Major Hasan couldn’t have been more straightforward about who and what he was. An army psychiatrist, he put “SoA”—i.e., “Soldier of Allah”—on his business card. At the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, he was reprimanded for trying to persuade patients to convert to Islam and fellow pupils objected to his constant “anti-American propaganda,” but, as the Associated Press reported, “a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim student kept officers from filing a formal written complaint.”

This is your brain on political correctness.

As the writer Barry Rubin pointed out, Major Hasan was the first mass murderer in U.S. history to give a PowerPoint presentation outlining the rationale for the crime he was about to commit. And he gave the presentation to a roomful of fellow army psychiatrists and doctors. Some of whom glanced queasily at their colleagues, but none of whom actually spoke up. And, when the question of whether then-Captain Hasan was, in fact, “psychotic,” the policy committee at Walter Reed Army Medical Center worried “how would it look if we kick out one of the few Muslim residents.”

I found this fascinating quote today:

Fritz Wenzel of Wenzel Strategies said one of the most shocking findings of his recent polling on the subject was that 65 percent are expecting an attack within six months.

“Some of the communication between Fort Hood shooter Hasan and al-Qaida figures included discussion of such attacks inside the United States, and it has been a common form of violence in the Middle East for years,” he said. “Now, Americans appear resigned to the fact that these attacks will soon come to our shores.”

He asked a series of questions in a WorldNetDaily/Wenzel Strategies survey regarding the recent Fort Hood attack, allegedly carried out by Muslim Maj. Nidal Hasan. The survey, Nov. 13-16, used an automated telephone technology calling a random sampling of listed telephone numbers nationwide. The survey has 95 percent confidence interval. It included 806 adult respondents and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

“More than one-third of respondents – 36 percent – said they think it is ‘very likely’ that such an attack will take place in the next six months, while another 29 percent said it is ’somewhat likely,’” he reported.

via Source.

Harold, Americans Expect Islamic Terror Strike Within 6 Months, Nov 2009

You should read the whole article.

Let me start by quoting Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft, who doesn’t approve of punishing the Fort Hood terrorist with the death penalty.

She writes:

Major Nidal Hasan had his first hearing in the Ft. Hood murder case. The hearing was held in the hospital. His lawyer says he is paralyzed from the chest down, incontinent and in severe pain.

[...]How barbaric that the military will seek to kill a man with no sensation in his body from the chest down. He might prefer it (I certainly would) but it’s inexusable behavior for a civilized society and way beyond the pale of decency.

One wonders what she would say to the families of the victims.

The death penalty as a deterrent to future crimes

The trouble with Democrats is that they make decisions based on feelings and intentions, instead of based on knowledge and results. No one likes the death penalty, but that’s not the point of it. The point of the death penalty is that is deters future crimes.

The left-wing Washington Post reports on the latest research.

Excerpt:

“Science does really draw a conclusion. It did. There is no question about it,” said Naci Mocan, an economics professor at the University of Colorado at Denver. “The conclusion is there is a deterrent effect.”

A 2003 study he co-authored, and a 2006 study that re-examined the data, found that each execution results in five fewer homicides, and commuting a death sentence means five more homicides. “The results are robust, they don’t really go away,” he said. “I oppose the death penalty. But my results show that the death penalty (deters) – what am I going to do, hide them?”

Statistical studies like his are among a dozen papers since 2001 that capital punishment has deterrent effects. They all explore the same basic theory – if the cost of something (be it the purchase of an apple or the act of killing someone) becomes too high, people will change their behavior (forego apples or shy from murder).

[...]Among the conclusions:

- Each execution deters an average of 18 murders, according to a 2003 nationwide study by professors at Emory University. (Other studies have estimated the deterred murders per execution at three, five and 14).

- The Illinois moratorium on executions in 2000 led to 150 additional homicides over four years following, according to a 2006 study by professors at the University of Houston.

- Speeding up executions would strengthen the deterrent effect. For every 2.75 years cut from time spent on death row, one murder would be prevented, according to a 2004 study by an Emory University professor.

So, removing the death penalty encourages criminals to commit more crime. And this also applies to terrorism. If you want to coddle captured terrorists by giving them civilian trials and life imprisonment, instead of military trials and death sentences, then you get more terrorism.

Navy SEALS face criminal charges after capturing terrorist

Now let’s turn to this story from Fox News. (via The Weekly Standard via Fausta’s Blog)

Excerpt:

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy’s elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral’s mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named “Objective Amber,” told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

Just consider the incentives being created by this prosecution of Navy SEALS. This is exactly what caused the Army and the FBI to keep silent when Major Nidal Hasan was giving all the warning signs of committing a terrorist attack, including communicating with terrorists. The Army and the FBI didn’t want to face the wrath of politically correct lawyers and judges.

So we have the left opposing the death penalty for terrorism on the one hand, and on the other hand the left is in favor of prosecuting Navy SEALs and CIA interrogators for their work in stopping terrorism.

How Modern Liberals Think

If you want to understand why people on the left call evil good and call good evil, be sure and watch Evan Sayet’s speech at the Heritage Foundation, entitled “How Modern Liberals Think”.

Here’s the lecture:

Democrats aren’t not serious about evil, and that disqualifies them from any office involving national security. In my opinion, they are not qualified to do anything of any importance.

SANAD DAN MATAN HADITS

Oleh : Abu Naufal Al-Bughury

PENDAHULUAN

Hadits merupakan sumber hukum kedua dalam islam setelah al-Qur’an. Karena itu, hadits memiliki posisi yang sangat strategis bagi kaum muslimin dalam memahami, meyakini dan melaksanakan ajaran-ajaran agama. Namun, tidak seperti al-Qur’an yang periwayatannya bersifat qoth’I (absolut), sebagian hadits diriwayatkan dengan redaksional yang berbeda. Sejak jaman rasulullah saw pun tidak semua hadits terdokumentasikan. Dan, hadits pun sempat menjadi alat propaganda dalam perselisihan politik ummat islam. Karenanya, ummat islam pun diingatkan untuk bersikap kritis dalam menerima suatu hadits.

Ulama-ulama islam telah mengembangkan metodologi untuk menguji dan mengkritisi hadits-hadits yang berkembang di masyarakat. Di antaranya adalah dengan metodologi kritik sanad dan matan. Dengan kedua metodologi ini, kita dapat menilai standar akseptabilitas dimana suatu hadits bias dikatakan shahih, hasan, dhoif, mutawatir, ahad, maqbul, mardud, dan sebagainya. Di dalam forum ini, kami akan sebisa mungkin menjelaskan pemahaman kami mengenai sanad dan matan.

SANAD

Dalam Kamus Al-Mufid, sanad berarti menyandarkan, menegakkan sesuatu dengan kokoh. Sementara secara terminologi, menurut para ahli hadits, sanad ialah jalan yang menyampaikan kepada isi hadits. Menurut Mudasir, dalam bukunya Ilmu Hadits, sanad ialah “menyandarkan hadis kepada orang yang menyatakannya”. Jelasnya, sanad adalah jalur/silsilah periwayatan sebuah hadits dari orang yang pertama kali menceritakannya hingga sumber utamanya, yaitu nabi Muhammad saw.  Contohnya:

Yang disebut sanad dalam hadits di atas adalah frasa yang berbunyi

Dalam meneliti hadits, para ulama hadits bersikap sangat teliti mencermati setiap sanadnya. Pada masa Abu bakar r.a. dan Umar r.a. periwayatan hadis diawasi secara hati-hati dan tidak akan diterima jika tidak disaksikan kebenarannya oleh seorang lain. Ali bin Abu Thalib tidak menerima hadits sebelum yang meriwayatkannya disumpah. Meminta seorang saksi kepada perawi, bukanlah merupakan keharusan dan hanya merupakan jalan untuk menguatkan hati dalam menerima yang berisikan itu. Yang diperlukan dalam menerima hadis adalah adanya kepercayaan penuh kepada perawi. Jika sewaktu-waktu ragu tentang riwayatnya, maka perlu didatangkan saksi/keterangan. Kedudukan sanad dalam hadis sangat penting, karena hadis yang diperoleh/ diriwayatkan akan mengikuti siapa yang meriwayatkannya. Dengan sanad suatu periwayatan hadis dapat diketahui mana yang dapat diterima atau ditolak dan mana hadis yang sahih atau tidak, untuk diamalkan.

Sanad merupakan jalan yang mulia untuk menetapkan hukum-hukum Islam. Ada beberapa hadits dan atsar yang menerangkan keutamaan sanad, di antaranya yaitu: Diriwayatkan oleh muslim dari Ibnu Sirin, bahwa beliau berkata, “Ilmu ini (hadits ini), adalah agama, karena itu telitilah orang-orang yang kamu mengambil agamamu dari mereka.” Imam Syafi’i berkata, “Perumpamaan orang yang mencari (menerima) hadits tanpa sanad, sama dengan orang yang mengumpulkan kayu api di malam hari.”

