in their emergency response plans and exercises. Base personnel were prepared and trained to take appropriate and decisive action to secure the situation. The prompt and courageous acts of Soldiers, first responders, local law enforcement personnel, DoD civilians, and health care providers prevented greater losses." The only negative note in the report is the delicately stated idea that the military could be better prepared for the next jihad attack -- uh, that is, the next "tragedy": "The tragedy, however, raised questions about the degree to which the entire Department is prepared for similar incidents in the future -- especially multiple, simultaneous incidents."

And how does the report propose to make sure that the military is prepared for "similar incidents in the future"? By acting upon a series of empty, platitudinous recommendations: "identifying and monitoring potential threats;" "providing time-critical information to the right people;" "employing force protection measures;" and "planning for and responding to incidents." That's right: the Pentagon is recommending that the military could be more prepared for the next terror attack by "planning for" it.

And the irony is thick when the report recommends that the military improve its ability to identify and monitor "potential threats" -- this from a report that steadfastly refuses even to acknowledge the existence of the Islamic jihad doctrine that motivated Nidal Hasan to murder in the first place.

Could belief in that doctrine be a "potential threat"? Of course not. At least not in a military which permits the Chief of Staff of the Army -- Gen. George Casey -- to say that as bad as the Fort Hood shootings were, it would be an even greater tragedy if the Army's diversity were damaged.

A glimmer of reality threatens to break through when the report suggests that "DoD standards for denying requests for recognition as an ecclesiastical endorser of chaplains may be inadequate" -- in other words, the Pentagon has no efficient way to screen the groups that endorse chaplains for the military.

And that is certainly true: for a considerable period only two Islamic groups, both Saudi-funded, had the authority to train and approve Muslim chaplains for the military: the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences and the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council. Both of these were linked to the Islamic activist Abdurrahman Alamoudi, who is now serving a 23-year prison sentence for financing jihad terrorism. If the Pentagon increased scrutiny of such "moderate" organizations, well and good. But by what criteria will it do so, since it doesn't seem to have noticed that there is any problem of supremacism or violence in Islam in the first place?

Political correctness was responsible for the murders of thirteen people at Fort Hood. If it had not held the political and military establishments in a stranglehold, Nidal Hasan would never have remained in the U.S. military, much less risen to the rank of major. He would have been removed from the ranks long before he had had a chance to murder anyone at Fort Hood. Political correctness was responsible for the fear among his superior officers -- they knew that if they disciplined or removed Hasan, they would have faced charges of "discrimination" and "bigotry." And such charges can ruin careers these days.

But that same political correctness is still very much in place, as the Fort Hood report abundantly indicates. And so for all its bluster about preventing the next attack, it will stand -- after the next jihad attack, and the one after that -- as a monument to the cowardice and myopia that held sway at the highest levels in Washington during the first year of the Obama Administration.

SOURCE:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=35259

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/01/spencer-pentagon-on-fort-hood-jihad-what-jihad.html

Warrior-Mentor

01-21-2010, 08:13

Pig Flying Moment:
TIME Magazine Wants to Know "Why Not Mention Islam?"
in Fort Hood Military Report
Pamela Geller
Atlas Shrugs
Jan 21, 2010

Even TIME magazine can't help but state the obvious: The Fort Hood Report: Why Not Mention Islam?

SOURCE:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/01/pig-flying-moment-time-magazine-wants-to-know-why-not-mention-islam-in-fort-hood-military-report.html

The U.S. military's just-released report into the Fort Hood shootings spends 86 pages detailing various slipups by Army officers but not once mentions Major Nidal Hasan by name or even discusses whether the killings may have had anything to do with the suspect's view of his Muslim faith[islam]. And as Congress opens two days of hearings on Wednesday into the Pentagon probe of the Nov. 5 attack that left 13 dead, lawmakers want explanations for that omission.

John Lehman, a member of the 9/11 commission and Navy Secretary during the Reagan Administration, says a reluctance to cause offense by citing Hasan's view of his Muslim faith and the U.S. military's activities in Muslim countries as a possible trigger for his alleged rampage reflects a problem that has gotten worse in the 40 years that Lehman has spent in and around the U.S. military. The Pentagon report's silence on Islamic extremism "shows you how deeply entrenched the values of political correctness have become," he told TIME on Tuesday. "It's definitely getting worse, and is now so ingrained that people no longer smirk when it happens." (See pictures of Major Nidal Malik Hasan's apartment.)

