However, the Constitution's delineation of treason might not cover this:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
What does "levying war" mean? Although "levying" is sometimes today said to be the same as "waging," that doesn't appear to be the legal definition. In one of the the treason cases (Bollman) growing out of the still mysterious Aaron Burr conspiracy, the Chief Justice John Marshall of the Supreme Court ruled in 1807, "But there must be an actual assembling of men for the treasonable purpose, to constitute a levying of war." In other words, "levying" means raising a body of warriors. Therefore, whether Major Hasan plotted solely alone or was conspiring with others, and if so, did they in some fashion "assemble," would appear to be relevant.
On the other hand, the second type of treason, "or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort" would appear to be an easier hurdle to leap. The first time the Supreme Court upheld a treason conviction was in the 1947 Haupt case in which naturalized citizen Hans Mark Haupt was sentenced to life in prison for sheltering in his Chicago home his son, a German spy (one of the eight saboteurs landed by a German sub in a semi-farcical failed infiltration). The son was convicted by military tribunal and executed. In the father's case, noted civil libertarian Justice William O. Douglas wrote the majority opinion upholding the father's conviction, while Justice Jackson wrote a lonely dissent arguing that the father's intentions were filial rather than treasonous.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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87 comments:
If the Sept 2001 authorization of force passed overwhelmingly by both houses of congress isn't a declaration of war, what is? Is it the semantic difference between "authorization" and "declaration" you are objecting to?
I am guessing that Major Hasan's legal fate will be decided by political considerations -- sensitivity re: criticism of Gitmo, military tribunals, etc. He'll probably be tried for simple murder, multiple counts.
I believe that a conviction of 'treason' would require execution. It would probably be better to let the Major rot away in the psych unit at Leavenworth, than to give the jihadis another martyr.
father's intentions were filial
You mean "paternal", I believe. Parents do not by definition exhibit filial devotion to their children.
Steve, there's an unresolved angle on the Ft. Hood terrorist attack.
The FT. Hood press conference spokesCol. last night, 06 Nov., said that more than one hundred shots were fired, and that there were no indications of friendly fire.
One hundred rounds is a lot of bullets for one pistol shooter to fire, unless the shooting went on for a long-ish time.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
It will take new regime to officially recognize our invaders and colonizers as enemies, but when this happens the former regime officials who violated their sworn duty to protect and defend our country will be pursued and prosecuted.
These people, and the corruption goes right to the very top, are indirectly responsible not only for Hasan's actions, but for an untold score of other violent crimes committed by "undocumented migrants" and their issue.
I think "treason" requires the existence of a nation and shared understanding of what constitutes disloyalty thereto. Since nobody who matters buys into such immoral, non-inclusive concepts anymore, mooting the issue is kinda pointless. The important question is, is his behavior permissible under shari'a?
You invite the world, be prepared to suffer the consequences.
Once again, Steve, the FBI immediately announced that the violence was not an act of terrorism.
That is a disgraceful and unprofessional breach of investigatory conduct. The POTUS is still refusing to jump to conclusions (as opposed to the Cambridge cop case), yet the FBI immediately gave the shooter a pass on the possibility that the attack was terrorism.
The FBI personnel responsible for that announcement need to be held to account. We cannot allow the FBI to mindlessly make that announcement over and over and over again.
And what is going on with the dead/not dead status of the perp? Again, there is a keystone cops aura around this case.
We need to put the spotlight on this pattern of immediate non-terroism verdicts from the FBI in all cases involving "sudden jihad syndrome".
We cannot allow the FBI or any other government agency to simply announce non-reality as reality, year after year. Then you get Orwell. Look at the ridiculous economic stats coming out of the Commerce Dept and Treasury.
The government keeps lying to us because we allow them to get away with it.
Treason? The USA is a two party system facade controlled by an Inner Party. The POTUS is a spokesmodel for the Inner Party. He is selected and not elected.
The US Armed Forces are actually security forces for the Inner Party.
The Inner Party has a global allegiance and not an American allegiance. The only treason charges that will be brought in the future in the USA will be against Constitutionalists and blood & soil patriots and any others who threaten the dominance of the Inner Party.
Alex Jones' latest film Fall of the Republic is impressive. I only watched it because a co-worker kept pestering me to do so. I was shocked by how good it was.
Of course he assembled with others, at the mosque, on the internet, etc. Just because they don't come forward doesn't mean he didn't conspire with others. Just because the others didn't show up and take part on that day doesn't mean they aren't involved.
Of course he is a traitor and should be hanged.
Shouldn't Dubya be charged with treason?
He "flew" the flag of Mexico on the official White House website.
