Congressional hearings were held on January 20th to hear the results of an independent investigation into what signs, if any, the Army missed that might have indicated that Major Nidal Hasan might, at some point in his career, murder 13 fellow Americans.
Former Veterans Affairs and Army secretary Togo West, Jr. -- who began his Army career as a JAG lawyer, and retired admiral and former chief of naval operations Vernon Clark were charged with finding out whether the Army had enough information to connect the dots to Hasan, and if not, why.
Of course the review the two distinguished public servants conducted has one overarching and purely political purpose. It permits members of Congress to throw brickbats at the Obama administration and make the case for a Dick Cheney-like level of seriousness on the "War on Terror".
I suppose a sign of what Dr. Hasan was going to do might have been there. I can imagine one of his supervisors, bumping into him at the local gun store in Killeen, Texas -- the town outside the gates of Fort Hood -- asking him if he what kind of handgun he was there to buy. "Whichever one brings the righteous arm of Allah down upon the infidel without mercy -- but isn't too expensive or difficult to conceal," he might have responded. That would have been a sign.
Another clue to what Hasan planned could have been in his day-to-day interactions with soldiers at Fort Hood. As he walked to his car in the mental health clinic parking lot at the end of the evening and soldiers saluted him, perhaps sounding off with a unit slogan, like the "all the way, sir!" of paratroopers or the Cavalry's "Garry Owen, sir!" -- Hasan could have responded with, "death to America!" Surely that would have been a sign.
But Congress will probably learn, to their chagrin, that the only signs of his impending murder of thirteen of his fellow Americans, were his tepid performance evaluations from his superiors.
Former Veterans Affairs and Army secretary Togo West, Jr. -- who began his Army career as a JAG lawyer, and retired admiral and former chief of naval operations Vernon Clark were charged with finding out whether the Army had enough information to connect the dots to Hasan, and if not, why.
Of course the review the two distinguished public servants conducted has one overarching and purely political purpose. It permits members of Congress to throw brickbats at the Obama administration and make the case for a Dick Cheney-like level of seriousness on the "War on Terror".
I suppose a sign of what Dr. Hasan was going to do might have been there. I can imagine one of his supervisors, bumping into him at the local gun store in Killeen, Texas -- the town outside the gates of Fort Hood -- asking him if he what kind of handgun he was there to buy. "Whichever one brings the righteous arm of Allah down upon the infidel without mercy -- but isn't too expensive or difficult to conceal," he might have responded. That would have been a sign.
Another clue to what Hasan planned could have been in his day-to-day interactions with soldiers at Fort Hood. As he walked to his car in the mental health clinic parking lot at the end of the evening and soldiers saluted him, perhaps sounding off with a unit slogan, like the "all the way, sir!" of paratroopers or the Cavalry's "Garry Owen, sir!" -- Hasan could have responded with, "death to America!" Surely that would have been a sign.
But Congress will probably learn, to their chagrin, that the only signs of his impending murder of thirteen of his fellow Americans, were his tepid performance evaluations from his superiors.
There is an old saying that goes something like this: "owe the bank a thousand dollars and the bank owns you. Owe the bank a million dollars and you own the bank." Hasan received his Army commission through the ROTC program at Virginia Tech University. He received his medical degree from the defense department's uniformed services medical school, plus a masters degree in public health. All three academic degrees, his BS, his MD, and his MPH were bankrolled by the Army at the expense of the American Taxpayer. The officers writing Hasan's evaluations were well aware of the amount of money invested in him, and so were the officers deciding whether he should have been promoted.
Add to the mix the fact that Hasan is a psychiatrist. He is a psychiatrist in the ARMY while we are at war in two places and service members and their families are coping with an endless cycle of deployments and trauma. We don't exactly have a surplus of mental health care professionals in the armed forces or in the veterans' health care system. Hasan could have gone to work naked and not been fired. His evaluations might have prevented him from becoming a general, but absent a gross professional failure -- or a shooting rampage -- he was not going to be fired from the Army.
Would that have changed if civilian law enforcement/counterintelligence agents, like, say, the FBI, had talked with Hasan's commanders about his potential contacts with extremists? Perhaps it would have, although absent signing out on leave to Yemen for "Jihad Training," I am not certain how explicit contacts must be in order to fall into one of the categories that the Army relies on to fire officers prior to their completion of the years that the officer and the Army have committed to by bankrolling his extensive and expensive education in exchange for his continued service.
Of course, I doubt we will hear Secretary West or Admiral Clark talk about how the inclination of the Army to fire a quirky but essential professional into whom the American government has invested a great deal of time and money was impacted by that investment. Curiously, the military has fired many gay officers who have not yet completed their service commitment and recouped the money spent on their education, but don't expect to hear about that during the congressional hearings on why the Army never fired Major Hasan. Apparently, we must deal with one threat to national security at a time.
Add to the mix the fact that Hasan is a psychiatrist. He is a psychiatrist in the ARMY while we are at war in two places and service members and their families are coping with an endless cycle of deployments and trauma. We don't exactly have a surplus of mental health care professionals in the armed forces or in the veterans' health care system. Hasan could have gone to work naked and not been fired. His evaluations might have prevented him from becoming a general, but absent a gross professional failure -- or a shooting rampage -- he was not going to be fired from the Army.
Would that have changed if civilian law enforcement/counterintelligence agents, like, say, the FBI, had talked with Hasan's commanders about his potential contacts with extremists? Perhaps it would have, although absent signing out on leave to Yemen for "Jihad Training," I am not certain how explicit contacts must be in order to fall into one of the categories that the Army relies on to fire officers prior to their completion of the years that the officer and the Army have committed to by bankrolling his extensive and expensive education in exchange for his continued service.
Of course, I doubt we will hear Secretary West or Admiral Clark talk about how the inclination of the Army to fire a quirky but essential professional into whom the American government has invested a great deal of time and money was impacted by that investment. Curiously, the military has fired many gay officers who have not yet completed their service commitment and recouped the money spent on their education, but don't expect to hear about that during the congressional hearings on why the Army never fired Major Hasan. Apparently, we must deal with one threat to national security at a time.
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