Fort Hood Shootings

[jamiebk]

provide at least one credible source for that outrageous statement!?!!

This is your idea of an outrage? You need to switch to decaf.

Did you miss this part of my post?

I believe

What kind of perpective does that give?

and

Wow, I spent 24 years as a military criminal investigator intimately familiar with the UCMJ and never realized that.

Is this sarcasm needed? Or is your point strong enough to stand on its own merit? My source was my instruction in the Army; if I've been misinformed, that's hardly outrageous. Maybe you'll get over it.

GCR....He's kinda touchy today eh??

[Giant Communist Robot]

GCR....He's kinda touchy today eh??

I can never be sure that its someone else, 'cause its almost always me. Is there anyone here whose toes I haven't stepped on? Piq, OT, Shapley, and you Jaimie. Now I'll add Haggis.

If I haven't insulted you yet, just wait your turn, OK?

[Giant Communist Robot]

And remember CryptoBob? After my comment about the "flying purple people eater" the poor guy left and never came back.

[Haggis@wk]

GCR....He's kinda touchy today eh??

I can never be sure that its someone else, 'cause its almost always me. Is there anyone here whose toes I haven't stepped on? Piq, OT, Shapley, and you Jaimie. Now I'll add Haggis.

If I haven't insulted you yet, just wait your turn, OK?

Any claim that military law does not provide Americans citizens with the same rights and protections guaranteed by the Constitution is outrageous.

I truly wasn't angry just stunned that some people still believe that the UCMJ somehow implies that American serving in the military are treated as second class citizens.

Wow, I spent 24 years as a military criminal investigator intimately familiar with the UCMJ and never realized that.

Okay, snarky, I grant you. I generally revise my original posts and genuinely try to remove unhelpful and gratuitous language. I think I’m usually successful. By way of explanation rather than mitigation, I was getting ready to walk out of the house on an errand and didn’t review my post as critically as I would have normally; my apologies.


[snark]In other news Signs of the long-dreaded backlash against Muslim Americans have begun to appear, despite the efforts of the liberal media to portray Nidal Malik Hasan as the victim of his own excessive empathy. The Danville Express reports:

Police arrested 22-year-old Abdul Walid Hamid of Hayward on the evening of Wednesday, Nov. 4, after he reportedly tore a crucifix from a person's neck and scared others at Stoneridge Shopping Center.
Hamid, an employee at a mall kiosk near Starbucks, has been charged with battery, terrorist threats and grand theft.

According to reports, Hamid was yelling "Allah is power" and "Islam is great" while holding a pen in a fist over his head. Witnesses said he shouted anti-Christian comments, said police.

Lt. Mike Elerick of the Pleasanton Police Department said the man was not provoked and didn't threaten violence, but he committed robbery when he grabbed and broke a crucifix off someone's neck.

Oh, wait--never mind. Wrong backlash[/snark]

[Shapley]

From what I read, the original Articles of War were drafted in the Napoleonic era, and were the basis for the legal treatment of military personnel until the UCMJ was drafted in 1950, largely as a response to the treatment of soldiers during World War II.

When I was in the Navy, we had to briefed on the UCMJ annually. I recall that at least one of those briefings did stress that the UCMJ stood in lieu of, rather than in addition to, the Constitutional protections provided to ordinary citizens, and that this was necessary in order to preserve order and discipline.

V/R
Shapley

[Giant Communist Robot]

Fresh out of high school I went to college. But I quit when I realized I really didn't want to be there, I was just trying to stay out of Viet Nam. Naturally I was surprised when I was immediately drafted. My presence in the Army was forced. I didn't see civilians forced to serve in a similar capacity, but later I thought that taxes were a kind of analogy. But giving up gobs of your earnings is still different than being told to go stop bullets, especially for such a dubious cause.

I probably slept through most of my military training and missed a bunch about the UCMJ. They made me an MP.

edited for poor typnig and spelling

[Shapley]

edited for poor typnig and spelling

[Shapley]

When I was in, during the '80s, we had to be instructed on the UCMJ annually. I don't know how long that policy has been in place. They seemed to have a standard verbiage for the instruction, read from a prepared booklet, but some instructors added their own tidbits, whether valid or not. Such was life in the Navy. If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your BS.