He invited armed Mexican troops to San Antonio to deliver aid to illegal aliens who were victimized in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. Mexico would never reciprocate.
I could go on, but why bother? After all such quaint notions as treason represent the Old World Order.
Muslim soldiers defecting or doing a coup has been a constant feature of Indian history from 712 AD till today
Every other religion in India is represented proportionally
except that the 14% muslims are defacto limited to 2% and the 2% sikhs are expanded to 14%
In the British Indian army, muslims were 35%, however, the british kept several non-muslim , anti-muslim regiments on hand to prevent islamic treason and mutiny
In WW1, several muslim regiments mutinied than fight the caliph of Turkey
The same 35% muslims in the Army convinced many Congress leaders that a safe army is better than a safe border, and was one of the main arguments in letting the muslims have pakistan, and reduce the muslims in the residual Indian army to close to nothing
I think we should give the guy a break. He's of Palestinian descent. If a foreign element controlled your homeland, would you sit around and do nothing?
Should Hasan be charged with treason?
That depends on how we choose to translate the word "should" into the language of who/whom.
I think charging a guy who committed 13 first-degree murders with treason would be like a hate-crime enhancement for James Byrd's draggers.
We're supposed to send them to Diversity Training on the way to the electric chair?
... In the father's case, noted civil libertarian Justice William O. Douglas wrote the majority opinion upholding the father's conviction, while Justice Jackson wrote a lonely dissent arguing that the father's intentions were filial rather than treasonous.
Actually Jackson wrote the majority opinion, Douglas conferred and Murphy dissented.
Neither Jefferson Davis nor Robert E Lee stood trial for treason though charged.
Let the military jurisdictional code apply whatever standard is applicable as he was an active officer onduty at a military base.
Surely there are applicable military trial and sentencing guidelines for commission of capital murder and avenues for the appropriate application of justice in military jurisdiction. If treason is applicable, so be it. If not...
...let the media howl and sell washing machines and televisions while they talk about it....
Buroaker
for what it's worth, US army personnel are usually not trained in the use of handguns, and this guy was a doctor, so he had even less combat training than the average infantry private. not much specific training was involved here. he did not even use a standard issue M9 to shoot people. weigh these, perhaps minor, issues in a charge of treason.
of course, he did not use an M9, but rather his own handguns, because US army personnel are disarmed by law when they are not either deployed or at the range, hence, why he was able to shoot 40 SOLDIERS at an ARMY BASE without them instantly returning fire and killing him.
US army bases, yet another gun free zone where anybody willing the ignore the law can go on a shooting spree and the SOLDIERS will have to depend on the local police for help.
I would like to see him executed in less than a year, like we used to.
Better to not add difficult and rarely-used charges if you have such a goal.
Our enemies are of course, Muslims. Because of Islam.
Islam absent the polygamy would be no more America's (and the Wests, and all non-Muslims in fact) enemies than Buddhists, or Confucianists, or Taoists, or Sikhs, or Bahais.
But the polygamy inside Islam makes Muslims at a constant boil of competition over women dialed up to 11, to quote the guys from Spinal Tap. Ordinary conflicts in non-polygamous societies get magnified in polygamous ones where there is a massive shortage of available women and the only way to deal with internal pressures is outside enemies.
Witness, say, Mormons in Utah in the 1850's (and the Mountain Meadow Massacre). These were White, Anglo Americans massacring fellow White, Anglo Americans many from the same region in alliance with the local Indians.
This is what polygamy does to a society. Even with other, strong ties of shared language, ethnicity, nationalism, accent, and regionalism.
So, Muslims are and always will be as long as they are polygamous, our enemy.
Except technology makes them far more our equal and able to kill us than in the past.
Quick correction. In Haupt v United States, Justice Jackson wrote the majority opinion, Justice Douglas a concurrence, and Justice Murphy the dissent.
http://supreme.justia.com/us/330/631/case.html
There are good reasons why the formal "Declaration of War" has fallen out of favor. If we "declared war" on anyone in Korea, it would have had to have been nuclear-armed China and the USSR.
Much better to stick to the legal fiction that it was a "police action".
The current war presents a similar problem. We don't want to declare war on Islam, so we stick to the fiction that we are at war with "terror". There is also the further problem that international law only recognizes war as being between states. A declaration of war on Islam would be on shaky legal ground.
I don't know about Hasan, but the military and civilian officials who induct enemy aliens into our armed forces should stand trial for treason. And yes, I know he was born in the U.S. - I don't care - he is obviously still an enemy alien.
