PrairiePundit

Fox News: Fort Hood shooter wants to become 'citizen' of Islamic State caliphate He is unlikely to ever get out of prison to make this wish come true.  That is a good thing.  Sounds like he is interested in more than "work place violence."

Fox News is reporting there are several casualties and the shooter has not been found at this time.  There were reports earlier this week that a recruit with jihadi tendencies have made threats and was being sought. For Hood is a very large base between Waco and Austin, Texas.  The Texas Department of Public Safety is in route to the scene.  A college across the street from the base is now evacuating its students. A Fort Hood spokesman says the shooter is dead. Update-- Daily Mail: Mass shooting at Fort Hood: One dead and fourteen injured as soldier opens fire before killing himself at military base where 13 were shot dead by radical Muslim officer in 2009 Other reports have listed three dead besides the shooter.

NY Times: Fort Hood Gunman Sentenced to Death by Military Jury Major Hasan had been found guilty of 45 counts of murder and attempted murder in an attack called the deadliest act of terrorism on American soil since 2001. It appears he got the verdict he wanted.  I think his victims should have a feeling of justice and closure.  What they also not deserve is fair treatment from the governemtn and doing away with the insult of calling this act of terror "work place violence."

Dallas Morning News: With the trial of the Fort Hood shooter winding down, Texas Sen. John Cornyn is again calling for increased benefits for the victims of the 2009 attack. In an op-ed Tuesday in the The Killeen Daily Herald, Cornyn said he was drafting legislation for victims and their families to receive the same benefits as those who had been killed or injured in a combat zone. Cornyn is one of several federal lawmakers seeking legislation to help victims of the shooting. Many have been denied maximum help and benefits because the incident has been treated as workplace violence. Previous efforts by Cornyn have died in the Senate Armed Services Committee, which also has blocked bills to help Fort Hood victims that passed in the House. ... Democrats should pay a political price for blocking support for the victims of this domestic terrorist attack.  Their main excuse is a fear it would effect the trial that has been inordinately delayed.  The defendant should have been tr...

AP/Houston Chronicle: Army Maj. Nidal Hasan was convicted Friday for the deadly 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, a shocking assault against American troops at home by one of their own who said he opened fire on fellow soldiers to protect Muslim insurgents abroad. A jury of 13 high-ranking military officers reached a unanimous guilty verdict on all 13 counts of premeditated murder and a guilty verdict on 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. Hasan is now eligible for the death penalty. Hasan stared at the jury with no visible reaction as the verdict was read. After he and jurors left the courtroom, some victims who survived the attack and victims' relatives began to cry. The Army psychiatrist acknowledged carrying out the attack in a crowded waiting room where unarmed troops were making final preparations to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq. Thirteen people were killed and more than were 30 wounded. Because Hasan never denied his actions, the court-martial was always less ...

Dallas Morning News Editorial: ... An undistinguished Army psychiatrist, he also was an Islamic extremist who took public positions sympathetic to America’s enemies. He communicated with Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaeda leader in Yemen. He planned his attack at Fort Hood with meticulous detail. He shouted “Allahu Akbar!” before shooting down fellow American soldiers, aiming to kill as many as he could before police brought him down, alive but paralyzed. All of this was known soon enough. Yet the Department of Defense and the Army declared the brave men and women he shot were victims of workplace violence, not terrorism. This is a distinction with a critical difference: Because their injuries are not judged combat-related, these soldiers and their families are denied many benefits and avenues of treatment a Sgt. Pasco might have received. Members of Congress from both parties, including Texas Republicans Michael McCaul and John Carter, have implored Defense and the Army to reconsider. C...