Perhatian terhadap sanad di masa sahabat yaitu dengan menghapal sanad-sanad itu dan mereka mempuyai daya ingat yang luar biasa. Dengan adanya perhatian mereka maka terpelihara sunnah Rasul dari tangan-tangan ahli bid’ah dan para pendusta. Karenanya pula imam-imam hadis berusaha pergi dan melawat ke berbagai kota untuk memperoleh sanad yang terdekat dengan Rasul.

Sebagai contoh, dapat disebutkan, untuk mengumpulkan dan menyeleksi hadits shahih, Bukhari menghabiskan waktu selama 16 tahun untuk mengunjungi berbagai kota, menemui para perawi hadits, mengumpulkan dan menyeleksi haditsnya. Diantara kota-kota yang disinggahinya antara lain Bashrah, Mesir, Hijaz (Mekkah, Madinah), Kufah, Baghdad sampai ke Asia Barat. Dari sejumlah kota-kota itu, ia bertemu dengan 80.000 perawi. Dari merekalah beliau mengumpulkan dan menghafal satu juta hadits. Imam Muslim pun tak segan-segan bertanya kepada banyak ulama di berbagai tempat dan negara. Berpetualang menjadi aktivitas rutin bagi dirinya untuk mencari silsilah dan urutan yang benar sebuah hadits. Beliau, misalnya pergi ke Hijaz, Irak, Syam, Mesir dan negara-negara lainnya. Dalam lawatannya itu, Imam Muslim banyak bertemu dan mengunjungi ulama-ulama kenamaan untuk berguru hadits kepada mereka. Seperti ini lah antara lain Allah menjaga kelurusan dan kemurnian agama islam.

Salah satu jalur periwayatan hadits, bias dilihat berikut ini.

MATAN

Menurut Mudasir dalam bukunya Ilmu Hadits, kata matan menurut bahasa berarti ma irtafa’a min al-ardi (tanah yang meninggi). Sedangkan menurut istilah, matan adalah ujung sanad (qayah as sanad), dengan kata lain yang dimaksud matan ialah materi hadis atau lafal hadis itu sendiri. Contoh:

Matan dalam hadits ini adalah:

Ada dua jalan periwayatan isi hadits. Pertama, dengan kata-kata yang persis sama dengan apa yang diucapkan oleh rasulullah saw. Kedua, dengan menggunakan kata-kata yang disusun sendiri oleh sang periwayat, namun tidak mengubah makna yang disampaikan oleh rasulullah saw.

KLASIFIKASI HADITS

Berbagai pengorbanan telah dilakukan oleh para ahli hadits dalam meneliti hadits-hadits yang beredar di masyarakat. Penelitian ini untuk mengetahui validitas, faidah dan tingkatan hujjah suatu hadits. Mereka menyusun sejumlah klasifikasi hadits dengan beberapa tolak ukurnya, sehingga ummat islam dapat dengan mudah mengambil manfaatnya. Pada makalah ini, kami hanya akan menguraikan sebagian dari hasil klasifikasi para ahli hadits tersebut.

1. A. Klasifikasi Hadits Menurut Kuantitas Perawi:

• Hadits Mutawatir, yaitu suatu hadits tanggapan pancaindera, yang diriwayatkan oleh sejumlah besar rawi, yang menurut kebiasaan mustahil mereka berkumpul dan bersepakat untuk dusta. Tidak dapat dikategorikan dalam hadits mutawatir, yaitu segala berita yang diriwayatkan dengan tidak bersandar pada pancaindera, seperti meriwayatkan tentang sifat-sifat manusia, baik yang terpuji maupun yang tercela, juga segala berita yang diriwayatkan oleh orang banyak (4,5, 20 orang), tetapi mereka berkumpul untuk bersepakat mengadakan berita-berita secara dusta.

Hadits mutawatir memberikan faedah ilmu dharuri, yakni keharusan untuk menerimanya secara bulat sesuatu yang diberitahukan mutawatir karena ia membawa keyakinan yang qath’i (pasti), dengan seyakin-yakinnya bahwa Nabi Muhammad SAW benar-benar menyabdakan atau mengerjakan sesuatu seperti yang diriwayatkan oleh rawi-rawi mutawatir.

Hadits mutawatir dapat diklasifikasikan lagi menjadi mutawatir lafzi (redaksionalnya sama, walaupun dari perawi yang berbeda), mutawatir ma’nawi (berlainan redaksionalnya tetapi maknanya sama). Contoh hadits mutawatir: “Barangsiapa yang sengaja berdusta atas nama-ku, maka tempatnya adalah neraka” (HR. Bukhari dan Iain-lain). Hadis ini diriwayatkan oleh lebih dari 70 sahabat dengan teks yang sama (bahkan menurut as-Suyuti, tidak kurang dari 200 sahabat yang meriwayatkannya).

• Hadits Ahad, yaitu suatu hadis yang padanya tidak terkumpul syarat-syarat mutawatir. Para ulama sependapat bahwa hadis ahad tidak Qat’i, sebagaimana hadis mutawatir. Hadis ahad masih perlu diselidiki sehingga dapat diketahui maqbul dan mardudnya. Dan kalau temyata telah diketahui bahwa, hadis tersebut tidak tertolak, dalam arti maqbul, maka mereka sepakat bahwa hadis tersebut wajib untuk diamalkan sebagaimana hadis mutawatir.

Contoh hadits ahad: Dari Amir al-Mukminin Abu Hafsh Umar bin al-Khaththab radhiyallahu’anhu beliau mengatakan : Aku mendengar Rasulullah shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam bersabda, “Sesungguhnya setiap amalan tergantung pada niatnya. Setiap orang hanya akan mendapatkan balasan sesuai niatnya. Barangsiapa yang hijrah karena menaati Allah dan Rasul-Nya maka hijrahnya akan sampai kepada Allah dan Rasul-Nya. Barangsiapa yang hijrahnya karena menginginkan kesenangan dunia atau karena seorang wanita yang ingin dinikahinya, maka hijrahnya (hanya) mendapatkan apa yang dia inginkan.” (Hadits ini diriwayatkan oleh dua orang imam ahli hadits yaitu Abu Abdillah Muhammad bin Isma’il bin Ibrahim bin al-Mughirah bin Bardizbah al-Bukhari dan Abu al-Husain Muslim bin al-Hajjaj bin Muslim al-Qusyairi an-Naisaburi di dalam kedua kitab mereka yang merupakan kitab paling sahih yang pernah disusun).

1. B. Klasifikasi Hadits Berdasarkan Kualitas Sanad dan Matan

• Hadits Shahih. Hadits Sahih adalah hadits yang susunan lafadznya tidak cacat dan maknanya tidak menyalahi ayat Quran, hadits mutawatir, atau ijma’, serta para rawinya adil dan dhabit. Syarat-syarat hadits shahih: Rawinya bersifat adil, sempurna ingatannya, sanadnya tidak terputus, tidak ber ‘illat, tidak janggal. Mengenai matannya sebuah hadits dapat dikatakan shahih apabila: (1) Pengertian yang terkandung dalam matan tidak bertentangan dengan ayat Al-Quran atau hadits mutawatir walaupun keadaan rawinya sudah memenuhi syarat. (2) Pengertian dalam matan tidak bertentangan dengan pendapat yang disepakati (ijmak) ulama, atau tidak bertentangan dengan keterangan ilmiah yang kebenaranya dapat dipastikan secara sepakat oleh para ilmuwan. (3) Tidak ada kejanggalan lainya, jika dibandingkan dengan matan hadits yang lebih tinggi tingkatan dan kedudukannya.

Contoh hadits shahih: “Telah bercerita kepada kami Abdullah bin Yusuf, yang berkata telah mengkabarkan kepada kami Malik, dari Ibnu Syihab, dari Muhammad bin Jabir bin Muth’im, dari bapaknya, yang berkata, “Aku mendengar Rasulullah saw membaca surat At-Thur di waktu shalat maghrib” (HR. Bukhari, No 731). Hadist ini dikatakan sahih karena:

1.             Sanadnya sambung, sebab perawinya mendengar langsung dari gurunya.

2. Perawinya adil dan cermat, sebab disebutkan Abdullah bin Yusuf adalah seorang terpercaya dan cermat, Malik bin Anas adalah imam yang hafidz, Ibnu Syihab az-Zuhri adalah ahli fiqh hafidz, Muhammad bin Jubair adalah orang terpercaya, dan Jubair bin Muth’im adalah seorang sahabat.