Steve,
I hate to disagree with you about this, but I do. Unless you can show that he was somehow knowingly conspiring with a specific foreign power or well-defined enemy organisation, its not treason, whatever it is. This doesn't invalidate many of your other observations. AIPAC officials giving classified documents to Israel is an example of treason.
"One hundred rounds is a lot of bullets for one pistol shooter to fire, unless the shooting went on for a long-ish time."
He used an FN 5.7, which can hold a thirty round magazine and can be emptied in seconds.
The lawyers who defend the Gitmo terrorists are certainly guilty of treason under the Constitution.
Will they ever be charged?
I don't know about Hasan, but the military and civilian officials who induct enemy aliens into our armed forces should stand trial for treason. And yes, I know he was born in the U.S. - I don't care - he is obviously still an enemy alien.
I agree with this sentiment, but in President BHO's America, it's doubtful that the DOJ will even ask for the death penalty in re: Hasan himself.
As for the folks you're alluding to, they'll probably get some sort of a medal [maybe a Presidential Medal of Freedom?] for their tolerance in dealing with the <INDELICATE LANGUAGE DELETED>.
Hasan was an American. Polygamy is illegal here, so it should not have been a problem for him, and indeed America's native born muslim population has below-average crime rates in stark contrast to Europe. "Bare branches" theories of violence are refuted by the facts, China is much less violent with its absence of females than places with a surplus of them. We've been over this stuff before.
Sikhs in fact used to be a big terrorist problem in India. Indira Gandhi would denounce the CIA for supporting them (India was aligned with Russia after the Sino-Soviet split in the Cold War), and was eventually assassinated by her own Sikh guards. Sikhs extended their terrorism to Canada.
The tie between polygamy and violence for Mormons is that they were driven west and attacked because their polygamy offended the people they lived among. The "Utah War" resulted in about as many deaths as the contemporaneous "Bleeding Kansas", which I hope we can agree was not caused by polygamy. Nor has it been shown that the Nauvoo Legion was a collection of men who couldn't find women. Finally, the FLDS has been practicing polygamy in America for quite some time without having adopted violence.
Anonymous said: "I think we should give the guy a break. He's of Palestinian descent. If a foreign element controlled your homeland, would you sit around and do nothing?"
Well, he shoulda taken issue with some Israelis then. Or, better yet, members of the Israeli Lobby and the American politicians who kow-tow to them.
Whiskey said: "Islam absent the polygamy would be no more America's (and the Wests, and all non-Muslims in fact) enemies than Buddhists, or Confucianists, or Taoists, or Sikhs, or Bahais."
No. The degree of inbreeding in Muslim societies (particularly the Middle Eastern/South Asian ones) is what is the problem. Polygamy just exacerbates the situation.
If the problem was an excess of males, then we should have lots of Chinese and Indian suicide bombers. But we don't.
TGGP,
Laying out empirical facts that soundly refute Whiskey's bullshitting only seems to encourage him further.
Treason, schmeason; this guy is facing a firing squad, right? Am I correct that courts martial still execute people for stuff like this, and that the DOJ and Obama have nothing (directly) to do with it?
It would probably be better to let the Major rot away in the psych unit at Leavenworth, than to give the jihadis another martyr.
The evidence against Hasan seems ironclad. The evidence of all who knew him seems to indicate he was reasonably sane (for a Mohammedan).
Most importantly - the military needs his execution to retain the faith of American servicemen. If this guy doesn't deserve the death penalty, who does?
If a guy who killed 13 soldiers and shot 31 more doesn't fry, how would soldiers feel?
the former regime officials who violated their sworn duty to protect and defend our country will be pursued and prosecuted.
Ted Kennedy, Emanuel Celler and Ronald Reagan are all still dead. McCain, Specter and Bush still live, however.
I agree with this sentiment, but in President BHO's America, it's doubtful that the DOJ will even ask for the death penalty in re: Hasan himself.
I hope they don't. What would more easily reveal the fanaticism of this administration than letting him off with life? The country would be pissed and our soldiers would be pissed. And all in time for the 2010 elections...
Islam absent the polygamy would be no more America's (and the Wests, and all non-Muslims in fact) enemies than Buddhists, or Confucianists, or Taoists, or Sikhs, or Bahais.
I'd like to compare the sacred writings of Islam to the sacred writings of the other religions you mentioned.
And Whiskey/Testing99: I agree that compeition for women can ecause violence, and that polygamy increases that competition. However, the leader of the Mountain Meadows Masscre was one John D Lee. He was a polygamist. He left a substantial progeny behind, including friends of mine as well as Rex Lee, Ronald Reagan's Solicitor General. He didn't kill for want of "getting any."
"for what it's worth, US army personnel are usually not trained in the use of handguns"
All officers are, and are required to qualify with their pistols.