Shawn Manning: In November 2009, my Army Reserve Medical Detachment reported to Fort Hood, Texas, in preparation for deployment to Afghanistan. As we waited in line at the base’s processing center, Maj. Nidal Hasan entered the building and fired rounds that would kill 13 people and an unborn child and wound 32 others, including me. After many setbacks, Hasan’s trial finally began this week, only to be delayed yet again on Wednesday. My recovery has been long and agonizing. But the pain that has taken me by surprise has come in the nearly four years since the attack, as my fellow victims and I have been given the runaround by a government more eager to protect itself than the dead and wounded. On the day of the attack, I was waiting for a medical exam before what would have been my third deployment overseas. I was texting my wife when I heard the shout of “Allahu Akbar!” I looked up to see a man in Army fatigues firing a pistol. His fourth or fifth shot went into my chest. As screams...

AP/ABC News: Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan admits pulling out a pistol, shouting "Allahu akbar" (God is great) and opening fire on unarmed people, killing 13 of them. All, he says, in an effort to stop them from going to Afghanistan and killing his fellow Muslims. Concluding he was on the "wrong side" in America's war, he told jurors at his court-martial that he switched sides. So, victims and others are demanding, why is the November 2009 attack at Fort Hood being tried as a case of workplace violence and not as an act of terror? Military law expert Scott L. Silliman says the answer is simple. Because the Uniform Code of Military Justice does not have a punitive article for "terrorism." "They really didn't have an option," says Silliman, director emeritus of Duke University's Center on Law, Ethics and National Security in Durham, N.C. "He was an active-duty officer. The crime occurred on a military installation. ... It was obvio...

Washington Times: A uniformed Army psychiatrist had no justification for gunning down U.S. troops and won’t be allowed to tell jurors that he was protecting Taliban leaders in Afghanistan, a military judge ruled Friday, appearing to clear the way for the Fort Hood murder trial to begin. Maj. Nidal Hasan’s “defense of others” strategy fails as a matter of law, Col. Tara Osborn said during a 45-minute hearing. That strategy must show that a killing was necessary to prevent the immediate harm or death of others. Osborn said no soldiers at the Texas Army post on Nov. 5, 2009, posed an imminent threat to anyone in Afghanistan and that the legitimacy of the Afghanistan war is not an issue at Hasan’s court-martial. She also ordered that Hasan not present any evidence or arguments about his claims that deploying U.S. troops posed an immediate threat to Taliban fighters. Hasan, an American-born Muslim, faces the death penalty or life without parole if convicted in the rampage that left 13 dea...

NY Times: Fort Hood Suspect Says He Was Defending Taliban Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, accused of killing 13 people in 2009, gave his first public explanation about the motive. With Hasan admitting he was acting to help the enemy it makes the work place violence claim all the more ludicrous.  The administration needs to drop the pretense.

CNN does a good job of tracking the rationale behind not awarding Purple Hearts to the victims.  It is a rationale that make no sense and the army is looking bad by making the claim that giving the award would hurt Hasan's ability to get a fair trial.  I must admit that the argument sounds like one with no merit.

The administration and the military are pretending this was not a terrorist attack in order to give the terrorist shooter a "fair trial."  What they miss is that the victims and the prosecutors deserve a fair trial too, and they are not getting it when we pretend this was just work place violence.  I don't blame them for being upset about this treatment of what happened to them.

ABC News: Three years after the White House arranged a hero's welcome at the State of the Union address for the Fort Hood police sergeant and her partner who stopped the deadly shooting there, Kimberly Munley says President Obama broke the promise he made to her that the victims would be well taken care of. "Betrayed is a good word," former Sgt. Munley told ABC News in a tearful interview to be broadcast tonight on "World News with Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline." "Not to the least little bit have the victims been taken care of," she said. "In fact they've been neglected." There was no immediate comment from the White House about Munley's allegations. Thirteen people were killed, including a pregnant soldier, and 32 others shot in the November 2009 rampage by the accused shooter, Major Nidal Hasan, who now awaits a military trial on charges of premeditated murder and attempted murder. Tonight's broadcast report also incl...

This is a powerful video from some of the survivors of treachery by an Army Major who thought his faith commanded him to kill as many Americans as he could.  It has become one of the characteristics of Islam that some of its followers will go off like a pit bull sometime.  It is especially relevant with the Fort Hood shooter finally coming to trial after he was ordered to shave his beard a military appellate review panel.. If convicted he should get the death penalty.