3. Hadistnya tidaklah satu illat pun.

• Hadits Hasan, yaitu hadits hasan menurut ibnu Hajar adalah hadits yang diriwayatkan oleh perawi yang adil, (tetapi) tidak begitu kuat daya ingatnya, bersambung-sambung sanadnya dan tidak terdapat illat serta kejanggalan pada matannya. Jadi perbedaan antara hadis shahih dan hadits hasan ini terletak pada syarat kedlabitan rawi. Pada hadits hasan kedlabitannya lebih rendah (tidak begitu kuat ingatannya) jika dibandingkan hadits shahih. Tingkatan hadits hasan berada sedikit dibawah tingkatan hadits shahih, tetapi para ulama berbeda pendapat tentang kedudukan hadits hasan sebagai sumber ajaran Islam atau sebagai hujjah dalam bidang hukum apalagi dalam bidang Aqidah, ada yang menolak hadits hasan sebagai hujjah ada yang menerimanya sebagai hujjah baik untuk bidang hukum maupun bidang Aqidah, pendapat inilah yang paling banyak dianut.

Contoh hadits hasan: Dari Abdullah bin Umar r.a. dari Nabi Saw bersabda: “Sesungguhnya Allah SWT akan menerima taubat seorang hamba selama nafasnya belum sampai di tenggorokan (sakratul maut)”. (Hadits diriwayatkan oleh Ibnu Majah, dan Tirmizi. Ia berkata: hadits ini hasan.)

• Hadits Dhaif. Hadits daif adalah hadits yang tidak menghimpun sifat-sifat hadits sahih, dan juga tidak menghimpun sifat-sifat hadits hasan. Jadi hadits daif itu bukan saja tidak memenuhi syarat-syarat hadits sahih, melainkan juga tidak memenuhi syarat-syarat hadits hasan. Pada hadits daif itu terdapat hal-hal yang menyebabkan lebih besarnya dugaan untuk menetapkan hadits tersebut bukan berasal dari Rasulullah SAW.

Contoh hadits dhaif :“Rasulullah SAW melaknat wanita-wanita penziarah kubur dan orang-orang yang menjadikan kuburan sebagai mesjid dan menerangkannya dengan lampu-lampu”.

PENUTUP

Dalam mempelajari Hadis Nabi SAW, seseorang harus mengetahui dua unsur penting yang menentukan keberadaan dan kualitas Hadis tersebut, yaitu al-sanad dan al-matan. Kedua unsur Hadis tersebut begitu penting artinya dan antara yang satu dan yang lainnya saling berhubungan erat, sehingga apabila salah satunya tidak ada maka akan berpengaruh terhadap, dan bahkan dapat merusak, eksistensi dan kualitas dari suatu Hadis. Suatu berita yang tidak memiliki sanad, menurut ulama Hadis, tidak dapat disebut sebagai Hadis; dan kalaupun disebut juga dengan Hadis maka ia dinyatakan sebagai Hadis palsu (Mawdhu). Demikian juga halnya dengan matan, sebagai menentukan keberadaan sanad, karena tidak akan dapat suatu sanad atau rangkaian para perawi disebut sebagai Hadis apabila tidak ada matan atau materi Hadisnya, yang terdiri atas perkataan, perbuatan, atau ketetapan (taqrir)Rasul SAW.

Di dalam penilaian kualitas suatu Hadis, unsur sanad dan matan adalah sangat menentukan. Oleh karenanya, yang menjadi objek kajian dalam penelitian Hadis adalah kedua unsur tersebut, yaitu sanad dan matan.

Wallahul muwafiq ila aqwamit thariq

Let me just add that General Casey is a whackjob.

Maybe if the officers at Walter Reed hadn’t been too cowardly to report Hasan,  maybe there wouldn’t be 3 dead soldiers,  and don’t forget the baby,  along with all the wounded at Fort Hood.  Just maybe……

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/70444222.html

The Elephant in the Room: Diversity, but at what cost?

Political correctness in the military is not merely absurd. It’s dangerous.

By Rick Santorum

OPINION NOVEMBER 22, 2009, 10:49 P.M. ET

Major Hasan and Holy War

A domestic Islamic threat is real, and the FBI is unprepared to fight it.

By REUEL MARC GERECHT

For those of us who have tracked Islamic militancy in Europe, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s actions are not extraordinary. Since Muslim militants first tried to blow a French high-speed train off its rails in 1995, European intelligence and internal-security services have increasingly monitored European Muslim radicals. Whether it’s anti-Muslim bigotry, the large numbers of immigrant and native-born Muslims in Europe, an appreciation of how hard it is to become European, or just an understanding of how dangerous Islamic radicalism is, most Europeans are far less circumspect and politically correct when discussing their Muslim compatriots than are Americans.

A concern for not giving offense to Muslims would never prevent the French internal-security service, the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST), which deploys a large number of Muslim officers, from aggressively trying to pre-empt terrorism. As Maj. Hasan’s case shows, this is not true in the United States. The American military and especially the Federal Bureau of Investigation were in great part inattentive because they were too sensitive.

Moreover, President Barack Obama’s determined effort not to mention Islam in terrorist discussions—which means that we must not suggest that Maj. Hasan’s murderous actions flowed from his faith—will weaken American counterterrorism. Worse, the president’s position is an enormous wasted opportunity to advance an all-critical Muslim debate about the nature and legitimacy of jihad.

European counterterrorist officers know well that jihadists can appear, self-generated or tutored by extremist groups, inside Muslim families where parents and siblings lead peaceful lives. Security officials live in fear of the quiet believer who quickly radicalizes, or the secular down-and-out European who enthusiastically converts to a militant creed. Both cases allow little time and often few leads to neutralize a possible lethal explosion of the faith.

via Reuel Marc Gerecht: Major Hasan and Holy War – WSJ.com.

HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THIS SHOCKING STORY IN THE U.S. MEDIA?…..NO!

The following article is almost unbelievable and potentially deadly for our nation.  And while it poses a very serious and detrimental danger to the United States, I have not heard anything about it from the mainstream media.

The information was obtained from Israel National News and is located at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/134466, which thankfully to the Lord, DOES NOT worship Barack Obama nor props him up on some sort of throne.

With that said, take a look at what they have discovered about the guy sitting in the White House.

Obama ‘Reaches Out’ by Naming ‘Devout’ Muslims to Security Posts

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

(IsraelNN.com) U.S. President Barack Obama continues to “reach out to Muslims” by appointing them to key security posts amid charges he wrongly ignored internal Muslim terror. One recent appointee was harshly criticized for appearing on a British-based television station whose host is a member of a radical Muslim group.

His “reaching out Muslims” speech in Cairo last June has been followed by action, the latest being this past week’s swearing-in of a Muslim rights advocate to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, shortly after the Fort Hood massacre. HSAC members are involved in expertise on national security.

The new member is Syrian-born Kareem Shora, who was the national executive director of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination (ADC), which previously has called on the United States to stop providing Israel with weapons because of alleged “atrocities” against Arabs. Her background for her new security post is having been a legal counsel and advocate for Muslim civil rights.

She also has been a frequent guest on the pro-Hamas al-Jazeera satellite network.

Shora, who has been described as a “devout Muslim, joins another devout member of the faith, Arif Alikhan, who was appointed as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development in the Department of Homeland Security. His qualifications for the job were listed as having been in charge of public safety in Los Angeles during his term of deputy mayor. One of his actions was to remove the plan that tracked Muslims in the city who were suspected of terrorist activities.

Americans have been jolted by several lethal attacks and confrontations with Muslims over the past year, including a plot to attack synagogues and down U.S. military aircraft, the manufacture of bombs, an alleged attempt to explode a Texas skyscraper, a plot to blow up malls in Boston, and last month’s Fort Hood massacre by a Muslim psychiatrist who was an officer in the army.

A desire to avoid the appearance of labeling all Muslims as terrorists lunged out from the shadows last month after President Obama faced criticism for not taking seriously the threat of Muslim terrorism within American society as well as in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

Several months ago, President Obama appointed Dalia Mogahed, a “devout Muslim,” to his Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. She quickly came under fire for appearing in a telephone interview on a London-based Muslim television station, whose host is a member of an extreme Islamic group.

She said was unaware of the affiliations of her host, whose program included questions and comments favoring the implementation of Islamic Law (“sharia”).

Mogahed explained that she did not hang up the phone in the middle of the interview because “I assumed that very few people would watch this show but that doing something more dramatic would bring more attention.”

In the current issue of Newsweek, columnist Jacob Weisberg, citing former Secretary of State Colin Powell, wrote that “Obama’s [Muslim] heritage feeds a broader suspicion that he is too casual about the threat from America’s Islamist enemies.”