I think that the one fact that we should always keep in mind is that the top military leaders are quite likely united in some sort of conspiracy to protect the nation from the POTUS.
If this seems far fetched consider Venona, Omar Bradley and Harry Truman.
Alger Hiss was a Soviet spy. He was protected by the FDR administration, as were several others. Omar Bradley was head of the Joint Chiefs after the war. He chose not to release the wire taps of Soviet spys in the US to Harry Truman because his administration had so many known soviet agents and sympathizers. Truman was kept out of the loop. Bradley didn't consider him trustworthy.
The Obama administration has had a lot of communists and socialists in its ranks. Obama himself seems to not care very much about Islamic terrorism.
I suspect that at least some in the military don't consider the Obama administration trustworthy.
Seems like the message is that we can either continue mistreating Palestinians by proxy or keep inviting Muslims (especially Palestinians) to immigrate. Doing both isn't working.
Hey Steve, who the heck is "James Fulford?" This is at least the 2nd time that I've seen a blogpost at Vdare.com (greatest website in the universe)credited to the mysterious Mr. Fulford that has showed up on iSteve. Is James Fulford your pseudonym?
lots of neocons have killed far more americans
Let's start with a hate crime!
This whole incident reminds me a little of when I once watched a CSPAN call-in show right after the Oklahoma City bombing...
Half of the "excited" callers said that the monstrous crime must have been committed by a horrible, vicious foreign Muslim immigrant...
The other half said No, No, such a heroic deed must have been performed by a true-blue native-born American patriot...
It's certainly possible that this Hasan guy is a filthy, vicious, vile traitor.
On the other hand, he may have just been spending too much time reading all the super-patriotic material on VDare.com and Occidental Observer...
Hasan was dead? Alive? Comatose? Stable? His medical condition has been subject to revision.
How about the lady cop as super heroine? Also subject to revision. Here is an AP story detailing the role of her male cop partner:
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20091107/D9BQUM7G0.html
Suddenly there is a question as to whether she "took Hasan down" in the O-K Corral style.
Quote:
"There has been confusion since Thursday's rampage about whose bullets actually brought Hasan down. At first, Munley's supervisor said it was her shot to Hasan's torso that leveled him, but Army officials would only say that an investigation was under way."
Quote:
"That's when Todd, a retired soldier who now works as a civilian police officer at Ford Hood, said he shouted at Hasan to stop. "I told him stop and drop your weapons, I identified myself as police and he turned and fired a couple of rounds at me. I didn't hear him say a word ... he just turned and fired.""
Quote:
"Munley was down by the time he engaged Hasan, Todd said. He wasn't sure if Munley had wounded the suspect, because "once he started firing at me, I lost track of her.""
Let's connect the dots. The heroine Munley "was down by the time he engaged Hasan". And we know from the article that Hasan was engergetic in the engagement with the male cop. Hasan "turned and fired" at the male cop.
So the facts in this article point to the heroine be taken out of the fight by Hasan and not the reverse. The male officer took out Hasan.
I am not bashing the heroine cop. She's still a heroine for confronting Hasan and probably wounding him. But the media or the police brass or both ran with the PC grrrl power storyline without regard to the facts.
Yes: Our journalists (and society) are so completely obsessed with group identity cheerleading that the facts of even the most important news stories are secondary. The mainstream media editors reluctantly caved into the inconvenient Jihadi Holy War storyline, but they simultaneously compensated by saving the day with a female heroine grrrrrrl power storyline.
Political Correctness Uber Alles!
Once again, Steve, the FBI immediately announced that the violence was not an act of terrorism.
The FBI should also make clear that the OKC bombing was not an act of terrorism. :)
Hey Whiskey,
All these omegas are shooting people cuz they can't get laid. You can't get laid. Does this mean you need to be pre-emptively deterred before you go a-killin'?
"Should Hasan be charged with treason?"
That's an interesting point.
Ciao.
Once again, Steve, the FBI immediately announced that the violence was not an act of terrorism.
An assault on a military base is not "terrorism".
If a person doesn't want to go overseas and fight in a war, why is our government forcing him to go?
America has no natural enemies.
He used an FN 5.7, which can hold a thirty round magazine and can be emptied in seconds.
You're correct. I don't know much about pistols. Maybe Hasan bought this deal last August:
08-20-2009, 15:32 #1
5.7x28
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Illinois
Posts: 1,385
IL WTS FN 57 With 4 30 round mags $1000 Shipped
Price is firm.
The pistol is brand new in the box and comes with four 30 round factory mags. The buyer also has the option to purchase 1000 rounds of ss197 ammo for an additional $400. Or the buyer can have 750 rounds of ss192 for $400. This is factory fresh ammo.