AP/Austin American-Statesman: An Army appeals court ruled Thursday that the Fort Hood shooting suspect can have his beard forcibly shaved off before his murder trial. The U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the military trial judge's decision to order Maj. Nidal Hasan to appear in court clean shaven or be forcibly shaved, according to a release from Fort Hood. The opinion came on the heels of last week's hearing at Fort Belvoir in Virginia in which the court heard arguments from both sides. Hasan, who did not attend the hearing, has said he grew a beard because his Muslim faith requires it, despite the Army's ban on beards. A few exceptions have been made for religious reasons. The appeals court also ruled that Col. Gregory Gross, the trial judge, properly found that the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act does not give Hasan the right to have a beard while in uniform during his trial. The court specifically upheld Gross' previous ruling that Hasan did no...

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Victims of the shooting are not eligible for combat status benefits and Purple Hearts because of Obama's refusal to label this terrorist attack for what it is.  It fits a pattern with him not to admit that the enemy is attacking us.  We saw these same pretensions in Libya where he blamed enemy attacks on a video.  This kind of denigration of the sacrifices made by those helping us fight this war makes Obama a poor choice for commander in chief.

Fox News: The American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki used more than 60 email addresses and sent several thousand emails to his followers, some with encryption and code words, while under FBI surveillance -- according to a five-month investigation by Fox News. Some of those emails were exchanged with accused Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan.    "Fox Files: The Enemy Within," which debuts on Fox News Channel June 15 at 10 p.m. ET, draws on exclusive interviews and first-hand accounts of the Fort Hood massacre which killed 13 and injured at least 43 others on Nov. 5, 2009. For the first time, victims of the shooting, as well as senior investigators, break their silence about the worst act of terrorism on U.S. soil since 9/11.    "He (Anwar al-Awlaki) was incredibly busy. He -- during his peak period -- had upwards of 60 email accounts that he was using at any given time," retired FBI agent Keith Slotter told Fox Files.    Slotter, whose career spanne...

This story interviews some Killeen, Texas locals about concerns over a thwarted attack by an AWOL Muslim, Pfc. Nasser Abdo. I think terrorist like the Fort Hood shooter and the thwarted AWOL soldier have more to be worried about in town than on the base where almost everyone is disarmed.  In town there are people with concealed carry permits who can respond quickly if they are on the scene of an attempted attack. Remember, it was a tip from the gun shop that led to this guys arrest.

Fox News: At least one U.S. military serviceman has been arrested after raising concerns over another alleged plot to attack Fort Hood, Fox News has learned exclusively. Pvt. Nasser Jason Abdo, an AWOL soldier from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was arrested by the Killeen Police Department near Fort Hood and remains in custody there. Authorities, however, will not say if Abdo is the one who raised security concerns. Abdo was found with weapons and explosives at the time of his arrest, a senior Army source confirms to Fox News. He was arrested at around 2 p.m. Wednesday after someone called authorities to report a suspicious individual. Eric Vasys, a spokesman with the FBI's San Antonio Office, said authorities found firearms and bomb making components, which he described as smokeless gun powder, inside Abdo's motel room. Bob Jenkins, a Fort Campbell spokesman, told Fox News that Abdo was also being investigated for child pornography found on his government computer. Ab...

Image via Wikipedia Dorthy Rabinowitz: In a month of momentous change, it was easy to overlook the significance of another revolutionary event. Who would have believed that in the space of a few weeks the leaders of the three major European powers would publicly denounce multiculturalism and declare, in so many words, that it was a proven disaster and a threat to society? One after another they announced their findings—Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, Great Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron, and France's President Nicolas Sarkozy. Multicultural values had not only led to segregated communities: They had, Mr. Cameron noted, imposed policies of blind toleration that had helped nurture radical Islam 's terrorist cells. There can be no underestimating the in-so-many-words aspect of these renunciations. This was multiculturalism they were talking about—the unofficial established religion of the universities, the faith whose requirements have shaped every aspect...