Darker and Darker.

As details emerge, the Fort Hood massacre is looking more and more like a case of home grown terrorism. There is now evidence that Major Nadal M. Hasan was communicating with an Al-Queda linked cleric living in Yemen. The Washington Post reports:

U.S. intelligence agencies intercepted 10 to 20 e-mails from Hasan to Anwar al-Aulaqi, a U.S. citizen who once was a spiritual leader, or imam, at the suburban Virginia mosque where Hasan had worshiped, said a law enforcement official who spoke about the investigation on condition of anonymity.

The FBI determined that the e-mails did not warrant an investigation, according to the law enforcement official. Investigators said Hasan's e-mails were consistent with the topic of his academic research and involved some social chatter and religious discourse.

The mosque where Anwar al-Aulaqi preached and Hasan worshiped is also where two of the 9/11 highjackers worshipped before the attacks in 2001; meaning its possible that all four of these men worshipped in the same room together nine years ago. Chilling stuff.

So how could a detail like that be overlooked? The FBI appeared to be aware of all of this, along with several other agencies. But as a military psychiatrist, Hasan seemed to be positioning himself as an expert on the Muslim perspective in the war on terror; and in 2007 he gave a presentation on the religious conflicts Muslim service men and women could encounter in the course of duty:

The Army psychiatrist believed to have killed 13 people at Fort Hood warned a roomful of senior Army physicians a year and a half ago that to avoid "adverse events," the military should allow Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims.

As a senior-year psychiatric resident at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan was supposed to make a presentation on a medical topic of his choosing as a culminating exercise of the residency program.

Instead, in late June 2007, he stood before his supervisors and about 25 other mental health staff members and lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting in the Muslim countries of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a copy of the presentation obtained by The Washington Post.

"It's getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims," he said in the presentation.

The title of Hasan's PowerPoint presentation was "The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military." It consisted of 50 slides. In one slide, Hasan described the presentation's objectives as identifying "what the Koran inculcates in the minds of Muslims and the potential implications this may have for the U.S. military."

He also sought to "describe the nature of the religious conflicts that Muslims" who serve in the U.S. military may have and to persuade the Army to identify these individuals.

Other slides delved into the history of Islam, its tenets, statistics about the number of Muslims in the military, and explanations of "offensive jihad," or holy war.

Another slide suggested ways to draw out Muslim troops: "It must be hard for you to balance Islamic beliefs that might be conflicting with current war; feelings of guilt; Is it what you expected."

Hasan's presentation lasted about an hour. It is unclear whether he read out loud every point on each slide. If typical procedures were followed, his adviser would have supervised the development of his project, said people familiar with the practice.

The final three slides indicate that Hasan referred to Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, suicide bombers and Iran.

Under a slide titled "Comments," he wrote: "If Muslim groups can convince Muslims that they are fighting for God against injustices of the 'infidels'; ie: enemies of Islam, then Muslims can become a potent adversary ie: suicide bombing, etc." [sic]

The last bullet point on that page reads simply: "We love death more then [sic] you love life!"

In hindsight, some who attended that presentation now say they were "disturbed by it" at the time, but it appears that most believed that Hasan was genuinely investigating possible problems Muslim service members could have in this war. It seems obvious now that he was talking about himself.

There's going to be real hell to pay by the military and the FBI as to why they failed to stop this, and most politicians and media outlets are reserving judgement as to how fair that is until all the facts are out. Most that is.

Of course, Fox News and the rest of far-right movement seems to have already come to a consensus: political correctness has made our military weak and vulnerable to attacks from within, or as Michelle Malkin puts it, "even military officials seem to worship the false god of diversity":



It's remarkable to see people like Malkin, who usually use US troops as props to shield themselves from criticism, suddenly throw the military under the bus as soon as it suits their purposes.

Cynically using a tragedy to promote your pet political cause is bad, but you gotta go to the master for the real hate:



Lets see if I follow Pat Robertson's logic correctly; since this mass murderer was Muslim, then all Muslims are a part of a "violent religion/political system".

Lets apply that to a different case: Scott Roeder, the anti-abortion terrorist who today addmited to assassinating abortionist Dr. George Tiller in church, was also a conservative Christian. What does that say about conservative Christians like Pat Robertson?