I actually have two identical pistol packages, so I can offer the same pistol deal to two people. Both pistols are brand new. I can send pictures after Sunday.
Do not bother with lower purchase offers. The only trade I am interested in is a colt AR 15 for one pistol only, no ammo.
...
http://www.glocktalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1105396
Still, 43 or 44 persons hit divided by 100+ rounds fired seems like a rather big ratio of hits/shots. But again, I don't know much about pistol shooting.
Those soldiers must have packed together tightly in a crowded room. Maybe some of the shots struck and penetrated more than one person.
Political correctedness killed and wounded them. The pistol was the means, not the cause.
Wonder if the soldier victims were getting their computerized paperwork checked off before departure to Aghanland?
... Maybe updating their next of kin notification info. just before the Muslim started his jihad?
Lord God Almighty, why on earth should we even spend a cent on counter-espionage, when all our enemies have to do is to get muslim converts to enlist in our military and get our secrets and plans directly from the horse's mouth?
Why was this Muslim fanatic allowed in our military?
Dont we reason just how much we hurt morale by having openly Islamic members of the military whose first allegiance is to "Allah", and not the United States?
If we are not willing to protect our men and women at arms, why in the hell would we expect to be able to recruit new young men and women to serve in the armed forces?
This is not the first time folks, back in 2003, a black muslim convert launched a grenade attack inside the barracks in Iraq. I believe there was at least one kill.
John Muhammad, another Islamic black convert, and a nutty kid became the "beltway sniper" duo that shot over a dozen civilians on freeways.
A few months back another black muslim convert killed a soldier in a guard shack in Arkansas.
Now this nut-job kills 13 and wounds 30.
Im sure the Noo Yawk Slimes will tell us that he was teased or something extraneous to the story, hardly mentioning the "Allah Akbhar" angle at all.
RKU, it's isn't quite as hypocritical as it seems. When a foreigner (which is what this guy is, even if he was born here) attacks Americans, he's our enemy. When an American attacks the American government, he might be our friend.
The idea that you can be charged with "treason" against a non-nation like America is funny. I thought this recently while reading an article about a scientist who tried to sell secrets to Israel and got caught. They said he faced life in prison. For what? Look at the government sponsored humanities department at your local state college. How does one "betray" a "nation" like this?
Islam absent the polygamy would be no more America's (and the Wests, and all non-Muslims in fact) enemies than Buddhists, or Confucianists, or Taoists, or Sikhs, or Bahais.
What percentage of Muslim marriages in America are polygamous, you idiot?
I guess you don't let fact get in the way of your lifetime goal of combining your frustration over not getting laid and hatred of Muslims into a theory of everything.
"TGGP said...
Hasan was an American. Polygamy is illegal here, so it should not have been a problem for him, and indeed America's native born muslim population has below-average crime rates in stark contrast to Europe....."
I agree with everything you wrote save one thing: Hassan is not an American. He is the son of a foreign emigre, who by his actions, has clearly shown himself to be our enemy.
I know our government and our courts call him a citizen. He isn't. Not in my book. If the government can base their policies on lies and willful disregard of reality, then I feel justified in making my own personal policies without regard to what they misconstrue to be the law.
I would point out that Hasan broke two oaths. His oath as a soldier to perform his duty and obey our laws, and his oath as a doctor to "do no harm".
Still I wound not hang him as a traitor, for his loyalties never lay with our country anyway.
Instead, I would hang him as a spy.
Muslims kill us because their religion tells them to, and because their religion tells them to copy everything ever done by their founder, who killed many unbelievers himself, and stole money and property from them too. That's it. I have no doubt that polygamy causes severe social problems in a society, but it's not the cause of Muslims' being our enemy.
It's simple to understand what drives Muslims: just read their source materials. Koran, Hadiths, Sira.
airtommy said: An assault on a military base is not "terrorism".
According to Islam: Hasan absolutely did terrorize the Infidels as he is specifically instructed to do by the Koran. CNN 360 show had a story on the particular Koranic verse last night.
According to the West: Hasan violated multiple rules of war spelled out by the Geneva Convention.