The apparent lack of curiosity into what allegedly drove Hasan to kill isn't in keeping with the military's ethos; it's a remarkable omission for the U.S. armed forces, whose young officers are often ordered to read Sun Tzu's The Art of War with its command to know your enemy. In midcareer, they study the contrast between capabilities and intentions, which is why they aren't afraid of a British nuclear weapon but do fear the prospect of Iran getting one.

Yet the leaders of the two-month Pentagon review, former Army Secretary Togo West and the Navy's onetime top admiral, Vernon Clark, told reporters last week that they didn't drill down into Hasan's motives. "Our concern is with actions and effects, not necessarily with motivations," West said. Added Clark: "We certainly do not cite a particular group." Part of their reticence, they said, was to avoid running afoul of the criminal probe of Hasan that is now under way. Both are declining interview requests before their congressional testimony, a Pentagon spokesman said. (Read TIME's cover story on the Fort Hood massacre.)

But without a motive, there would have been no murder. Hasan wore his radical Islamic faith and its jihadist tendencies in the same way he wore his Army uniform. He allegedly proselytized within the ranks, spoke out against the wars his Army was waging in Muslim countries and shouted "Allahu akbar" (God is great) as he gunned down his fellow soldiers. Those who served alongside Hasan find the Pentagon review wanting. "The report demonstrates that we are unwilling to identify and confront the real enemy of political Islam," says a former military colleague of Hasan, speaking privately because he was ordered not to talk about the case. "Political correctness has brainwashed us to the point that we no longer understand our heritage and cannot admit who, or what, the enemy stands for."

FULL TIME MAGAZINE ARTICLE:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1938415,00.html

afchic

01-21-2010, 08:35

I agree wholeheartedly with the thoughts put forth here that the report didn't focus on Hasan, but others. He is the one who perpetrated this horror at Ft Hood, and the DoD should have the balls to call it what it was.

Rant on

With that being said, I believe that the officers the report focus on deserve exactly what they get. First and foremost, they are Officers in the United States Military, and need to act as such. I don't care if you are a 2nd Lt with 2 days active duty experience, or a GO with 35 years experience. You know right from wrong. If you are so hamstrung about your own career progression, to not call a spade a spade when it is staring you right in the face, I don't want you in my military.

When we have officers that are afraid to make a call in what could have been a relatively "minor" issue as someone's performance eval, how the hell are we suppose to entrust them with the lives of our soldiers/sailors/airmen/marines?

I once got a tongue lashing by an E-9 (I say that because this individual does not deserve to be called Chief) because I wrote an EPR on a SSgt, as a Capt, and gave that person a 3 (out of 5). "Don't you know what you are doing to this person's career? You are making sure they will never get promoted, and that isn't right" to which my answer was "You're damn right I am making sure this person will never get promoted. They are a solid 3 and I will not over inflate that rating because you think this person is 'alright'. They are a poor NCO and I will not have them leading the great folks of this organization" He tried to have my commander force me to change the rating. But I stuck to my guns, and wouldn't change it.

Were people pissed at me, you bet. Did I get a butt chewing from my commander, you bet. But I have never had to look at myself in the mirror and wonder if I had just had the courage to do what was right could I have prevented this person from doing untold harm to another. This idiot would have eventually killed someone.

What enfuriates me also is that this happened in the medical field. What happened to "first do no harm". I can't believe that these folks had the conscience to allow this individual to treat patients, most of all patients with mental issues, and think he wasn't going to do some kind of harm to them.

If any of those supervisors are still on active duty, and knew what was going on, they should be charged with the murder of the soldiers as well. They may not have pulled the trigger, but they sure as shit put this bastard in a place where he did the deed.

Rant off

HowardCohodas

01-21-2010, 08:45

Richard

01-21-2010, 08:55

alright4u

01-21-2010, 09:10

One should read Appendix A - the Memo from the SecDef dtd 20 Nov 2009 and Terms Of Reference outlining the purpose and parameters of the report - to understand its focus and generic use of terminology.

Actually reading the report vs what those who make a living opining have to say about it might provide a better understanding of it all.

However - YMMV - and so it goes...

Richard's $.02 :munchin

These people need serious help. Reality is foreign to them. Those who treat granny like a potential terrorist while refusing to dig deep into a Muslim military member's past and present activities are wasting precious resources and fooling themselves. This PC BS is beyond me. I never served with this PC crap. Even Emerson's Pro Life hogwash delivered with his standard speech while wearing his pimped out pistolas was too much for me.

