If you’re looking for a lesson on how events can influence politics you can’t find a better example than President Obama’s speech that linked the type of terrorist attack in San Bernardino to the 2009 attack at Fort Hood, Texas. “Over the last few years,” the president said, “terrorists turned to less complicated acts of violence like the mass shootings… It is this type of attack that we saw at Fort Hood…”
The disappointing fact is that the Fort Hood attack that killed 13 and injured 30 should have been a wakeup call, but the administration stubbornly refused to classify it as a terror incident for years despite overwhelming direct evidence to the contrary. That decision was an intentional obfuscation designed to mislead the public about the threat of terror influence from afar.
When some victims and relatives filed a lawsuit seeking compensation for alleged negligence by the Army, FBI and Defense Department for failure to act against the perpetrator, the shooting was officially labeled “workplace violence.” That ruling prevented active-duty victims from being awarded Purple Hearts and related benefits for their injuries for five years. It’s highly unlikely the president was unaware of that.
Eventually it took a 2014 special act of Congress, an institution constantly under attack by the White House, to recognize the victims with Purple Hearts. “This is something that, by right and by law, the Fort Hood victims are entitled to,” said Reed Rubenstein, who is represented the victims and family members in a civil lawsuit. “These benefits should have been awarded retroactively.”
If there were ever a clear cut case of terrorism, the Fort Hood massacre was it. The convicted murderer, former Army Major and psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, showed clear signs of radicalization for years prior to the eventual attack, but investigators and superiors did nothing substantial about it. The lawsuit claimed that the underlying reason was an atmosphere of political correctness that existed and even extended after the shooting.
According to the official investigation the signs of radicalization included Hasan “showing up on the FBI’s radar in 2008 while the Joint Terrorism Task Force conducted secret surveillance of al-Qaida’s communications expert Anwar al-Awlaki,” and the FBI’s lack of response to numerous intercepted emailed communications between Hasan and al-Awlaki.
Hasan also repeatedly referred to himself as a “Soldier of Allah,” offering al-Awlaki financial support and pondering whether killing fellow soldiers was acceptable. He also called the Muslim Army sergeant who killed two fellow soldiers in Kuwait in 2003 a religious martyr.
Hasan’s actions did not escape notice by his co-workers and military superiors; according to a report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, as early as 2006 a superior “suggested” Hasan leave the military after he openly questioned whether he could engage in combat against Muslims.
During a fellowship at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, Hasan gave multiple off-topic presentations that were sympathetic toward violent Islamist extremists, states the report, titled “A Ticking Time Bomb.”
In 2007, Hasan gave a presentation on the war on terror that included a defense of Osama bin Laden. It created so much animosity in the classroom the instructor stopped Hasan after two minutes.
With Hasan’s documented history is it unthinkable that any government agency would classify his actions as workplace violence and deny he was engaged in a terror attack, but that is exactly what they did. Now, more than a year after Congress did the right thing for the active duty victims and six years after the attack, the administration finally admits what everyone already knew – Fort Hood was a terrorist attack.
This is a perfect example of the dangers of political correctness, it can easily be used to hide the truth; you cannot protect yourself with lies.