We cannot fully know what leads a man to do such a thing. – President Barack Obama on Fort Hood mass murderer Dr. (MAJ) Nidal Malik Hasan, USA, 7 November, 2009.

They are Americans of every race, faith, and station. They are Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers. They are descendents of immigrants and immigrants themselves. They reflect the diversity that makes this America. – ibid. on Major Hasan’s victims and the rest of the members of the Uniformed Services.

“We cannot fully know”!? With all due respect, Mr. President, are you really that big an idiot? When a man named Nidal Malik Hasan jumps up in a room full of soldiers, shouts “Allahu Akbar!” – “God is great” in Arabic – and fires 100 rounds of ammunition into the crowd, killing 13 and injuring about 30-40 others, I think we can know fully what drove him to do such a thing. And before the T & D crowd starts whining that I’m being unfair to Muslims or Islam, I’m not. I’m not saying being a Muslim makes you a terrorist. I’m saying being a Muslim who stands up in a crowded room, shouts “Allahu Akbar!” and empties three 30-round magazines makes you a terrorist. I don’t care what his cousins say.

I’ve written nothing on this topic yet for two reasons. One: I haven’t been around a computer enough to pound on the keyboard about it. Two: I wanted more than a name to go on before I started calling Major Hasan an Islamist terrorist. What I had not heard about until yesterday – and I will thank the Washington Examiner (www.washingtonexaminer.com), a free tabloid paper read by people on the subway, for handing it to me – was President Obama’s comments on the incident. 

First the facts. As everyone not in a cave knows, Major Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, apparently shot up a deployment readiness center at Fort Hood, Texas last Thursday. Twelve soldiers and a civilian died and some 30-odd were injured. The 10-minute rampage ended when local police Sergeant Kimberly Munley – herself wounded by Hasan – shot and wounded the terrorist. Hasan is alive and recovering in the hospital as he awaits his arrest and prosecution. As with any story of this nature, the details were sketchy at first, and the media quickly jumped to their own conclusions on what happened and why. MSNBC’s website stated unequivocally that Major Hasan’s motive was that he was upset at his impending deployment. That, of course, was before it came out that (a) Major Hasan is a life-long Muslim; (b) he attended a mosque in the Washington, DC area at the same time and with the same radical imam as two of the 9/11 hijackers; (c) the same radical cleric praised Hasan for his actions and said that Hasan was a model to all Muslims in the US military – i.e. Muslim soldiers should shoot up rooms full of non-Muslim soldiers – calling those who don’t “traitors to their religion”; (d) Hasan, during his schooling, and while in the military,  made presentations equating suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on grenades to save their comrades; and (e) Hasan had expressed concerns about fighting “his own people” (i.e. other Muslims) and was dismayed that President Obama hadn’t summarily pulled troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Let’s cut the garbage, here. This isn’t a Tolerance and Diversity issue. This is a Radical Islam issue. We have allowed a man who attended a mosque run by an insane cleric to pin on the rank of a field-grade officer in the US armed forces. That’s the functional equivalent to allowing a Soviet spy into an operational position in the CIA during the Cold War. When we allow the enemy into our national security apparatus, people die. And the people who follow the radical brands of Islam are – by their own words and deeds – our enemies. “Death to America!” The 1979 attack on our Embassy in Teheran. The dozen or so hijackings and bombings throughout the 80s. Mir Aimal Kasi. The bombings of our embassies in Africa. 9/11. Osama bin Laden. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. You get the picture.

That would be bad enough, as would the typical Leftist media response of jumping to the conclusion that Major Hasan’s Muslim background could have nothing to do with his terrorist act. But, two days after the attack, and with plenty of information available, including the fact that the perpetrator was still alive, President Obama goes and talks about how “We can never fully know” why Major Hasan did what he did. That sentence was better left out of that speech. Without it, it wouldn’t appear that President Obama – accused by his more irrational critics of being a closet radical Muslim – was trying to cover up Major Hasan’s motive. And to pile insult on top of injury, President Obama went on to preach about the diversity of the armed forces and the veterans thereof. In context (you can read the full text of the speech here), the diversity comment seemed to be the most important aspect of the military. “Our veterans are a very diverse group. And oh, by the way, they are also brave and patriotic.”

There is some good news on this story. Police Sergeant Munley has survived her wounds (so far). Major Hasan has also survived, and his condition is improving. I call this good news because he’ll live to stand trial. The trial should leave out any doubt as to his motive and the Left wing of the media will be forced to equate his crime to the Islamist terrorist act that it was. Once convicted, Major Hasan will be sentenced to death, I am sure. In addition to 13 counts of premeditated murder and who knows how many “attempts”, at least one of Major Hasan’s victims was a superior officer (one of the dead was a Lieutenant Colonel), and assaulting a superior commissioned officer is itself a potentially capital offense. 

If I were in charge, I’d be awarding Sergeant Munley with the highest military decoration a civilian can earn (which may be the Distinguished Service Cross, one step below the Medal of Honor, but I could be wrong) in addition to any medals she gets from the Police Force. I’d also pin a Purple Heart on the chest of every wounded in that deployment center for wounds received in an engagement with the enemy – an award not without precedent: A few soldiers (including a recruiter) got them for injuries sustained in the Oklahoma City bombing, and several got them for injuries sustained in 9/11 if I recall correctly. Civilians would get the Defense of Freedom medal (the civilian equivalent of the Purple Heart). Furthermore, I would be taking a close look at security clearance and military eligibility questionnaires. Given what we know, I would say adding a line asking the question: “Have you ever attended or belonged to a mosque presided over by an imam who preached violence against the United States? If yes, give details.” I’d also make such mosques illegal for service members to attend. And if you think I’m being too hard on Muslims, go find me a priest, minister, or rabbi who has preached that committing mass murder of their comrades is an exemplary model for Christian or Jewish soldiers to follow. 

Because we practice freedom of religion in this country, I do not advocate barring Muslims from military service. However, because Radical Islam has made us its enemy, Radical Muslims ought not be allowed into positions where they can affect national security.