Put the military in the dock with Hasan

On Tuesday, the trial of Army Maj. NidalHasan begins in earnest. Hasan has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder in the shooting at the Army's Fort Hood military base near Killeen, Texas, on Nov. 5, 2009.

Early in the afternoon of that day, Hasan allegedly entered Fort Hood's Soldier Readiness Processing Center, where he worked, sat briefly at a table with his head bowed, then stood up and shouted, "Allahuakbar" (God is great), and opened fire. Prosecutors say he was armed with an FN Five-seven pistol, a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Hasan was shot four times and is now a paraplegic.

The Defense Department and federal law enforcement agencies have deemed it to be an act of workplace violence, not an act of terrorism, even though the National Counterterrorism Center immediately labeled it as a terrorist attack.

In November 2011, survivors of the shooting and family members of those who were killed filed suit against the government for negligence in preventing the shootings and in an effort to force the government to classify the shooting as terrorism. Absent such a reclassification, the victims of the attack are not eligible for the Purple Heart.

Hasan is an American citizen and a Muslim whose parents came to America from Palestine. He joined the Army in college and graduated from Virginia Tech University in 1995. In 2003, he received his medical degree from the federal government's Uniformed University of the Health Sciences. He was trained in psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Hospital.

During residency training, he gave a lecture titled, "The Koranic World View as it Relates to Muslims in the United States Military." His lecture was not related to health or medicine, and it was jarring to many who heard it.

Hasan was known to express extremist views, which were brought to the attention of his superiors in the military and to the FBI. His behavior, his views respecting Islamic extremism and his email exchanges with Anwar al-Awlaki, an imam and former senior leader of al-Qaida, were known to officials of the military and the FBI.

Al-Awlaki, an American citizen, was killed Sept. 30, 2011, in Yemen while riding in a vehicle that was struck by Hellfire missiles that had been launched from a Predator drone based out of a secret CIA facility in Saudi Arabia by the Joint Special Operations Command. The strike had been authorized by President Barack Obama.

But instead of being discharged, Hasan was promoted from captain to major in 2009, and in July he was transferred to Fort Hood. Four months later, the massacre occurred.

Hasan is an Islamic extremist who should have been drummed out of the Army. He should not have been promoted, and he should not have been transferred to Fort Hood. Instead, driven by political correctness, the military airmailed Hasan to Fort Hood. Think of it as a cowardly, out-of-sight, out-of-mind move! The military should be charged as an accomplice to murder.

Understanding why and how the military acted as it did is found in the Report of the Senate Homeland Security Committee's investigation into this preventable tragedy. The March 2011 Report, authored by then-Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and ranking minority member Susan Collins, R-Maine, is titled, "A Ticking Time Bomb — Counterterrorism Lessons from the U.S. Government's Failure to Prevent the Fort Hood Attack."

Here are highlights of the report:

Witnesses reported that Hasan expressed support in open class presentations for the principles of violent Islamic extremism. His officer evaluation reports were uniformly positive and described his exploration of violent Islamic extremism as praiseworthy. The Senate Report concluded that "an individual who embraces violent Islamic extremist ideology clearly is unfit to serve in the U.S. Military."

Hasan reportedly told several of his classmates in residency training that his religion took precedence over the U.S. Constitution that he had sworn to support as a U.S. Military officer.

In summary, he made off-topic presentations on violent Islamic extremism rather than medical subjects; he justified suicide bombings twice in class presentations; he stated that some of the actions of Osama bin Laden were justified; and he stated three times in writing that Muslim-Americans in the military could be prone to fratricide.

But Hasan was never disciplined, never referred to counterintelligence officials and never discharged. The Senate Report states, "One of the officers who report Hasan to superiors opined that Hasan was permitted to remain in service because of political correctness."

That same officer added "that he believed that concern about political discrimination complaints stopped some individuals from challenging Hasan."

The Senate Report also indicates that Hasan received evaluations that flatly misstated his actual performance. They described him as a star officer, recommended him for promotion to major and stated that his "work on violent Islamic extremism would assist U.S. counterterrorism efforts."

In conclusion, the Senate Report states, "The officers who kept Hasan in the military and moved him steadily along knew full well of his problematic behavior. As the officer who assigned Hasan to Fort Hood admitted to an officer at Fort Hood, ‘You're getting our worst.' "

The only way to serve justice in this case is to haul the military into the dock with Hasan and convict all of them of murder.

The Shadow's on his way to the trial, but Goldman can be reached at: EmailMe