"All officers are, and are required to qualify with their pistols."
could be. so he did use some US government training against the government that trained him. but maybe not a lot of training, as many soldiers qualify only at the minimum rating, marksman i think it is.
strange that he picked the 5.7 FN as his main gun (i read his other gun was a smith & wesson revolver in .357 mag), as it fires such small fast bullets that it has even more trouble killing people than the army's standard 9x19mm FMJs, which people already complain about endlessly for punching clean through the enemy without killing them. only 1 in 4 people hit got killed. cho at virginia tech killed some people with execution shootings, but not all of them. it seems like he was able to kill fleeing and resisting people more reliably with his glock 19.
reading all the reports, the 5.7 rounds performed as feared - lots of direct hits simply cut small neat holes into people. this was the main reason few military forces worldwide picked up this caliber when it came out. FN designed it to penetrate body armor, but it's not that good at killing you compared to even 9mm ball.
i wonder what the police used. probably .40 smith & wesson JHPs?
"Five of the 13 victims were fellow mental health professionals from three units of the army's Combat Stress Control Detachment, it was disclosed yesterday."
So, nearly 1 in 8 of the people Hasan shot (he shot a total of 43 people) were "fellow mental health professionals." That doesn't sound random to me.
That sounds to me like there's at least an element of revenge shooting here, i.e. he didn't like his coworkers for whatever reasons. Along with not agreeing with the Iraq/Afghani wars and, possibly, being a Muslim fundamentalist (Fort Hood shooting: Texas army killer linked to September 11 terrorists).
Kinda like the Columbine boys shooting lots of jocks in their "revenge" killing spree (although almost no one ever mentions this -- their killings were supposedly random, too).
Airtommy, the government was not randomly "forcing" him; it was expecting him to honor a contract he made.
There is no draft in effect right now, so any talk of forcing seems odd.
The current war presents a similar problem. We don't want to declare war on Islam, so we stick to the fiction that we are at war with "terror". There is also the further problem that international law only recognizes war as being between states. A declaration of war on Islam would be on shaky legal ground.
True. The current "war on Terror" would be much better handled by issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal against specific terrorist organizations, such as Al-Qaeda. Unfortunately, Al-Qaida doesn't have valuable assets which could be raided by private security forces, so that's unlikely to work. A military "police action" is the next-best alternative.
An assault on a military base is not "terrorism".
If a person doesn't want to go overseas and fight in a war, why is our government forcing him to go?
America has no natural enemies.
You say it isn't terrorism. What is it? I think it's safe to say whatever you call it, it was Jihad-related.
Also, I'm (genuinely) curious about your standards. Are attacks against military personnel in general not terrorism? What if a civilian had been among the victims? Present at the shooting? Would either make it terrorism in your mind? Does the fact that military personnel are disarmed at home factor into it?
Also, what's the point of being strict in defining terrorism (far stricter than the press is about defining, say, racism)? Cui bono?
MaryJ: Muslims kill us because their religion tells them to, and because their religion tells them to copy everything ever done by their founder, who killed many unbelievers himself, and stole money and property from them too. That's it. I have no doubt that polygamy causes severe social problems in a society, but it's not the cause of Muslims' being our enemy.
Thanks.
I was wondering why the Tel Aviv Scots-Irish wouldn't just go back to the source of the problem [which is the Koran and the Hadith].
(Fort Hood shooting: Texas army killer linked to September 11 terrorists).
This needs to get widespread dissemination [and it's a crying shame that we have to get our best information from abroad]:
Fort Hood shooting: Texas army killer linked to September 11 terrorists
Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a "spiritual adviser" to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001.
By Philip Sherwell and Alex Spillius
Published: 8:17PM GMT 07 Nov 2009
telegraph.co.uk
Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother's funeral was held there in May that year.
The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.
Hasan's eyes "lit up" when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki's teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday's horrific shooting spree.
As investigators look at Hasan's motives and mindset, his attendance at the mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw. Al-Awlaki moved to Dar al-Hijrah as imam in January, 2001, from the west coast, and three months later the September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour began attending his services. A third hijacker attended his services in California.
Hasan was praying at Dar al-Hijrah at about the same time, and the FBI will now want to investigate whether he met the two terrorists.
Charles Allen, a former under-secretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security, has described al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, as an "al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader to three of the September 11 hijackers... who targets US Muslims with radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home in Yemen"...
I know our government and our courts call him a citizen. He isn't. Not in my book. If the government can base their policies on lies and willful disregard of reality, then I feel justified in making my own personal policies without regard to what they misconstrue to be the law.
This country will go to its demise in part because of the fanaticism of post-Civil War radical Republicans who ratified the ill-conceived, poorly written 14th Amendment. If you read the Constitution you get an idea of how truly prescient the Founders were. Not so the politicians of a century later.
"That's when Todd, a retired soldier who now works as a civilian police officer at Ford Hood, said he shouted at Hasan to stop. "I told him stop and drop your weapons, I identified myself as police and he turned and fired a couple of rounds at me. I didn't hear him say a word ... he just turned and fired.""
