Gates, in a 23-page memo released today, outlined steps ranging from improving Pentagon and FBI intelligence sharing about potential internal threats to giving local commanders greater access to personnel information that might flag potentially dangerous behavior.
“These initiatives will significantly improve the department’s ability to mitigate internal threats, ensure force protection, enable emergency response and provide care for victims and families,” Gates wrote. “The department will make every effort to safeguard civil liberties as it develops these policies and programs.”
The Nov. 5 shootings at Fort Hood left 13 people dead and 43 injured. Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, has been charged by military authorities with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 of attempted murder. He awaits trial.
The changes Gates ordered today were recommended by an independent panel that reviewed the procedures the military had in place at the time of the shootings for protecting personnel.
Well, the recommendations are all well and good and neatly wrapped up in politically correct language. But, how about we cut to the nub of the issue? Devout Muslims in the U.S. military need to be watched more closely. At best, their loyalty is divided, at worst, they consider themselves enemy infiltrators for Islam.
/Fort Hood was hardly the first time that stealth Islamic jihadis in, and allied with, the U.S. military have ambushed their unsuspecting and unarmed infidel fellow soldiers inside their own bases, Fort Hood is just the worst such incident, so far
It all started out innocently enough last Saturday, that is, of course, if you think the United States actually needs a special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
President Obama announced Saturday the appointment of Rashad Hussain, a White House lawyer, to be his special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
Obama made the announcement in a video conference to the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar. In his message, Obama called Hussain “an accomplished lawyer and a close and trusted member of my White House staff,” who would strengthen his policy of outreach to the world’s Muslims.
Then reporters, apparently unlike the White House vetters, started digging into Rashad Hussain’s background.
President Obama’s new envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference, Rashad Hussain, is at the center of a controversy over remarks attributed to him defending a man who later pleaded guilty to conspiring to aid a terrorist group.
The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs quoted Hussain in 2004 as calling Sami al-Arian the victim of “politically motivated persecutions” after al-Arian, a university professor, was charged in 2003 with heading U.S. operations of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The United States has designated the Palestinian Islamic Jihad as a foreign terrorist group as far back as 1997. At the time of al-Arian’s arrest, then Attorney General John Ashcroft called it “one of the most violent terrorist organizations in the world.”
Al-Arian pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy to aid Palestinian Islamic Jihad and was sentenced to more than four years in prison.
The White House says the controversial remarks defending al-Arian two years earlier were made by his daughter — not by Hussain. Both were part of a panel discussion at a Muslim Students Association conference, but the reporter covering the event told Fox News she stands by the quotes she attributed to Hussain, who was a Yale Law student and an editor of the Yale Law Journal.
The Web version of the 2004 article in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs was later edited to delete all of Hussain’s comments. Editor Delinda Hanley told Fox News she believes the change was made in February 2009, though she does not recall who requested the edit.
Hanley remembered telling the group’s webmaster: “Let’s just take out the quotes since they have been attributed to the wrong speaker.”
Someone’s obviously lying. So, when the reporter refused to back down, out comes story number two.
Late Tuesday a White House official spoke with Hussain and confirmed to Fox News that Hussain did attend the 2004 event. The official says Hussain went with plans to discuss civil rights in the wake of 9/11, but remembers the conversation turning to Sami al-Arian’s case. According to the White House official, Hussain has “no recollection” as to whether or not he made the comments attributed to him.
We’ve now gone from flat out denial to a non-denial denial, he just can’t remember. But wait, there’s more, we’re not done yet, there are actual audio tapes and transcripts that exist! Cue up story number three.
Presented with a transcript of his remarks at a 2004 conference, Rashad Hussain, President Obama’s nominee to be special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, issued a statement Friday evening acknowledging having criticized the U.S. government’s case against Sami Al-Arian, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy to aid Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Originally, the White House claimed that Hussain denied having made the comments, attributing them instead to Al-Arian’s daughter, Laila.
But Politico’s Josh Gerstein obtained an audiotape of the remarks, in which Hussain said that Al-Arian’s case was one of many “politically motivated persecutions.”
On Friday evening, Hussain admitted having made them and the White House backed off its insistence that Hussain hadn’t made the comments, though both noted that he did so in the context of disagreeing with the way the government pursued the case against Al-Arian, making clear not to address the specific criminal charges.
“As a law student six years ago, I spoke on the topic of civil liberties on a panel during which I responded to comments made about the al-Arian case by Laila al-Arian who was visibly saddened by charges against her father,” Hussain said in a statement. “I made clear at the time that I was not commenting on the allegations themselves. The judicial process has now concluded, and I have full faith in its outcome.”
Hussain, currently in the White House counsel’s office, said, “I made statements on that panel that I now recognize were ill-conceived or not well-formulated.”
Busted! Now, will Hussain be thrown under the bus where he belongs?
Is it just me or does it seem like pretty much everyone Obama appoints is some kind of anti-American radical or political miscreant?
/it’s really hard to believe that the Obama White House vetting process is this inept and ineffective, they have to know these peoples’ backgrounds and yet they appoint them anyway, because they’re fellow travelers
Eat It Or Wear It 