[dai bread]

Seems very little changes in Naval circles. I've been reading a couple of the Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin books by Patrick O'Brian. In them, Jack Aubrey reads the Articles of War to his crew each Sunday as part of the church service. I guess they were shorter than the modern American equivalent.

[Giant Communist Robot]

Seems very little changes in Naval circles. I've been reading a couple of the Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin books by Patrick O'Brian. In them, Jack Aubrey reads the Articles of War to his crew each Sunday as part of the church service. I guess they were shorter than the modern American equivalent.

This surprises me, but if O'Brian wrote it then I'm sure it was done that way.

[Shapley]

Forrester mentions Hornblower reading the Articles of War to his crew, as well. I don't recall if he mentioned the frequency of his doing so.

[Haggis@wk]

On top of everything else, he was an unethical doctor

Investigators believe Hasan's frustration over the failure of the Army to pursue what he regarded as criminal acts by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan may have helped to trigger the shootings.

"The Army may not want to admit it, and you may not hear much about it, but it was very big for him," said one of the federal investigators on the task force collecting evidence of the crime.

His last effort to get the attention of military investigators came on Nov. 2, three days before his alleged shooting spree, according to the reports.

Colonel Anthony Febbo at Fort Hood reportedly told investigators he was twice contacted by Hasan, on Nov. 2 and a week earlier in October, about the question of whether he could legally provide information on "war crimes" he had learned in the course of psychiatric counseling he provided soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Col. Febbo told ABC News he could not comment because of the on-going investigation.

His supervisor in the Department of Psychiatry, Captain Naomi Surman, told investigators that Hasan raised similar issues with her in conversations in October, according to documents reviewed by ABC News.

Captain Surman told investigators that Hasan had formally contacted military prosecutors to report patients he was evaluating, according to people briefed on the exchange. She said Hasan signed his e-mails with "Praise Be to Allah." Legal analysts say psychiatrists are strictly bound by the rules of patient confidentiality except in cases where they might become aware of crimes about to be committed.

Put aside the Muslim stuff, a red flag that military personnel seem to have been carefully trained to ignore. Put aside even the bizarre accusations of "war crimes," which are the sort of thing that in an earlier age could have gotten you elected to the Senate from Massachusetts and even nominated as president by the Democrats. If Surman's report is accurate, a physician under her supervision was blatantly violating medical ethics. Why in the world didn't she report him for that before he allegedly went on his murder spree?

[Haggis@wk]

Just a few days ago, the pen pal of Major Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter that killed 14 and wounded dozens more, scoffed at the effectiveness of American intelligence and military power.
The US delivered its own message to Anwar al-Awlaki in its raids on an al-Qaeda leadership meeting that left 30 dead, including the cleric that some believe played an operational role in 9/11:

The leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and a Muslim preacher linked by U.S. intelligence to deaths at a U.S. army base are believed to have died in a Yemen air strike, a security official said on Thursday.
Yemen said 30 militants were killed in the strike in the eastern province of Shabwa.

Among those believed killed was Anwar al Awlaki, whom U.S. officials linked to the gunman who killed 13 people at the Fort Hood army base in Texas on November 5.

“Anwar al Awlaki is suspected to be dead (in the air raid),” said the Yemeni official, who asked not to be identified.

The air attack targeted a meeting of militants planning an attack on Yemeni and foreign oil targets, the official said.

He added that the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Abu Basir Nasser al-Wahayshi, may also have been killed in the strikes but that there was no confirmation.

Awlaki was last heard telling Al-Jazeera that Hasan asked him whether he could massacre US soldiers, and the terrorist recruiter wondered what had happened to American intelligence:

Awlaki claims that Hasan initiated the e-mail correspondence with a message on Dec. 17, 2008. “He was asking about killing U.S. soldiers and officers,” says Awlaki. “His question was is it legitimate [under Islamic law].”

The Al Jazeera questioner asks for confirmation that Hasan forwarded this query nearly a year before the shooting.

“Yes,” responds Awlaki. “I am astonished. Where was American intelligence that claimed once that it can read any car plate number anywhere in the world?”

As various parts of his body reach room temperature, Awlaki wasn’t available for comment.

This is the response that the US needed to give — and should have given Awlaki when he reappeared after 9/11. Congratulations on a job well done and on answering Awlaki’s boasts with a massive and eminently final response.