PJ Media

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, the court-martial of accused Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Hasan will creep forward at its glacial pace with a motions hearing to hear defense requests on a change of venue and the makeup of the panel that will potentially hear the case.

Facing 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder — and potentially the death penalty — Hasan’s trial has been delayed several months by his growth of a beard not permitted on service members.

Still, the movement in Hasan’s case is swifter than the move toward any resolution of the grievances of victims and survivors of the Nov. 5, 2009, mass slaying.

Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), whose district includes Fort Hood, told PJM the base is soldiering on, but a recent ABC News interview in which the officer who shot Hasan during the rampage says President Obama has “betrayed” the victims came as no surprise to him.

“Not to the least little bit have the victims been taken care of,” Kimberly Munley said. “In fact, they’ve been neglected.”

Carter just introduced yet again legislation to ensure that the victims and victims’ families in the Fort Hood attack are eligible for the same treatment, benefits, and honors as Americans killed or wounded in an overseas combat zone.

“I know I’ve got the votes if they bring it to the floor,” he said, adding he’s already talking with the majority leader about moving the bill forward. “The administration doesn’t want it to be bought to the floor.”

At issue is the Obama administration’s classification of the attack as “workplace violence” instead of terrorism, which the Pentagon said is vital terminology to not jeopardize the prosecution of Hasan.

Carter is called “Judge” up on the Hill because he served 21 years on the bench before coming to Washington. With seven death penalty cases and countless murder cases under his belt — and a longtime friendship with Army Secretary John McHugh, who has defended the classification — he’s not buying the Defense Department’s argument for avoiding the word terrorism.

“If I couldn’t try a case with somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 to 50 witnesses, I’d be a pretty lousy prosecutor,” Carter said.

His bill is not just about Purple Hearts for wounded soldiers, but opening eligibility for meritorious medals for those who protected others in the shooting rampage.

“It’s about time we meet obligations,” Carter said. “The enemy brought the battlefield to our own hometown.”

A co-sponsor of Carter’s bill, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), slammed the administration in a one-minute floor speech in the House earlier this month, saying Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Obama “have failed the people, and continue to fail the people that were wounded and killed and the families of Fort Hood.”

Today, Wolf told PJM that the proof of Hasan’s terrorist intent can be found in the administration’s own drone strikes.

Hasan had email communications with senior al-Qaeda recruiter and Yemen-based cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, and there are even indications that al-Awlaki was one of the imams at the funeral of Hasan’s mother.

“Major Hasan was connected, influenced by Alwaki,” Wolf said. “The administration thought Awlaki was dangerous enough that they killed him with a drone missile… It’s got to be fairly significant, the fact that they did this to an American citizen.”

“The people at Fort Hood, the wounded have been getting a very, very bad deal with Panetta,” the congressman continued. “It clearly is a terrorist attack. It is not workplace violence and by not calling it that, it’s a failure.”

Wolf called the dragged-out prosecution of Hasan “ridiculous.”

“This is being dictated by the attorney general and the White House,” he said.

Carter said he understands why the defense is trying to keep Hasan from getting to trial as long as possible — “that’s their job; they delay as long as they can” — but said “it’s time to get this thing over with.”

Along with Wolf, co-sponsors to Carter’s bill are Texas GOP Reps. Bill Flores and Michael Burgess.

Similar legislation introduced by the Fort Hood representative days after the attack reaped 97 co-sponsors. Wolf said “the media let this thing go,” and there’s barely any heat on the administration as a result.

“Just what my mom would always say — just do the right thing — and they won’t do the right thing unless the media holds them accountable,” he said.

Last May, Carter lauded the inclusion of language from a bill by Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) granting Purple Hearts to Fort Hood victims in the National Defense Authorization Act. In dozens of concerns cited in the Office of Management and Budget’s veto threat was this language, which also included Purple Heart eligibility for the 2009 Little Rock military recruiting office shooting.

“The Administration objects to section 552, which would grant Purple Hearts to the victims of the shooting incidents in Fort Hood, Texas, and Little Rock, Arkansas,” the OMB wrote. “The criminal acts that occurred in Little Rock were tried by the State of Arkansas as violations of the State criminal code rather than as acts of terrorism; as a result, this provision could create appellate issues.”

Carter knows Obama will likely be poised with his veto pen if this long-overdue bill even gets to the Senate floor.

“I wouldn’t put anything past the president,” he said. “The right thing to do is award that medal to the people who were wounded in that particular skirmish.”