In the time it took to make that challenge Todd could have put a dozen bullets in Hasan's back!
I doubt he will be executed. The military hasn't executed anyone in a coon's age and there have been some heinous crimes committed by the troops, e.g., several years ago a black marine murdered his superior officer and then raped and murdered his wife. No death penalty. Three black marines are currently on trial for the torture/murder of a white marine and the rape/murder of his black wife (no racial motivation there according to the USMC). No death penalty case there either. Perhaps if they'd fragged the Officer's Club they might face a firing squad!
OT (or perhaps not?): Lighter sentence for murderer with 'bad genes'
Anonymous said: "So, nearly 1 in 8 of the people Hasan shot (he shot a total of 43 people) were 'fellow mental health professionals.' That doesn't sound random to me."
Just to correct myself, Hasan might have actually shot more than 1 in 8 of his co-workers. I didn't take into account the number of injured who were his co-workers (don't know that number).
It seems entirely reasonable to me to expect the U.S. Congress to be completely clear and explicit about something so important as declaring war. If they lack a party against which to declare war, then they are not at war.
Obama and his Czars--and over 50% of Americans who voted for him--should be charged with treason.
strange that he picked the 5.7 FN as his main gun (i read his other gun was a smith & wesson revolver in .357 mag), as it fires such small fast bullets that it has even more trouble killing people than the army's standard 9x19mm FMJs, which people already complain about endlessly for punching clean through the enemy without killing them.
FMJ anything tends to punch clean through without killing. Not sure why the 9mm gets picked on so much.
But the 5.7 was an odd choice of weapon. The VT killer used a 9mm with notably more lethal results. Perhaps Hassan was simply not much of a weapons guy.
"But the 5.7 was an odd choice of weapon. The VT killer used a 9mm with notably more lethal results. Perhaps Hassan was simply not much of a weapons guy."
Could be the 30 rd extended magazine was too tempting to pass up.
May the bullets issued to his firing squad be dipped in pig fat.
"But the 5.7 was an odd choice of weapon."
Maybe he was a Battlestar Galactica fan.
"the polygamy inside Islam makes Muslims at a constant boil of competition over women dialed up to 11"
That makes it no worse than the modern urban scene in the U.S.
"Gordon said...
"That's when Todd, a retired soldier who now works as a civilian police officer at Ford Hood, said he shouted at Hasan to stop. "I told him stop and drop your weapons, I identified myself as police and he turned and fired a couple of rounds at me. I didn't hear him say a word ... he just turned and fired.""
In the time it took to make that challenge Todd could have put a dozen bullets in Hasan's back!"
Yes, I didn't understand that either. When someone is walking around methodically pumping lead into innocent bystanders, you shouldn't try to mirandize him - you just put him down like a mad dog.
This country will go to its demise in part because of the fanaticism of post-Civil War radical Republicans who ratified the ill-conceived, poorly written 14th Amendment.
In defense of the GOP legislators, the pertinent part of the 14th Amendment reads:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, AND SUBJECT TO THE JURISDICTION THEREOF, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
In 1884, the Supreme Court enforced the "jurisdiction thereof" clause correctly in Elk; but in 1898, they turned on a dime and completely reversed themselves in Wong.
Our problem is not the 14th Amendment; our problem is Wong.
Gray & Harlan were the only common justices in the two cases, and, curiously, both of them switched sides; it looks as though Benjamin Harrison [GOP] and Grover Cleveland [DEM] were the ones who really screwed us on Wong:
ELK -v- WILKINS, 1884, 112 U.S. 94
FOR ELK [2]:
Harlan*, appointed in 1877 by Hayes [GOP]
Woods, appointed in 1881 by Hayes [GOP]
AGAINST ELK [7]:
Blatchford, appointed in 1882 by Arthur [GOP]
Bradley, appointed in 1870 by Grant [GOP]
Field, appointed in 1863 by Lincoln [GOP]
Gray*, appointed in 1882 by Arthur [GOP]
Matthews, appointed in 1881 by Garfield [GOP]
Miller, appointed in 1862 by Lincoln [GOP]
Waite, appointed in 1874 by Grant [GOP]
UNITED STATES -v- WONG KIM ARK, 1898, 169 U.S. 649
FOR WONG [6]:
Brewer, appointed in 1890 by Harrison [GOP]
Brown, appointed in 1891 by Harrison [GOP]
Gray*, appointed in 1882 by Arthur [GOP]
Peckham, appointed in 1896 by Cleveland [DEM]
Shrias, appointed in 1892 by Harrison [GOP]
White, appointed in 1894 by Cleveland [DEM]
AGAINST WONG [2]:
Fuller, appointed in 1888 by Cleveland [DEM]
Harlan*, appointed in 1877 by Hayes [GOP]
["MR. JUSTICE McKENNA, not having been a member of the court when this case was argued, took no part in the decision."]