The journalist added, “With the massacre in Texas, Obama now confronts something that George W. Bush did not face in the years after September 11—not just a major act of domestic terrorism, but one struck from inside our security apparatus…. America does not face a threat from the perversion of faith in general. We face a threat from the perversion of one faith in particular.”

End

I want to encourage all of you to pray and to draw ever so close to the Son of the Living God, the LORD JESUS CHRIST……THE ONLY SAVIOR.

By all appearances, judgment seems to be heading for the United States of America.  As a watchman giving warning, I am urging everyone who is reading this to please follow the Lord’s Word from Isaiah chapter 55 verses 6-7 which is as follows:

Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:  Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

May we all take heed to this warning while we still have the chance, because a time is coming when we will not.

There is a very fine line between democracy and anarchy. And that line is drawn by Education. And we refuse to even hold the pencil that draws that line! God help this nation, for we wont

IN the case of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and the Fort Hood massacre, the verdict has come in. The liberal news media have been found guilty — by the conservative news media — of coddling Major Hasan’s religion, Islam.

Liberals, according to the columnist Charles Krauthammer, wanted to medicalize Major Hasan’s crime — call it an act of insanity rather than of terrorism. They worked overtime, Mr. Krauthammer said on Fox News, to “avoid any implication that there was any connection between his Islamist beliefs … and his actions.” The columnist Jonah Goldberg agrees. Admit it, he wrote in The Los Angeles Times, Major Hasan is “a Muslim fanatic, motivated by other Muslim fanatics.”

The good news for Mr. Krauthammer and Mr. Goldberg is that there is truth in their indictment. The bad news is that their case against the left-wing news media is the case against right-wing foreign policy. Seeing the Fort Hood shooting as an act of Islamist terrorism is the first step toward seeing how misguided a hawkish approach to fighting terrorism has been.

The American right and left reacted to 9/11 differently. Their respective responses were, to oversimplify a bit: “kill the terrorists” and “kill the terrorism meme.”

Conservatives backed war in Iraq, and they’re now backing an escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Liberals (at least, dovish liberals) have warned in both cases that killing terrorists is counterproductive if in the process you create even more terrorists; the object of the game isn’t to wipe out every last Islamist radical but rather to contain the virus of Islamist radicalism.

One reason killing terrorists can spread terrorism is that various technologies — notably the Internet and increasingly pervasive video — help emotionally powerful messages reach receptive audiences. When American wars kill lots of Muslims, inevitably including some civilians, incendiary images magically find their way to the people who will be most inflamed by them.

This calls into question our nearly obsessive focus on Al Qaeda — the deployment of whole armies to uproot the organization and to finally harpoon America’s white whale, Osama bin Laden. If you’re a Muslim teetering toward radicalism and you have a modem, it doesn’t take Mr. bin Laden to push you over the edge. All it takes is selected battlefield footage and a little ad hoc encouragement: a jihadist chat group here, a radical imam there — whether in your local mosque or on a Web site in your local computer.

This, at least, is the view from the left.

Exhibit A in this argument is Nidal Hasan. By all accounts he was pushed over the edge by his perception of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He also drew inspiration from a radical imam, Anwar al-Awlaki. Notably, it had been eight years since Major Hasan actually saw Mr. Awlaki, who moved from America to Yemen after 9/11. And for most of those years the two men don’t seem to have communicated at all. But as Major Hasan got more radicalized by two American wars and God knows what else, the Internet made it easy to reconnect via e-mail.

The Fort Hood shooting, then, is an example of Islamist terrorism being spread partly by the war on terrorism — or, actually, by two wars on terrorism, in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Fort Hood is the biggest data point we have — the most lethal Islamist terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. It’s only one piece of evidence, but it’s a salient piece, and it supports the liberal, not the conservative, war-on-terrorism paradigm.

When the argument is framed like this, don’t be surprised if conservatives, having insisted that we not medicalize Major Hasan’s crime by calling him crazy, start underscoring his craziness. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars, they’ll note, aren’t wars against Islam or against Muslims; Major Hasan must have been deluded to think that they are! Surely we can’t give veto power over our foreign policy to a crazy … well, not crazy, but, you know, not-entirely-sane person like Major Hasan.

It’s true that Major Hasan was unbalanced and alienated — and, by my lights, crazy. But what kind of people did conservatives think were susceptible to the terrorism meme? Like all viruses, terrorism infects people with low resistance. And surely Major Hasan isn’t the only American Muslim who, for reasons of personal history, has become unbalanced and thus vulnerable. Any religious or ethnic group includes people like that, and the post-9/11 environment hasn’t made it easier for American Muslims to keep their balance. That’s why the hawkish war-on-terrorism strategy — a global anti-jihad that creates nonstop imagery of Americans killing Muslims — is so dubious.

Central to the debate over Afghanistan is the question of whether terrorists need a “safe haven” from which to threaten America. If so, it is said, then we must work to keep every acre of Afghanistan (and Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, etc.) out of the hands of groups like the Taliban. If not — if terrorists can orchestrate a 9/11 about as easily from apartments in Germany as from camps in Afghanistan — then maybe never-ending war isn’t essential.

However you come out on that argument, the case of Nidal Hasan shows one thing for sure: Homegrown American terrorists don’t need a safe haven. All they need is a place to buy a gun.

Concerns about homegrown terrorism may sound like wild extrapolation from limited data. After all, in the eight years since 9/11, none of America’s several million Muslims had committed violence on this scale.

That’s a reminder that, contrary to right-wing stereotype, Islam isn’t an intrinsically belligerent religion. Still, this sort of stereotyping won’t go away, and it’s among the factors that could make homegrown terrorism a slowly growing epidemic. The more Americans denigrate Islam and view Muslims in the workplace with suspicion, the more likely the virus is to spread — and each appearance of the virus in turn tempts more people to denigrate Islam and view Muslims with suspicion. Whenever you have a positive feedback system like this, an isolated incident can put you on a slippery slope.

And the Fort Hood shooting wasn’t the only recent step along that slope. Six months ago a 24-year-old American named Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad — Carlos Bledsoe before his teenage conversion to Islam — fatally shot a soldier outside a recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark. ABC News reported, “It was not known what path Muhammad … had followed to radicalization.” Well, here’s a clue: After being arrested he started babbling to the police about the killing of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were supposed to reduce the number of anti-American terrorists abroad. It’s hardly clear that they’ve succeeded, and they may have had the opposite effect. Meanwhile, on the other side of the ledger, they’ve inspired homegrown terrorism — a small-scale incident in June, a larger-scale incident this month. That’s only two data points, but I don’t like the slope of the line connecting them.

Sept. 11, 2001, though a success for Osama bin Laden, was in the scheme of things only a small tactical triumph; his grandiose aspirations go well beyond the killing of a few thousand people and the destruction of some buildings. Maybe he feels that our descent into the carnage of Iraq and Afghanistan has moved him a bit closer to his goal. But if he succeeds in tearing our country apart along religious and ethnic lines, he will truly be able to declare victory.

__________

Full article and photo: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/opinion/22wright.html

Poor poor Major was worried about HIV.   I wonder why??  Oh wait,   cuz he hung around a strip club??  Or as the article stated,  he was afraid of a needlestick??!!!  That is totally outrageous.  I can’t think of many psychiatrists  that perform phlebotomy.   That is a huge stretch.   He had a bunch of HIV medicine in his apartment.

So, the man was afraid of his HIV test the week before he massacred all those people.

And he is now paralyzed from the waist down.

Somehow I just can’t muster up much feeling for this terrorist.

Many many people dropped the ball in this case.  One of them was this woman Lieutenant Colonel Melanie Guerrero.  Imagine saying that in the world,  outside of the military.  “He would not be doing any real patient care”!!!!   No real patient care???????   What does she think dealing with the soldiers who are going to and coming home from the war zones.

This is absolutely beyond the pale.  It is positively outrageous and I hope some of these people are made accountable for their actions in this case.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/hasan-worried-results-hiv-test/story?id=9127299

By JOSEPH RHEE, ANNA SCHECTER and BRIAN ROSS
Nov. 19, 2009

Major Nidal Hasan seemed worried about the results of an HIV blood test taken a week before the Fort Hood shooting rampage, according to federal investigators piecing together background details on Hasan’s life.

 

The suspected gunman in the massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, Nov. 5, 2009, was identified by ABC News as Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. He appears here in a Defense Department photograph.

The information came from a member of the Fort Hood medical staff who was in the building where Hasan is accused of opening fire on November 5 and killing 13 people.