The Texan has another bill this Congress that would amend Title X of the U.S. Code “to extend whistleblower protections to a member of the Armed Forces who alerts Department of Defense investigation or law enforcement organizations, a person or organization in the member’s chain of command, and certain other persons or entities about the potentially dangerous ideologically based threats or actions of another member against United States interests or security.”

Carter said he wants members of the military to feel they can report extremism regardless of rank, without fear of a black mark on their records.

Hundreds have reported witnessing bizarre behavior or hearing questionable Islamist statements from Hasan, yet congressional probes since the Fort Hood shooting determined that political correctness was a factor that stood in the way of addressing the threat.

Hasan completed his psychiatric residency at Walter Reed, where he told Army physicians in a senior-year presentation “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.”

In the slideshow presentation, called “The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military,” he warned of “adverse events” if Muslim soldiers didn’t have the option of being released as conscientious objectors.

“If we’d have known that, maybe we wouldn’t have spent all that money on his medical training,” Carter said.

Bridget Johnson is a career journalist whose news articles and opinion columns have run in dozens of news outlets across the globe. Bridget first came to Washington to be online editor at The Hill, where she wrote The World from The Hill column on foreign policy. Previously she was an opinion writer and editorial board member at the Rocky Mountain News and nation/world news columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News. She has contributed to USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, Politico and more, and has myriad television and radio credits as a commentator. Bridget is Washington Editor for PJ Media.

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Replies

  • This country needs a real leader.

    • Damn right!

  • It has been 3 years or so, and yet the wheel of justice is barely creaking by.  What a horrible example the government sets for all the military, all the civilians that were murdered in cold blood by a rag head that no one had the balls to do something about.  Ah,  politically correct, that is what they are - what a shame!  It is high time to court martial this turd, shave his beard forcibly and then find him guilty and hang him high!  The victims deserve nothing less!

    • That's 3 years of taxpayer funds to take care of this SOB who should be executed ASAP and it still goes on and on and on and on and on.....I'm disgusted.

  • Now, if someone had shot up a bunch of Muslims on Fort Hood, the trial would have been long over, and the shooter would have been charged with terrorism.

    • You hit that on the head!!!  James Greenough you are rigth as well. The commanding General shoulld have had him shot on site!!!!!!!!!!!  What tees me off is the fact the stinking camel jockey said he wasn't going to shave his beard because it was against his religious beliefs!!!  The piss-head was TRAINED and INSTRUCTED in AMERICA'S MILITARY for years.........WITHOUT this ragged face hair!!!!! Oh that's right.  His religious belief is to assimilate and then KILL Americans!!!! Then to ask for a change of venue?!!  My tax dollars are paying for this bag of pig crap's trial.  Speaking of pig crap..............anyone near the prison he is in?  Treat him to a prok chop dinner.......Greetings.......from AMERICAN PATRIOTS!!!!   I don't know what is more sickening......the killer or the killer-in-chief who allows a terrorist attack to be classified as "work place violence".  And Bengazi? Work place violence too?!!!              

      • Carri you are right on with your comments.

  • The commanding General of Fort Hood on the day Nidal Hasan murdered 13 US soldiers and wounded 29 0thers while wearing the uniform of a United States Army major, would have been justified under the Geneva Convention and the UCMJ, to have summarily executed Nidal Hasan for attacking American soldiers while wearing a US Army uniform!!  He was acting as a spy/saboteur for radical islam in time of war behind his enemies lines!!!  There is precedence for this when US Army soldiers captured German SS troops wearing snow camoflaged US Army uniforms during the Battle of the Bulge!!  The Germans were all summarily executed on the spot, by US Army officers and NCOs!!!! 

  • If Clinton hadn't disarmed the on-base military men and women Hasan would have been taken down a lot sooner.

    Politicians should not run the military - they're not capable.  And Obama and Holder are nothing less than traitors.

    I hope to live long enough to see them tried and punished for their crimes against America.  I am not against the death penalty.

  • Ovomit hates to see one of his own kind being treated as a criminal,well a criminal he is just like the author who wanted the work place violence as opposed to the title  of a murdering terrorist. I have to ask,what reward is the undocumented,illegal usurper going to gain from the muslim brotherhood for protecting a fellow terrorist,he "ovomit" does not have to pull the trigger  himself but guarantee to his muslim brothers that he is doing everything he can to destroy America, and murder as many Americans while disarming our military and insuring he will surround himself with as many muslims possible to continue his destruction of America from within the walls of the White House.

     

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