Warrior-Mentor

01-21-2010, 15:20

Christian Science Monitor:
Terrorism? Fort Hood report doesn’t mention Islamic extremism.
Patrik Jonsson
January 20, 2010

At congressional hearings Wednesday on Fort Hood, House Armed Services Committee Republicans said Islamic extremism is the ‘800 pound gorilla’ in the room.

House Republicans were keen Wednesday to find out why a report titled “Protecting the Force: Lessons from Fort Hood” fails to discuss Islamic extremism as a possible motive for Maj. Nidal Hasan’s attack in November, which killed 13 and wounded 43.

Fort Hood aftermath: Some Army officers’ careers may be over Will heads roll in Pentagon probe of Fort Hood shootings? Frustrated by the Department of Defense’s description of the Fort Hood rampage as an “incident” by an “alleged perpetrator,” several members of the House Armed Services Committee wondered if political correctness is besting common sense as the US tries to understand the nature and strategy of its enemies.

The debate highlights ongoing tension over how to define and react to a series of high-profile attacks, including the Fort Hood rampage and the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound jetliner.

President Obama has described the Christmas Day attack as an act of war, but the government has so far resisted calling the Fort Hood attack “terrorism,” despite Hasan's ties to a cleric in Yemen alleged to be an Al Qaeda recruiter. Republican criticism come as conservatives – most notably former Vice President Dick Cheney – have sought to cast Obama as weak against terrorism.

'Strange silence' on Islamic extremism

Rep. Buck McKeon (R) of California on Wednesday called the report’s failure to mention Islamic extremism a “strange silence.” To 9/11 commission member John Lehman, the administration's position “shows you how deeply entrenched the values of political correctness have become,” he told Time magazine earlier this week.

Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee suggested that Americans are increasingly concerned that political correctness is undermining national security.

“The American people recognize that the 9/11 Commission was correct when it said we have an enemy and it’s Islamist extremists – their words – and the concern is that we may not be paying attention to the fact that the alleged perpetrator was in fact an Islamist extremist,” said Rep. John Kline (R) of Minnesota. “There’s frustration that we seem to be overlooking the 800 pound gorilla and that this is something more than just a random act of violence with an alleged perpetrator, and that it’s certainly more than just an incident.”

The report’s respected authors, former Army Secretary Togo West and retired Navy Adm. Vernon Clark, said Defense Secretary Robert Gates did not charge them with finding out what happened. They were tasked with discovering whether there were any gaps or deficiencies that would hobble future efforts to identify internal threats and protect the force.

They added that Defense Department lawyers requested that they not discuss specifics of the Hasan case since it could jeopardize the Army’s court-martial case against him. Hasan faces murder charges, but no terrorism-related indictment.

Nevertheless, Mr. West said a key finding of the investigation is that the military does not adequately understand the process of what he called “self-radicalization.”

Pentagon needs to better understand today's hazards

“We can prepare better and we need to pay attention to today’s hazards,” he said. “We need to understand the forces that cause an individual to radicalize, to commit violent acts, and make us vulnerable from within.”

But asked directly about whether political correctness played a role in the failure of officers and promotion boards to pinpoint Hasan despite a number of warning signs, West balked.

“What we’re talking about [with political correctness] is: How do we do what we have to do to get information to spot people who are likely to harm service members versus how are we careful that in so doing we’re not taking steps that lump people into a group and [attribute] characteristics to the entire group,” West said.

But, he added, “I don’t think religion or theology are out of bounds when we’re looking for indicators of violence. “

Lawmakers skeptical

But some lawmakers on Wednesday said they believe politics, not security concerns, played into the investigation – including the reasons given for why the public shouldn’t know that Hasan was promoted even after an alleged statement to colleagues that Sharia law trumps the US Constitution.

“This is another incident in a long pattern of information withheld from the public that is neither germane to national security interests or impinging on legal processes,” said Rep. Mike Coffman (R) of Colorado. “A lot of information that has come before this committee has been classified merely because it’s politically embarrassing.”

West would not answer whether the attack was, in fact, terrorism. “I’m going to pass on whether it was an act of terrorism,” West said. “But I know people who died there were terrified and the people who were wounded were, too.”