The investigators said there was no indication that Hasan was HIV positive, although a bottle of medicine used to treat HIV-positive individuals, Combivir, was seen in Hasan’s apartment by ABC News last week. Medical experts say many doctors also have Combivir on hand in case of an accidental needle stick. A second drug seen in the apartment, clarithromycin, is an antibiotic designed to treat respiratory infections. However, it can also be used to treat specific opportunistic infections in patients with HIV.

Hasan, who is not married, was a regular at a Killeen, Texas strip club which features nude dancers, according to employees there.

More from Brian Ross and the Investigative Team

Investigators also found that Hasan donated $20,000 to $30,000 a year to overseas Islamic “charities.” As an Army major, his yearly salary, including housing and food allowances, was approximately $92,000. A number of Islamic charities have been identified by U.S. authorities as conduits to terror groups.

Investigators said Hasan followed his own strict interpretation of how a Muslim should live — including driving without auto insurance or signing up for life insurance provided through the military.

 

His academic record is replete with serious concerns about his religious statements and his academic abilities, the investigators found.

One of Hasan’s commanding officers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Lieutenant Colonel Melanie Guerrero, told investigators she had considered failing him as an intern but “decided to allow him to pass since he was going into psychiatry and would not be doing any real patient care.”

Guerrero told ABC News his performance problems stemmed from his lack of competence in the intensive care unit, including problems with recommending the proper medications or coming up with the right kind of patient treatment plan.

In e-mails, Fort Hood suspect raised prospect of financial transfers

WASHINGTON – In the months before the deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Army Maj. Nidal M. Hasan intensified his communications with a radical Yemeni American cleric and began to discuss surreptitious financial transfers and other steps that could translate his thoughts into action, according to two sources briefed on a collection of secret e-mails between the two.

The e-mails were obtained by an FBI-led task force in San Diego between late last year and June but were not forwarded to the military, according to government and congressional sources. Some were sent to the FBI’s Washington field office, triggering an assessment into whether they raised national security concerns, but those intercepted later were not, the sources said.

Hasan’s contacts with extremist imam Anwar al-Aulaqi began as religious queries but took on a more specific and concrete tone before he moved to Texas, where he allegedly unleashed the Nov. 5 attack that killed 13 people and wounded nearly three dozen, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case is sensitive and unfolding. One source said the two discussed in “cryptic and coded exchanges” the transfer of money overseas in ways that would not attract law enforcement attention.

“He [Hasan] clearly became more radicalized toward the end, and was having discussions related to the transfer of money and finances . . .,” the source said in describing the 18 or 19 intercepted e-mails. “It became very clear toward the end of those e-mails he was interested in taking action.”

Levin wants investigation
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said Friday that he would investigate the handling of the e-mails and why military officials were not aware of them before the deadly attack. Levin told reporters after a briefing from Pentagon staff members that “there are some who are reluctant to call it terrorism, but there is significant evidence that it is.”

Bits and pieces of Hasan’s communications with Aulaqi have become public since the Fort Hood massacre, but the sources provided the most detailed description yet of the messages. The e-mails will help investigators determine whether Hasan’s alleged actions were motivated by psychological deterioration or inspired by radical religious views he found online and through e-mail exchanges with Aulaqi.

AP Anwar al-Aulaqi is seen in Yemen in 2008. The imam was communicating with the Fort Hood shooting suspect, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.

The sources said the e-mail correspondence is particularly troubling because Aulaqi, who has been on the law enforcement radar for years, is considered by U.S. officials to be an al-Qaeda supporter who has inspired terrorism suspects in Britain, Canada and the United States. Lawmakers and counterterrorism experts have questioned why no one in the government interceded earlier given Aulaqi’s history and Hasan’s military position.

The disclosures came as investigators in the FBI and the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division continue to interview witnesses and execute search warrants in and around the Army’s largest post, in Killeen, Tex., and elsewhere.

Hasan faces 13 charges of premeditated murder. He is scheduled to have his first formal court hearing Saturday, in his hospital room in the intensive care unit at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where he is recovering from gunshot wounds that have left him paralyzed.

Hasan’s contacts with Aulaqi were not publicly disclosed until after the shootings, which the cleric subsequently praised, calling the Army psychiatrist a “hero” in a posting on his Web site.

In the months before the shootings, the two discussed how Hasan could make several transactions of less than $10,000, a threshold for reporting to U.S. authorities, the source continued. Hasan did not explicitly vow to fund terrorist activities or evade tax and reporting laws for contributions, the source said.

“I believe they were interested in the money for operational-type aspects, and knowing that he had funds and wouldn’t be around to use them, they were very eager to get those funds,” he said.

To date, investigators have not unearthed evidence that Hasan sent money to charities with strong or suspected ties to Islamist militant groups, but they are continuing to probe his financial dealings as one aspect of a many-pronged case, other sources cautioned.

The FBI obtained the e-mails pursuant to court-ordered wiretaps, according to a former intelligence official. After receiving a wiretap order, Internet providers generally set up accounts that allow cloned copies of e-mails to go to the government agency in real time. Stored e-mails also may be provided with a search warrant.

In this case, a first batch of Hasan’s e-mails was sent by agents in San Diego to the bureau’s Washington field office, where a terrorism task force began to assess them in December. But months later, additional messages emerged, according to government and congressional sources. Those e-mails were reviewed only in San Diego, where authorities determined they did not pose a national security risk. The FBI said last week, without going into details about the process, that “all of the e-mails were known.”

Hasan’s commanding officer ordered him to “pre-trial confinement” on Friday, John Galligan, the suspect’s attorney, said in an interview at his Belton, Tex., office. Galligan described pre-trial confinement as the strictest confinement in military court and said it usually means the suspect is locked in a military jail. Because Hasan is paralyzed and has substantial medical needs, Galligan said he will ask for his client to remain in intensive care under guarded supervision.

“He’s in a hospital bed,” Galligan said. “He’s not going to get up and walk away.”

In several of their applications for search warrants, authorities are approaching the matter as a regular criminal investigation rather than invoking special legal authority available in terrorism cases, the sources said.

What, if anything, authorities on the task force and in the Army should have done differently after Hasan emerged as a possible problem is the subject of multiple congressional and executive branch investigations, including one ordered by President Obama.

At a congressional hearing Thursday, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said that Hasan had conducted a “homegrown terrorist attack” — a conclusion that investigators have yet to reach.

But several current and former investigators who handle high-profile cases said that not citing terrorism as a possible motivation for Hasan at this stage may simply be a function of the legal standards imposed by prosecutors preparing the search applications.

Investigators within the FBI and the Defense Department continue to operate on the theory that Hasan acted alone, though they have demonstrated interest in his relationships with other soldiers including Duane Reasoner Jr., a convert to Islam who dined with Hasan at a local restaurant in the months before the attack.

This morning it was exclusively reported by the Army Times that a threat letter was found yesterday at the Fort Benning, GA army base. The letter vaguely says that if the commanding general doesn’t call off all charges there will be a re-enactment of Fort Hood. The treat level of the base has been increased according to the Army Times, accompanied by a serious increase in police presence. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also reported on the threat, attempting to tie it to General Petraeus’ trip to the base for Officer Candidate School Operation.

Neither the Army Times or the AJC mention that the appearance of this note warning of a Fort Hood repeat occurred on the same day as the School of the Americas Watch protest at Fort Benning, GA, the largest annual protest of a US military establishment in the country.

This isn’t an error in journalism. The note is a fake. The reporting is a fake. Fort Hood is a massive US Army base. You would think, in the wake of the Fort Hood shootings that this might be national news. It isn’t. And because this isn’t being reported widely at CNN and other national outlets, the usual ratcheting up of public fear doesn’t seem to be the play here.

The SOAW protest is the target, which last year brought 20,000 people to the bases gates. Look for something unbecoming to perhaps happen this year. Looking out my hotel window I see flashing lights whizzing by and cops pulling people off of Columbus streets left and right.

The timing of this news story is such that it won’t discourage protestors from attending the event. It came out to late. Maybe the fake note was meant for something else.

Chuck Baldwin
November 20, 2009

By now, virtually everyone has read and reread the copious news accounts of the terrible shooting a few weeks ago at Fort Hood, Texas. This column will not attempt to add new details to what is already a highly scrutinized tragedy. However, I do want to pose three basic questions that, to me, are extremely glaring and, for the most part, absent from the discussion.

Question 1: Why were the soldiers not armed?Question 2: If the federal government–including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, etc., with billions of dollars worth of technology; tens of thousands of snoops, spooks, and intelligence gatherers; and myriad Patriot Act-type laws–could not protect US soldiers on one of the most tightly secured and heavily guarded military installations in America, how can anyone in the country possibly not break out in cacophonous laughter when politicians tell us we need to surrender more liberties so that they might pass more laws to protect us crummy little peons? Or is it that, because Hasan was a Muslim, the politically correct nincompoops in charge gave him a pass?Question 3: How could one man (with no combat experience) armed with only two handguns fire over 100 rounds (demanding he reload at least 3 times) into a crowd of scores and hundreds of fearless combat-trained warriors? I must confess: this is the question that bothers me the most.

