On March 30, 2011, Lt. General Robert Cone, commanding general at Ft. Hood, granted a request from the attorney for accused Ft. Hood murderer, Major Nidal Malik Hasan (pictured), to postpone the trial until late April.
The request was made by chief defense counsel, John Galligan, and averred that the General Cone could not be impartial in deciding matters related to the Hasan case as he, Cone, was the commanding general at the time of the atrocity. Cone has been nominated to be a four-star general and to lead the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Virginia.
Cone ruled in favor of the defense’s motion and the matter will now be decided by incoming post commander, Major General David Campbell. Specifically, Campbell will now assume the responsibility for deciding whether Hasan should be courtmartialed and face the death penalty.
As is familiar to readers of The New American, Nidal Hasan is the army psychiatrist charged with 13 counts of murder and 32 counts of attempted murder for the hail of gunfire he unleashed on his fellow soldiers at a processing center on Ft. Hood, Texas on November 5, 2009. On that date, Hasan climbed onto a desk and opened fire on the unsuspecting soldiers and civilians declaring “Allahu Akbar” or “God is Great.” Hasan is a Muslim born in America to Jordanian immigrant parents.
When questioned via email regarding the reason for such delays, Galligan points the finger directly at President Obama.
According to the unnamed correspondent, Galligan informed him that the “Delays are due to prosecution/White House refusal to disclose evidence. Blame them for the delays.”
As in most cases, the White House and President Obama in particular are easy targets. There is, however, evidence of some official obstruction in the speedy procession of the case against Hasan.
For example, in October 2010, it was reported that a soldier present at the sorting facility at Fort Hood captured the murders attributed to Hasan in two videos on his cell phone camera. Subsequently, the soldier’s commanding officer ordered the man to delete both videos.
Furthermore, during in hearings into the massacre in April 2010, Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) were forced to subpoena the Obama White House in order to to obtain documents they deemed critical to their investigation into the matter.
The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which subpoenaed the documents, was informed by the Pentagon that it would be given Hasan’s personnel file and part of an Army report on the shootings, but not the items specifically requested. This refusal did not sit well with the committee. Calling it “an affront to Congress’s constitutional obligation to conduct independent oversight of the executive branch,” spokeswoman Leslie Phillips said that the decision was still being made as to whether or not to pursue the subpoenas in court. The committee, chaired by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), was compelled to issue the subpoenas on April 19, after waiting months for the cooperation they wanted from the Obama Administration. It was not forthcoming.
Additional evidence of some sort of obfuscation is described in article published by American Thinker:
Meanwhile, the official government report on this jihad mass-murder doesn’t mention jihad or Islam at all. Congressman John Carter (R-TX) said that ‘the Obama Administration continues to deny the Fort Hood attack was terrorism, failed to grant the casualties the same status as that given casualties from the 2001 Pentagon attack, conspicuously omitted even mention of the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ in the official DOD report on the shootings, and will not acknowledge the role of political-correctness in stifling whistleblower warnings of the impending attack.’
There is disturbing evidence that the cover-ups and delays caused by political refusal to cooperate with investigators and attorneys might be motivated by a desire on the part of the White House and the Pentagon to avoid being branded as anti-muslim.
For example, co-workers and supervisors who worked with Hasan at Walter Reed have told several news agencies that beginning in spring of 2008 during Hasan’s training there, a “series of meetings” were convened to discuss “serious concerns” about Major Hasan’s disturbing topics of conversations held with colleagues and patients, bizarre statements made to supervisors, and how such behavior was affecting his work. Unnamed officers present at the meetings claim that based on evidence presented at these meetings there was reasonable suspicion that if Hasan were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan he might betray his country and offer aid and intelligence to the enemy, to the point of killing fellow servicemen as a Muslim sergeant had in 2003. ??Despite regarding Major Hasan as a potential traitor to his country and one with perceived capacity for killing countrymen in the name of his religion, commanders at Walter Reed chose not to dismiss Hasan from the program because of how “cumbersome and lengthy” such a process is. Also, because Hasan is a Muslim and the terrorists with whom the United States is at war are Muslim, directors of the program were concerned that any disciplinary action could be interpreted as discriminatory and motivated by religious intolerance and profiling.
Or, in the words of Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey, Jr.:
speculation could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers and what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here.
Hasan faces court martial after being formally charged with 13 counts of murder and 32 counts of attempted murder. The trial will be conducted according to the procedures promulgated by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The UCMJ does provide for the death penalty as punishment for enumerated crimes, one of which is murder.
The two prosecuting attorneys (colonels) have recommended the death penalty. The incoming commanding general will make the final decision.
Photo: This April 9, 2010, file photo released by the Bell County Sheriffs Department shows U.S. Major Nidal Hasan at the San Antonio to Bell County Jail in Belton, Texas: AP Photos