In the time it took to make that challenge Todd could have put a dozen bullets in Hasan's back!"
Yes, I didn't understand that either. When someone is walking around methodically pumping lead into innocent bystanders, you shouldn't try to mirandize him - you just put him down like a mad dog.
He might not have been confident in his shooting abilities, there might have been civilians between him and the shooter, there might have been civilians behind the shooter. He was a cop not military. The training is different. When you are in the shit you respond the way you were trained.
No, John Brown is an example of someone guilty of treason (no matter how much I admire his motives). He formed a military unit and attacked a US military garrison.
Hasan is guilty of multiple counts of premeditated murder. He will likely get the death penalty.
As for "terrorism", the government has a specific definition for that:
"The unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a Government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives."
Hasan was using unlawful violence, but his objective was not to inculcate fear. The targets of a terrorist act are not necessarily the victims, but rather the survivors. The reaction to a terrorist attack is what terrorists hope to achieve. Their objectives can be to earn a seat at the bargaining table, gain resources, provoke an overreaction, make the government appear weak, cause a withdrawal out of revulsion.
While most military actions cause "fear" as a byproduct, fear is not usually the objective of the use of military force. Psychological operations are a component of effective military force and are often intentionally used to cause fear in the enemy, but PSYOP is not an unlawful act.
There isn't a crime called "terrorism". The acts committed with the objective of terrorism are the crimes which are charged: murder, arson, robbery, kidnapping, etc.
No, John Brown is an example of someone guilty of treason (no matter how much I admire his motives).
. . .
Hasan was using unlawful violence, but his objective was not to inculcate fear.
The purpose of this kind of naive anti-hate/anti-racist thinking is to make excuses for the awful consequences of the multiracial dystopia imposed upon us.
A soldier true to his oath might instead be wondering, though perhaps not aloud, whether his duty is to resist these consequences and their instigators rather than excuse them.
> It seems entirely reasonable to me to expect the U.S. Congress to be completely clear and explicit about something so important as declaring war. <
Nope, keeping it murky is more advantageous to the Congress. According to government, government needs wide powers and gobs of latitude at all times.
The reason they hate us is that we haven't opened the borders wide enough. We haven't embraced them FULLY.
"Open the door... and let 'em innnnnn...." As Paul sang.
(sarcasm off)
In the time it took to make that challenge Todd could have put a dozen bullets in Hasan's back!
That weirded me too. I Hope he's lying. If the policy is warn before firing, anyone's going to say he or she gave warning.
I will be amazed if Hasan does not get executed.*
*50/50 but I will be amazed in a disgusted way.
With all the warning signs that are very quickly emerging in the press, I'm wondering about lawsuits. Are the armed services vulnerable to suit on this? If not, they should be. Every one of these victims' families should (be able to) sue the living crap out of the Army (or the federal intelligence services, as the case may be); make them pay a heavy price for their moral, intellectual, and institutional negligence and cowardice.
Hasan was using unlawful violence, but his objective was not to inculcate fear.
Hmm, and you know this how?
An assault on a military base is not "terrorism".
According to Islam: Hasan absolutely did terrorize the Infidels as he is specifically instructed to do by the Koran.
According to you, America's attack on the Nazi army in WWII was terrorism since we were trying to terrorize them. According to you, terrorizing a child with conceptions of the Inferno makes the Pope a terrorist. Abductio ad absurdum, you lose.
A terrorist is someone who attacks civilians with the hope of gaining a political advantage.
Hasan did not commit an act of terrorism. He committed an act of war and an act of treason.
Terrorism:
- Israel's attack on the Palestinian village Deir Yassin
- Ariel Sharon's attack on Qibya
- Palestinian suicide bomber's attack on an Israeli pizza parlor
- Al Qaeda's attack on the World Trade Center.
Not terrorism:
- Al Qaeda's attack on the USS Cole
- Israel's attack on the USS Liberty
- Pearl Harbor
"Hasan was using unlawful violence, but his objective was not to inculcate fear.
Of course not, his objective was to kill people. If his objective was to inculcate fear, instead of shooting people he would have jumped out of the bushes at them wearing a Frankenstein mask.
Are attacks against military personnel in general not terrorism? What if a civilian had been among the victims? Present at the shooting?
When America does something like this, it's called "collateral damage".
When America does something like this, it's called "collateral damage".
They weren't rhetorical questions. Why respond if you aren't going to answer?
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