Initial reports said there were multiple shooters.

Ok i have to be honest im not sure how i feel about this but it does make me wonder and when 13 of ours troops are gone… it makes me want to know what this was … why it was Allowed to happen … This guy was batshit crazy for islam havent we seen that before??? just sayin’

http://www.infowars.com/questions-regarding-the-fort-hood-massacre/#

Okay, so in the instance I am about to refer to it wasn’t an actual terrorist, at least not one who has performed an attack himself, but simply an Islamic extremist who could arguably be the inspiration for Major Nidal Hasan’s attack on the Fort Hood army base. In all of the recent articles that I have read about Hasan, it seems that the evidence may point to some type of religious motivation originating from Islamic sources, but I am not going to make a conclusive claim about that yet.

Anwar al-Awlaki

What I am getting at is the extremist that he was in contact with prior to the Fort Hood incident, Anwar al-Awlaki. al-Awlaki was a cleric at the mosque that Hasan worshipped at in Virginia, and has since moved to Yemen. This is a man who regularly preaches jihad on America and runs a web site to promote his cause. The reason I am writing this post is a single sentence from the November 14 edition of The Economist.

It said, “In a blog after the attacks, Mr al-Awlaki called Major Hasan a hero.”

This struck me as funny that even the Islamic extremists have adapted to the new media environment and use the power of the internet to get their message heard. We tend to have this picture of Islam in our head of a tall, dark man in a Middle Eastern desert living in a cave and having the technology of an early hominid. This is obviously no longer true, if it ever was. As we can see, it is not even the simple videos that Osama bin Laden would record and send for the U.S. to see, they have moved beyond that.

Hasan may or may not have been religiously motivated, that is not at issue here. But al-Awlaki is what is of interest. People have causes, both rational and irrational, and they will use the necessary tools to get their voice heard. The internet is currently the best option available for that. One can get thousands of hits per day on a blog or web site. It is an excellent tool and even those who we don’t want to use it to their advantage have figured out how they can promote themselves in a more effective manner.

A U.S. Army honor guard carrie the body of Pvt. Francheska Velez at the Mt. Olive Cemetery Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009 in Chicago. Velez, 21, Velez, who was pregnant, was among 13 people killed when a fellow soldier allegedly opened fire at Fort Hood earlier this month. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Nov 20, 8:32 PM EST

Levin: Fort Hood probe may reveal more e-mails

By PAMELA HESS and ANNE GEARAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — There may be additional e-mails that could have tipped off law enforcement or military officials to the Fort Hood shooter before he went on his deadly rampage, the chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee said Friday.

The U.S. government intercepted at least 18 e-mails between Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric. They were passed along to two Joint Terrorism Task Force cells led by the FBI, but a senior defense official said no one at the Defense Department knew about the messages until after the shootings. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence procedures.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said after a briefing from Pentagon and Army officials that his committee will investigate how those and other e-mails involving the alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, were handled and why the U.S. military was not made aware of them before the Nov. 5 shooting.

Levin said his committee is focused on determining whether the Defense Department’s representative on the terrorism task force acted appropriately and effectively.

via News from The Associated Press.

Will todays Mystery Guest please sign in…

All right contestants, you all know the rules. We’ll give you a series of clues about a famous person. When you think you know who he or she is, press your button. The first person to buzz in and correctly name our Mystery Guest wins the big prize. You get only one guess so be careful.

(Just in case you get stuck, there’s a picture of our Mystery Guest at the bottom of this story. No fair peeking!)

Johnny, tell our contestants about today’s Mystery Guest…

“Well, Lloyd, our guest is best known for…”

• Being a loner
• Voicing paranoid delusions
• Receiving poor performance evaluations at work
• Having zealous, often bizarre, religious views
• Advocating that others with similar views be allowed to leave the military as conscientious objectors
• Delivering a diatribe about heretics during what was supposed to be a medical lecture
• Writing that suicide bombers were “sacrificing themselves to a more noble cause”
• Maintaining close contact with a clergyman known to advocate terrorism
• Attending a religious facility also frequented by two previously-identified mass murderers
• Attempting to make direct contact with an internationally-known terrorist organization
• Accusing returning combat soldiers of war crimes
• Violating doctor-patient confidentiality by attempting to have soldiers prosecuted for war crimes based on things told him in confidence

Didn’t take you long to recognize the profile of Major Nidal Hasan, the Ft. Hood mass murderer, did it? Remember, every one of the clues above was known weeks, months, or even years before Hasan murdered 13 people and injured 30 others.

Now Congress is wringing its collective hands, grilling everyone in sight, asking “How could you miss these portentious signs?” “How could you allow this obviously unbalanced individual to hold a position of trust and responsibility?” “How could you be so stupid?”

Well, Mr. Chairman, the answer is simple and it’s largely your fault.

Over the past fifty years we Americans have been subjected to the kind of psychological conditioning that allowed Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood assassin, to stand in our midst while no one dared say a thing.

We have been conditioned by our schools, our employers, and, most importantly, our politicians and courts to avoid drawing conclusions about persons around us who were “different.”

Such behavior is offensive. It constitutes prejudice or “profiling.”

To even hint that there might be something wrong, or potentially dangerous, about a person whose race, creed, color, religious, or sexual orientation is out of the mainstream can place our jobs, our reputations, and possibly even our freedom at jeopardy. We likely will be labeled a racist and bigot, and may find ourselves being sent to a re-education camp. Well, here we call it Sensitivity Training.

“The American military and especially the Federal Bureau of Investigation were in great part inattentive because they were too sensitive.”

The Wall Street Journal

Everyone who knew this guy had concerns, if not outright suspicions, but dared not say a thing.

Notice that in none of the clues given above is Maj Hasan’s ethnic (Palestinian) or religious (Muslim) background mentioned. The profile above should have brought significant scrutiny on any individual, particularly an officer psychiatrist in the US Army.

Why didn’t it? Because Hasan wasn’t a white Christian.

Sen Susan Collins, ranking Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, says “It appears we did have a failure to share critical information and a failure to ask critical questions. It reminds me very much of the siloed information that was available throughout the federal government in different agencies before 9/11.”

Wrong Sue. It wasn’t a problem of “siloed information” (that’s govspeak for people not talking to one another). Almost no one said anything about Hasan because they didn’t want to have to put up with bullshit accusations of profiling, prejudice, and political correctness.

US Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan

Had anyone raised serious doubts about his fitness, Hasan immediately would have played the race and religion cards. His accuser would face far more serious consequences than would Hasan. Just because someone is ‘of color’ or holds different religious views or has a different sexual orientation does not make him a potential criminal; but neither should he get a free pass just for being “different.” Hasan’s profile should have drawn suspicion on a Catholic, Mormon, or Methodist from Cedar Rapids.

One good piece of news: Maj Hasan apparently is paralyzed from the waist down and will likely never walk again.

or: Let’s all be honest, you would rather find boas than bombs in a closet

or: fun fact, gays can smell terrorists…but sadly they can’t tell us

Right now in Washington D.C., there are investigations in to the recruiting policies and monitoring of enlisted soldiers as to their religious affiliation in congruence with the mental stability of our soldiers. These hearings and investigative panels, of which there was one Thursday led by I-Joe Lieberman, are the direct result of the alleged actions at Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009, by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. Investigations are going to delve deep, eventually, and massive overhauls of privacy rights for soldiers and further screening in recruiting as well as monitoring while in the armed forces will come, doubt on this can be none. These findings of the panels will be arbitrary at best on an isolated incident that has been categorized as ‘terrorism’ before the blood even dried in Texas. What will come out of this fear is policies put in place to allow for the government to monitor and spy on it’s servicemen and women…but what if they find something they don’t want to? How does this new ideology that will come from the aftermath of this tragedy affect the long standing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy put in place under Bill Clinton? Reconciling our fear of attack and the consequences of full disclosure run contradictory leaving us in nothing less than a moral and legal stalemate.

I foresee that within six months from now panels will find that monitoring the personal e-mails, contacts, phone records, and personal interactions of its soldiers as necessary to the further security of this nation. It will be stipulated that extensive background checks will be called for, and recruiting standards are going to come under close scrutiny as to allow for enough soldiers, but not let in too many ‘questionable’ individuals. What will occur is that each soldier will have to agree to give up their civil liberties, which to some extent they already do, but they will now be under full discretion of the Patriot Act and every facet of their lives will be a matter of military record and available for review at all times. Psychological exams and test as well as regular counseling and drug testing will be mandatory. Before enlisting every soldier will be subject to military, and the finding of the hearings will also dictate an outside department, the FBI, to fully screen every single candidate. Becoming a solider will now become a moment of being all that you can be, and then letting the government see exactly what that is, intimately.