SOURCE:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2010/0120/Terrorism-Fort-Hood-report-doesn-t-mention-Islamic-extremism

T-Rock

01-21-2010, 21:08

Warrior-Mentor

01-22-2010, 03:22

Reports like these are what happens when we allow MPAC, ISNA, and CAIR to sit in on brainstorming sessions within the upper tiers of Government, just ask Maj. Coughlin.

The Fort Hood report just illustrates how government agencies are implementing recommendations by Muslim Brotherhood entities which started on May 8, 2007.

Akbar Salahuddin Ahmed, M.J. Khan, Reza Aslan, Hesham Islam, et al.

It appears our Government continues to tow a false narrative as opposed to orienting on facts.

Edward Said would be proud…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGa6bALOBTI

http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/126.pdf

http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/127.pdf

I agree. The two IPT documents, 126 and 127 are especially disturbing - and illustrate the extent to which they're winning the war of ideas by controlling the vocabulary.

Josef Pieper's Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power comes to mind....

GET IT HERE:
http://www.amazon.com/Abuse-Language-Power-Josef-Pieper/dp/089870362X

alright4u

01-22-2010, 06:30

I agree. The two IPT documents, 126 and 127 are especially disturbing - and illustrate the extent to which they're winning the war of ideas by controlling the vocabulary.

Josef Pieper's Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power comes to mind....

GET IT HERE:
http://www.amazon.com/Abuse-Language-Power-Josef-Pieper/dp/089870362X

This crap is all PC BS, too.

Richard

01-22-2010, 08:31

Well - back before PC was the PC term of choice for such matters, we referred to such documents as being 'echelons above reality' for those of us down at the operating levels.

And so it goes...:rolleyes:

Richard's jaded $.02 :munchin

csquare

01-22-2010, 19:40

alright4u

01-23-2010, 00:52

The AMEDD/MEDCOM has issues with just having leadership make any or a hard decision(s). I've seen it first hand, on a daily basis, while working at both organizations since retiring. They don't want any conflicts, dramas or issues and would rather bury their heads in the sand instead of making a hard decision about someone or something.
These 8 individuals will be an example of, in the hope that the next time someone will speak up and drop the hammer on a POS. But like pretty much everything in the military, lately, we're reactive instead of proactive.

This is OMHO.

It is sad, but; back in late 69 Col. Miley grabbed me when I was the SOC (Support Operations Commander) for the SF unit supporting the SFOC final exercise. He told me, "CPT, if any MD tries to leave at night- you stop him."

"We will not allow any MD to leave troops in the field to work in private ER's.."

GratefulCitizen

01-24-2010, 15:46

Have a close friend in the Medical Corps.
He finished his training at Ft. Hood and was briefly a GMO there before transfer and deployment (all of this prior to the incident).

An "intervention" of sorts was done with him while there because he had all sorts of flags (including being an "odd duck" and "loner").
He was aware of the reasons for concern, didn't take it personally, and moved forward with his career.

Chatted with him last night about the hasan incident.
From his perspective (inside the Medical Corps/Ft. Hood/having been "flagged"), he could see why it wasn't caught, and didn't think it was attributable purely to political correctness.
Hindsight is 20/20.

Stras

01-24-2010, 18:05

The AMEDD/MEDCOM has issues with just having leadership make any or a hard decision(s). I've seen it first hand, on a daily basis, while working at both organizations since retiring. They don't want any conflicts, dramas or issues and would rather bury their heads in the sand instead of making a hard decision about someone or something.
These 8 individuals will be an example of, in the hope that the next time someone will speak up and drop the hammer on a POS. But like pretty much everything in the military, lately, we're reactive instead of proactive.

This is OMHO.

I would hope that the charges the 8 individuals are accused of are fitting enough for the ensuing backlash.

I'm stunned at the stupidity of the verbiage stated in the original articles by our military and government. Ostrich with their head in the sand.

We are fighting Terrorists... plain and simple.....
Perhaps in the future, the mormons will want to kick every non-mormon out of Utah.. they'd still be terrorists!

Personally I see this as a Witch Hunt and the 8 are the designated scapegoats. want to bet that they are all O-5 and below?

BMT (RIP)

02-24-2010, 13:57

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/02/24/ft-hood-attack-publicly-called-terrorism/

BMT

greenberetTFS

02-24-2010, 15:45

At Last!...... :rolleyes: They have finally conceded to admitting the truth......:eek:

Big Teddy :munchin