Comments - Lieutenant Colonel Allen B West (US Army, Ret)
This past Thursday 13 American Soldiers were
killed and another 30 wounded at a horrific mass shooting at US Army
installation, Ft Hood Texas. As I watched in horror and then anger I
recalled my two years of final service in the Army as a Battalion
Commander at Ft Hood, 2002-2004.
My wife and two daughters were stunned at the
incident having lived on the post in family housing.
A military installation, whether it is Army,
Navy, Air Force, Marine, or Coast Guard, is supposed to be a safe
sanctuary for our Warriors and their families. It is intended to
provide a home whereby our “Band of Brothers and Sisters” can find
solace and bond beyond just the foxhole but as family units.
A military installation is supposed to be a place
where our Warriors train for war, to serve and protect our Nation.
On Thursday, 5 November 2009 Ft Hood became a
part of the battlefield in the war against Islamic totalitarianism
and state sponsored terrorism.
There may be those who feel threatened by my
words and would even recommend they not be uttered. To those
individuals I say step aside because now is not the time for
cowardice. Our Country has become so paralyzed by political
correctness that we have allowed a vile and determined enemy to
breach what should be the safest place in America, an Army post.
We have become so politically correct that our
media is more concerned about the stress of the shooter, Major Nidal
Malik Hasan. The misplaced benevolence intending to portray him as a
victim is despicable. The fact that there are some who have now
created an entire new classification called; “pre-virtual vicarious
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)” is unconscionable.
This is not a “man caused disaster”. It is what
it is, is an Islamic jihadist attack.
We have seen this before in 2003 when a SGT Hasan
of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) threw hand grenades and
opened fire into his Commanding Officer’s tent in Kuwait. We have
seen the foiled attempt of Albanian Muslims who sought to attack Ft
Dix, NJ. Recently we saw a young convert to Islam named Carlos
Bledsoe travel to Yemen, receive terrorist training, and return to
gun down two US Soldiers at a Little Rock, Arkansas Army recruiting
station. We thwarted another Islamic terrorist plot in North
Carolina which had US Marine Corps Base, Quantico as a target.
What have we done with all these prevalent
trends? Nothing.
What we see are recalcitrant leaders who are
refusing to confront the issue, Islamic terrorist infiltration into
America, and possibly further into our Armed Services. Instead we
have a multiculturalism and diversity syndrome on steroids.
Major Hasan should have never been transferred to
Ft Hood, matter of fact he should have been Chaptered from the Army.
His previous statements, poor evaluation reports, and the fact that
the FBI had him under investigation for jihadist website posting
should have been proof positive.
However, what we have is a typical liberal
approach to find a victim, not the 13 and 30 Soldiers and Civilian,
but rather the poor shooter. A shooter who we are told was a great
American, who loved the Army and serving his Nation and the Council
on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) stating that his actions had
nothing to do with religious belief.
We know that Major Hasan deliberately planned
this episode; he did give away his possessions. He stood atop a
table in the confined space of the Soldier Readiness Center shouting
“Allahu Akhbar”, same chant as the 9-11 terrorists and those we
fight against overseas in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters of
operation.
No one in leadership seems willing to sound the
alarm for the American people; they are therefore complicit in any
future attacks. Our Congress should suspend the insidious action to
vote on a preposterous and unconstitutional healthcare bill and
resolve the issue of “protecting the American people”.
The recent incidents in Dearborn Michigan, Boston
Massachusetts, Dallas Texas, and Chicago Illinois should bear
witness to the fact that we have an Islamic terrorism issue in
America. And don’t have CAIR call me and try to issue a vanilla
press statement; they are an illegitimate terrorist associated
organization which should be disbanded.
We have Saudi Arabia funding close to 80% of the
mosques in the United States, one right here in South Florida,
Pompano Beach. Are we building churches and synagogues in Saudi
Arabia? Are “Kaffirs” and “Infidels” allowed travel to Mecca?
So much for peaceful coexistence.
Saudi Arabia is sponsoring radical Imams who
enter into our prisons and convert young men into a virulent
Wahabbist ideology….one resulting in four individuals wanting to
destroy synagogues in New York with plastic explosives. Thank God
the explosives were dummy. They are sponsoring textbooks which
present Islamic centric revisionist history in our schools.
We must recognize that there is an urgent need to
separate the theo-political radical Islamic ideology out of our
American society. We must begin to demand surveillance of suspected
Imams and mosques that are spreading hate and preaching the
overthrow of our Constitutional Republic……that speech is not
protected under First Amendment, it is sedition, and if done by an
American, treason.
There should not be some 30 Islamic terrorist
training camps in America that has nothing to do with First
Amendment, Freedom of Religion. The Saudis are not our friends and
any American political figure who believes such is delusional.
When tolerance becomes a one way street it
certainly leads to cultural suicide. We are on that street. Liberals
cannot be trusted to defend our Republic, because their sympathies
obviously lie with their perceived victim, Major Nidal Malik Hasan.
I make no apologies for these words, and anyone
angered by them, please, go to Ft Hood and look into the eyes of the
real victims. The tragedy at Ft Hood Texas did not have to happen.
Consider now the feelings of those there and on every military
installation in the world. Consider the feelings of the Warriors
deployed into combat zones who now are concerned that their loved
ones at home are in a combat zone.