Will this be the right path? Time will tell, as will public outcry or protest from soldiers, but it will happen. The nation is terrified at the possibility of the very idea that some ‘terrorist’ could possibly infiltrate US military defenses, weapons stockpiles, et al, and as with 9/11 we will allow for the government to take any measure to assure our safety. No doubt that incidents against Muslim servicemen and women will go up, we probably won’t hear about it though. As a minority, especially of middle eastern decent, they will be profiled and most likely scrutinized further than anyone else; they will be unfairly profiled, this is America and that is our knee-jerk reaction. Sorry. What will follow will be a Muslim witch hunt that will both embarrass and weaken the strength of our branches of the military. The shifting eyes from soldier to soldier started on that day, don’t pretend they didn’t, and now we are weary of one another which leads to fear which leads to incidents. Indeed.

Well, how does this effect those in the military who are under a prime directive put forth by the Commander in Chief, the President of the United States? What happens to those men and women serving, or wanting to serve, in the military who have something to hide because it is the law? For those in the military who must keep their sexual orientation and relationships secret, don’t you think that with enough snooping for terrorists we might uncover a few gays? “Sir, Private Jones is not a terrorist, he’s a queen, sir.” What then? It kind of defeats the purpose of a law that stipulates that a serviceman will not initiate a conversation on the nature of a soldiers orientation, but what if an investigation does the leg work for him? Then we have a primary issue, once it is known the soldier must be discharged, right? That’s the law. Wait, but we weren’t looking for gays, we were looking for terrorists. Look the other way then, but wait, that soldier is a gay…back to the shifty eyes.

What these investigations present us with a need to take a good, long look in the mirror as a nation and decide where we draw the line. The end result of this incident, the longest standing victim besides those killed, injured, and effected, will be the policies of full disclosure and something I think will be called the ‘Servicemen Activities/Identity Transparency’ act, or “say-it” (SA/IT, get it?), the antithesis of the DADT policy of today. This will, of course, require that we have full disclosure from all troops on all subjects, but this might be hard without first ending the DADT policy of the last nearly 17 years. Installing this policy shift without repealing DADT will be one slippery slope indeed, you cannot have two orders that are so utterly contradictory; they are both compromised by the presence of the other. We, as a country cannot have a full investigatory policy of all servicemen and women without first coming to terms with what we may find and how to deal with it. Has anyone even given a thought as to how we would arrest, imprison, court martial, sentence, or just discharge, a serviceman or woman…if they were either gay or a terrorist? How the hell would either of those proceedings go? We need to, before putting in new policies, decide about the end game and what the consequences might be if we got our wish and started outing people.

It is clear that there is a fundamentally philosophical issue at hand, “How much do we want to know to feel safe?” We are shining the light of scrutiny in to the closets of our citizens, and some of those closets may be quite flamboyant; that is not a military issue boa. What will happen to our puritanical beliefs and ‘ignorance is bliss’ mentality when we find answers to questions we weren’t asking? We want safety, but we don’t want [to know about] queers; what the fuck do scared, bigoted lawmakers do!? Well, I think in the interest of national security after this singular isolated incident of ‘terrorism’ by and ‘islamic extremist’ that is not the fault of policy or of any specific layer of governance, that we need to DO something; or at least appear to do something. We will rape the civil rights of soldiers and sodomize personal privacy for the good of the nation. However, this cannot go on while DADT is in place. I think I speak for everyone that, in this matter of relative safety, we can’t have two standing orders that contradict themselves; “Say It” and “DADT” cannot both be followed, and in the interest of the people’s feelings of safety, we might want to get over ourselves and be open about…everything, so as to further secure this country. I can’t speak from experience, but I would rather the man in a foxhole next to me be a confirmed ‘gay’ than a suspected ‘terrorist’, but that’s just me.

Suatu hari Rasulullah saw. datang menemui Fathimah as. Ketika itu sang putri mengenakan pakaian dari bulu unta, tangannya sibuk menggiling gandum sementara ia pun menggendong putranya. Air mata sang ayah pun tidak bisa terbendung melihat keadaan putri tercintanya. Rasulullah saaw. berkata lirih : Wahai putriku engkau telah menanggung pahitnya dunia demi manisnya akherat. Sang putripun sambil tersenyum (agung) berkata : wahai utusan Allah, alhamdulillah atas segala kenikmatan Allah dan aku bersyukur atas segala kebaikanNya. Karena Dia telah berfirman: “ Dan TuhanMu pasti akan memberikannya kepadamu dan kamupun akan ridha”

Fathimah as. adalah putri yang sangat di sayangi nabi. Wajah serta sifatnya mirip dengan sang ayah. Ia mendapat bimbingan langsung dari ayah penghulu para nabi yang menjadikanya tumbuh menjadi seorang wanita sempurna. Selain parasnya yang cantik Ia juga memiliki kepribadian yang agung. Akhlak yang mulia, berbudi tinggi, santun dalam bertutur kata, sopan, jujur, penyabar, pandai mejaga diri dan taat beribadah. Walau Fathimah as. adalah putri seorang nabi, ia tidak pernah memanfaatkan kedudukan ayahnya. Ia wanita sederhana, rajin dan sangat berbakti kepada ayahnya. Sepeninggal isrtinya Khadijah, dalam waktu cukup panjang Nabi larut dalam kesedihan. Akan tetapi Fathimah as. mampu mengisi kekosongan sang ibu. Ia bak seorang ibu, mencurahkan semua perhatiannya kepada sang ayah. Ia dengan sabar dan telaten merawat sang ayah, membersihkan tubuh nabi dari kotoran yang dilemparkan musuh-musuh islam, ia pun selalu merawat luka sang ayah, membasuh darah dari luka akibat perang serta menghibur tatkala sang ayah sedih.Fathimah as. adalah satu-satunya putri Nabi saw. Dan kautsar ( pemberian yang besar ) abadi yang di anugrahkan Tuhan (
surat al-kautsar ). Dalam umurnya yang tidak panjnag ( 18 tahun ) ia mampu meraih kesempurnaan iman, kedudukan maknawi dan kepribadian yang unggul. Ia memiliki banyak laqob seperti azzahra (cahayanya yang dhahir dan yang bathin), albatul (tidak mengalami haid), , assiddiqah (ma’shum), arraadhiah wa almardhiah (ridha kepada Allah dan diridhai oleh-Nya), almubaarakah (memiliki keberkahan dalam ilmu, kesempurnaan, mu’jizaat dan anak-anaknya), azzaakiah (kelebihannya dalam kesempurnaan dan kebaikan), althaahirah (bersih dari segala kekurangan), al’aabidah (hamba yang taat), almuhaddatsah (berbicara dengan malaikat), kautsar ( pemberian yang besar ) ( Abu Ja’far Al-Thabari Al-Imammi, Dalalil Al-Imamah hal. 10 )dan lain-lain. Setiap julukan yang dimilikinya menunjukan keutamaan serta jelmaan dari kepribadian tinggi yang tiada tara. Karena ketinggian kedudukan yang dimilikinya, kecintaan dan kebenciannya adalah kecintaan serta kebencian Allah swt., ia memiliki kedudukan syafaat di akherat, ia adalah orang pertama yang akan masuk surga dan surga pun merindukan kehadirannya. Ketika umur Fathimah as. sudah menginjak dewasa, banyak di kalangan para sahabat yang mencoba untuk menyuntingnya, akan tetapi hanya Ali as. yang beruntung. Rasulullah saw. Menyetujui pasangan ini, upacara pernikahan pun diselenggarakan dengan sederhana namum penuh khidmat. Lain halnya dengan apa yang terjadi di langit keempat. Upacara pernikahan kedua kekasih Allah ini diselenggarakan dengan penuh kemeriahan. Perayaan yang dihadiri oleh para malaikat dengan khutbah yang disampaikan oleh malaikat Rabil, malaikat yang memiliki kefasihan dan keindahan dalam tutur kata. Acarapun di akhiri dengan sambutan malaikat Jibril as. yang membawakan firman Tuhannya : “Alhamdu adalah pujian-Ku, keagungan adalah kebesaran-Ku, segala maklhluk adalah hamba-Ku, Aku nikahkan Fathimah hamba-Ku dengan Ali pilihan-ku, saksikanlah wahai para malaikat” . Sementara di bumi Rasulullah saw. bersabda: “Sungguh aku adalah manusia seperti kalian, menikah di tengah kalian dan menikhakan kalian, kecuali Fathimah yang pernikahannya turun ( diselenggarakan ) di langit.

