Dr. Kathy Platoni, a clinical psychologist, retired Army colonel, and Fort Hood survivor, wrote today in the Wall Street Journal
an excellent summary of the total miscarriage of justice known as the Fort Hood Workplace Violence incident. Her essay is a virtual indictment of the former supervisors of Nidal Hasan, the senior Army officers and civilians at the pentagon at the time, and three successive secretaries of defense, for refusing to acknowledge the massacre as a terrorist attack. Anyone who would defend the politically correct behavior of those just mentioned, should harken to the instruction given to such blind allegiance to the indefensible : "Dispute the facts!"
You can read Dr. Platoni's entire essay by clicking on the above hyperlink, but herewith some pertinent snippets:
It was more than five years ago that the gunshots rang out, but those of us who survived can still hear their echoes. On Nov. 5, 2009, an Army psychiatrist named Nidal Hasan—an American radicalized by extremist Islamic beliefs—opened fire on his fellow soldiers in Fort Hood, Texas, killing 14 people, including an unborn child, and wounding 32...At about 1:34 p.m., Hasan, seated in a building on base and armed with an FN five-seven pistol and a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver, paused to bow his head. Then he stood up from behind a cubicle, shouted “Allahu akbar!” (God is great) and began spraying bullets throughout the room...Hasan took direct aim at those in uniform, including 21-year-old Pvt. Francheska Velez, who had disarmed bombs in Iraq and recently learned she was nine weeks pregnant...Hasan’s goal was to kill as many soldiers as possible. He was cold-eyed and systematic. We should have seen him coming...The FBI and the Defense Department possessed sufficient information, collected over several years, to have detected Hasan’s radicalization. During his training, Hasan routinely and unmistakably violated strict standards by communicating with suspected terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki—email that the FBI intercepted. In 2007 he was required for his residency to give a scholarly psychiatric presentation. Instead he lectured on Islam, stating that nonbelievers should be beheaded and set on fire, and suggested that Muslim-Americans in the military pose a risk of fratricide. In another talk, Hasan justified suicide bombings on grounds that the U.S. is at war with Islam...It is a gross miscarriage of justice that no one who supervised the shooter—overlooked his behavior and promoted him—has been held accountable. That the massacre is still labeled an incident of workplace violence committed by a disgruntled employee is delusional and contemptible. Because the massacre was not recognized as a terrorist attack, victims were deemed ineligible for combat-injury benefits, the Purple Heart, and its civilian counterpart, the Defense of Freedom medal. Three successive defense secretaries refused to change this designation, and five years passed...Survivors of the massacre and the families of the dead are now finding some measure of justice. Congress has rewritten the language governing fallen warriors, and Army Secretary John McHugh has announced that Fort Hood victims will receive long-overdue medals. They will be offered burial plots at Arlington National Cemetery and compensation pay upon retirement. But further details remain unclear...The victims of Nidal Hasan were denied pay, benefits and recognition because our leaders refused to acknowledge what the massacre clearly was: an act of terror by an Islamic extremist. They said it wasn’t combat, but it sure as hell felt like that. Hasan turned Fort Hood into a battlefield...Congress has provided an opening to give my fellow soldiers what they are owed. It’s time for the Army to do so.
