Reflections From a Murky Pond

The US Senate Committee on Homeland Security has completed and published their report on the the Fort Hood massacre carried out by the subhuman jihadi filth, Nidal Malik Hasan.

The report blasted both the FBI and the US Army over their failure to recognize that Nidal Hasan had devolved into a Islamic extremist long before he went on his rampage at Fort Hood.

Amazing! It took months of time, a great deal of taxpayers’ money, and an 91-page report to uncover what everybody already knew – that the mujahid’s act of Islamic Terrorism, in which he murdered 14 people and wounded 31 others, could have been prevented if the FBI and the US Army had shown even a modicum of intelligence and common sense.

Although both the public and the private signs of Hasan’s radicalization to violent Islamist extremism while on active duty were known to government officials, a string of failures prevented these officials from intervening against him prior to the attack.

• Evidence of Hasan’s radicalization to violent Islamist extremism was on full display to his superiors and colleagues during his military medical training. An instructor and a colleague each referred to Hasan as a “ticking time bomb.” Not only was no action taken to discipline or discharge him, but also his Officer Evaluation Reports sanitized his obsession with violent Islamist extremism into praiseworthy research on counterterrorism.

• FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) are units in FBI field offices that conduct counterterrorism investigations and are staffed by FBI agents and employees from other federal, state, and local agencies. A JTTF learned that Hasan was communicating with the Suspected Terrorist, flagged Hasan’s initial [REDACTED] communications for further review, and passed them to a second JTTF for an inquiry. However, the ensuing inquiry failed to identify the totality of Hasan’s communications and to inform Hasan’s military chain of command and Army security officials of the fact that he was communicating with a suspected violent Islamist extremist – a shocking course of conduct for a U.S. military officer. Instead, the JTTF inquiry relied on Hasan’s erroneous Officer Evaluation Reports and ultimately dismissed his communications as legitimate research.

• The JTTF that had reviewed the initial [REDACTED] communications dismissed the second JTTF’s work as “slim” but eventually dropped the matter rather than cause a bureaucratic confrontation. The JTTFs now even dispute the extent to which they were in contact with each other in this case. Nonetheless, the JTTFs never raised the dispute to FBI headquarters for resolution, and entities in FBI headquarters responsible for coordination among field offices never acted. As a result, the FBI’s inquiry into Hasan ended prematurely.

As noted, DoD possessed compelling evidence that Hasan embraced views so extreme that it should have disciplined him or discharged him from the military, but DoD failed to take action against him. Indeed, a number of policies on commanders’ authority, extremism, and personnel gave supervisors in his chain of command the authority to take such actions. It is clear from this failure that the DoD lacks the institutional culture, through updated policies and training, sufficient to inform commanders and all levels of service members how to identify radicalization to violent Islamist extremism and to distinguish this ideology from the peaceful practice of Islam.

We had all this information months ago. The MSM even took time off from trying to portray Hasan as the victim long enough to report on the details of both the FBI’s and the DoD’s failings in this matter.

Think tanks, counterterrorism experts, and media “talking heads” all also arrived at very similar conclusions as to what needed to be done to mitigate the chances of this happening again – and they did so within a couple of weeks of the attack.

I’m sure most Americans are aware that formal, documented research into these atrocious matters is necessary and that formal reports upon the findings of that research is equally necessary. It shouldn’t take that much time, effort, and expense to come up with a report like the one just delivered though!

Tags: America | Crime | FBI | Fort Hood | Hasan | Homeland Security | Islam | Islamists | Lieberman | Muslims | Political Correctness | Terrorism | Terrorists | Texas | US Military | US Senate | Vermin | War On Terror

This entry was posted on Friday, February 4th, 2011 at 3:06 pm and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.