Mereka pun hidup bahagia. Di mata Ali as. Fathimah as. adalah sosok istri yang ideal dan sempurna. Mereka menjalani bahtera rumah tangga selama sembilan tahun dan berbuahkan dua orang putra ( Hasan dan Husein ) serta dua putri ( Zainab dan Ummu Kultsum ). Dan seorang putra yang belum sempat terlahir, bernama Muhsin yang meninggal dalam rahim sang ibu.

Keluarga yang indah yang dihiasi oleh cinta dan diikat oleh ketulusan. Fathimah as. selalu setia kepada sang suami baik dalam suka maupun duka. ia tidak pernah menuntut banyak dari Ali as. kehidupan yang sederhana tidak membuat kecintaan diantara mereka menjadi pudar. Keindahan itupun semakin sempurna dengan datangnya putra putri yang shaleh, putra putri buah hati yang lahir dari pasangan suci.

Fathimah as. selalu menemani Ali as. dan siap siaga membantu serta berkhidmat kepada suami tercinta. Di mata Fathimah as. keadaan terdekat seorang istri dengan Tuhan adalah ketika ia berkhidmat kepada suaminya. Dalam salah satu ucapannya Fathimah as. berkata : “keadaan terdekat seorang istri dengan Allah Ta’ala adalah ketika ia memberikan secangkir air kepada suaminya”. Ia menjalankan semua tugas-tugas rumah tangganya dengan rulus dan ikhlas.

Selain itu fathimah as. adalah seorang hamba yang paling taat kepada Allah swt. Seperti yang di nukil oleh Hasan Bashri, ia berkata : “Tidak ada di dunia ini yang paling banyak ibadahnya selian Fathimah as. ia melakukan shalat hingga telapak kakinya membengkak” (Al-Bihar jilid 43 hal. 76 ). Ia juga seorang wanita yang peduli terhadap keadaan ummat. Ia tempil ke muka ketika ia menyaksikan penyimpangan social yang terjadi dikalangan masyarakat. Seperti apa yang terjadi sepeninggal ayahnya, dimana para sahabat sibuk memperbutkan kedudukan dan kepemimpinan sehingga melupakan wasiat-wasiat Nabi saw. Fathimah as. pun bangkit dan pergi menuju masjid, dihadapan kaum muhajirin dan anshar ia menyampaikan khutbahnya dengan tegas yang terkenal dengan ‘khutbah Fadakiah’.

Sepeninggal ayahnya Fathimah as. mengalami penderitaan dan musibah, gangguan fisik dan ruh membuatnya mengalami sakit yang berkepanjangan. Masa-masa pahit ini Ia jalani selama 75 hari. Wanita agung ini mengalami sakit dan lama-kelamaan badannya semakin lemah dan akhirnya pada tanggal 13 jumadil ula ( 3 jumadil ats-stani tahun ke-3 hijriah pada umur 18 tahun Ia pun meninggalkan dunia fana ini.) sesuai wasiat yang Ia sampaikan, Ia dikuburkan pada malam hari dan secara rahasia. Sehingga tidak ada satu pun yang mengetahui dimana tempat kuburannya.

Ketika Fathimah as. sakit parah , Fathimah as. mengundang Ummu Aiman dan Asma binti Umais. Mereka pun masuk ke ruangan sementara Ali as. sedang duduk disampingnya. Fathimah as. berseru kepada Ali as : Wahai anak pamanku sesungguhnya hidupku sudah menemui akhir, Aku tidak ragu lagi bahwa sebentar lagi Aku akan segera menyusul ayahku, ada yang hendak aku wasiatkan kepdamu tentang apa yang ada didalam hatiku. Ali as pun berkata : Sampaikanlah apa yang engkau kehendaki Wahai putri Rasulullah saww. Ali as pun duduk dekat kepala Fathimah as. lalu Fathimah as. berkata: Wahai putra pamanku aku tidak pernah mengingkari janjiku padamu, tidak pernah berkhianat kepadamu, dan tidak pernah menentangmu selama aku hidup bersamamu. Ali as pun lantas berkata : A’udzubillah! Engkau orang yang paling mengetahui Allah swt, paling baik, paling bertaqwa, paling takut kepada Allah swt, mustahil engkau untuk berbuat itu. Sungguh aku sangat sedih karena perpisahan dan kehilangan dirimu, akan tetapi hal itu merupakan ketentuan Allah swt. Dan Allah swt pun melipat gandakan kesidihanku setelah kehilangan Rasulullah saww dan kini akupun harus kehilangan dirimu. Sesungguhnya semua dari Allah swt dan akan kembali kepadaNya. Sungguh ini adalah musibah yang paling besar yang pernah aku alami.

Yang hadir pun tidak kuasa menahan tangis melihat keadaan seperti itu. Ali as meletakkan kepala Fathimah didadanya seraya berkata: sampaikanlah apa yang ingin engkau wasiatkan maka aku siap melakukan semua yang engkau perintahkan kepadaku. Fathimah as pun berkata : semoga Allah swt memberimu balasan yang besar Wahai anak pamanku aku berwasiat kepadamu setelahku hendaklah kamu menikah dengan saudariku, karena dia dimata ayahku seperti putrinya sendiri. Dan seorang laki-laki hendaklah ia memiliki seorang istri. Lalu Fathimah berwasiat agar penguburannya dirahasiakan, hal itu karena perlakuan ummat ayahnya terhadapnya.

Disunting dari milist AN-Nahl (http://annahl16.wordpress.com)

As the US Senate convened hearings on the Fort Hood “incident”, there are many who are fretting over the feelings of Muslim Americans and the potential backlash against people of that faith.

Others are creating new definitions of the shooting rampage that carry very non-ideological baggage.  The best one compared Hasan’s rampage to what was once called, “going postal.” And I mean in the deadly way, not the losing billions of dollars way.

My favorite came from a RAND research group:

The committee heard testimony from, among others, former Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. John Keane, Rand Corp. consultant Brian Jenkins and New York City Police Department intelligence analyst Mitchell Silber.

“At a glance, Major Hasan’s rampage at Fort Hood looks a lot like what used to be called ‘going postal,’” Jenkins said.

It was “a deepening sense of personal grievance culminating in a homicidal rampage directed against co-workers — in this case, fellow soldiers. For Hasan, ‘going jihad’ reflects the channeling of obvious personality problems into a deadly fanaticism,” he said.

Right.

It was just a disturbed loner.  If he had been a radical Christian who shot some doctors and staff at an abortion clinic, would there be so much angst over backlash or need for clinical terminology like “going jihad”?

I doubt it.

Meanwhile – as usual the media and Congress demands connecting dots.  As Senator Lieberman might say, “Oy, vey!”

The last time we connected the dots, we ended up searching in vain for WMDs in Iraq.

No one will examine what REALLY led to the deaths of all those murdered at Ft Hood.  If someone did, most of the Senate would have to resign and put themselves under arrest for their contribution to the deaths.

Because the website is down and I believe this needs to be read, I am reposting this from the website of Imam Anwar’s blog about the actions of Nidal Hassan. It is a powerful statement that shouldn’t be ignored.

Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush aside and just pretend that it doesn’t exist. Any decent Muslim cannot live, understanding properly his duties towards his Creator and his fellow Muslims, and yet serve as a US soldier. The US is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam. Its army is directly invading two Muslim countries and indirectly occupying the rest through its stooges.
Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.
The heroic act of brother Nidal also shows the dilemma of the Muslim American community. Increasingly they are being cornered into taking stances that would either make them betray Islam or betray their nation. Many amongst them are choosing the former. The Muslim organizations in America came out in a pitiful chorus condemning Nidal’s operation.
The fact that fighting against the US army is an Islamic duty today cannot be disputed. No scholar with a grain of Islamic knowledge can defy the clear cut proofs that Muslims today have the right -rather the duty- to fight against American tyranny. Nidal has killed soldiers who were about to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in order to kill Muslims. The American Muslims who condemned his actions have committed treason against the Muslim Ummah and have fallen into hypocrisy.
Allah(swt) says: Give tidings to the hypocrites that there is for them a painful punishment –
Those who take disbelievers as allies instead of the believers. Do they seek with them honor [through power]? But indeed, honor belongs to Allah entirely. (al-Nisa 136-137)
The inconsistency of being a Muslim today and living in America and the West in general reveals the wisdom behind the opinions that call for migration from the West. It is becoming more and more difficult to hold on to Islam in an environment that is becoming more hostile towards Muslims.
May Allah grant our brother Nidal patience, perseverance and steadfastness and we ask Allah to accept from him his great heroic act. Ameen

For the cached version on google, here.