The Senate starts to lift the cover-up of the truth about the Fort Hood massacre; the New York Times immediately puts the cover back

Here, from yesterday’s New York Times, is more on the report by the Senate Homeland Security Committee—or rather by chairman Joseph Lieberman and ranking Republican member Susan Collins—on the Army’s failure to do anything about the openly declared jihad supporter Maj. Nidal Hasan before he carried out the Fort Hood Massacre.

Before looking at the article, let’s recall what we learned from the Christian Science Monitor’s article on the same subject yesterday. According to the Monitor, the Senate report blames the Army’s failure to act against Hasan on its fear of seeming anti-Muslim, specifically on the fear that any charges made against Hasan over his jihadist beliefs would be seen as an attack on his religion and thus a violation of the First Amendment. The New York Times article, astonishingly, mentions none of that. Instead, reporter Jennifer Steinhauer—a true follower of the Walter Duranty school of journalism—repeatedly states that the reason for the lack of any disciplinary or preventive action against Hasan was mere bureaucratic inefficiency, namely a lack of proper communication between different government agencies. Steinhauer says nothing about the fact, revealed in the Senate report, that the Army didn’t want to take any steps against a Muslim, because he was a Muslim.

What can one say? The Department of Defense’s own report last year on the Fort Hood massacre was a huge, double cover-up, not only saying nothing about the fact that Hasan was a Muslim and a well known supporter of violent jihad against the United States who was known to be in contact with a leading jihadist terrorist in Yemen, but also saying nothing about the fact that he was able to stay in the Army and carry out his mass murder of Army personnel solely because the Army, not wishing to seem discriminatory against a Muslim and to lessen Muslim diversity in the Army, ignored his open expressions of jihadism and his connections with jihadists. Now a Senate committee has started to lift the veil of that cover-up, and what does the New York Times do? It renews and protects the cover-up by not reporting what the Senate committee actually said about the Army’s reasons for not taking action against a dangerous Muslim who it knew was dangerous.

Here is the Times article:

Authorities Faulted in Fort Hood Attack
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

WASHINGTON—Various federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies missed an opportunity to prevent the 2009 shootings at Fort Hood that left 13 people dead and dozens injured, even though they had information that the man charged in the attack, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, had communicated with a terrorism suspect and harbored extreme political proclivities, according to a new report.

The report was prepared by the offices of Senators Joseph I. Lieberman and Susan Collins, who said they were rebuffed numerous times by law enforcement and other government agencies in their attempt to investigate the attack. Mr. Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, is chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and Ms. Collins, of Maine, is the ranking Republican.

The conclusions of the report echoed a Pentagon review released last year that detailed a systemic breakdown within the military that permitted Major Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, to advance through the ranks despite concerns that he embraced violent Islamic extremism.

“Instead of disciplining him or removing him from the military altogether,” Mr. Lieberman said at a news conference at Capitol Hill, “they inexplicably promoted him and, in my opinion, outrageously suggested that the evidence of his radicalization showed a knowledge of Islam that could benefit our military and our country instead of showing that he was a clear and present danger to our military and our country.”

Among the findings, the senators said, was that government officials knew Major Hasan had communicated with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric and terrorism suspect now residing in Yemen, but failed to alert the Army of this fact; that from 2003 to 2009, when he was a psychiatric resident at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, he openly suggested that revenge might be a defense for the Sept. 11 attacks; and that he spoke defensively about Osama bin Laden.

“But what followed,” Mr. Lieberman said, “was a lackadaisical investigation of Hasan by the F.B.I., coupled with internal disagreements and a failure to use effective intelligence analysis that led the bureau to end its inquiry into Hasan prematurely, thereby, I’m afraid, contributing to the government’s failure to prevent the attack at Fort Hood.”

Ms. Collins sharply faulted the “the inexcusably inadequate investigation conducted by the Washington Joint Terrorism Task Force.”

“As the chairman has pointed out,” she said, “it was about a half-day—four hours.”

The accusations of poor communication and coordination are similar to those made about the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Col. Tom Collins, an Army spokesman, said, “We appreciate the committee’s efforts to examine circumstances surrounding the Fort Hood shooting incident, and we will closely examine the report’s findings and recommendations.”

In a statement, the F.B.I. said, “During the internal F.B.I. review undertaken immediately after the attack at Fort Hood, we identified several of the areas of concern outlined in the report, and, as noted in the report, have implemented changes to our systems and processes to address them.”

The report said the F.B.I. and its Joint Terrorism Task Forces ought to share information more effectively and coordinate operations with other federal, state and local agencies.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 05, 2011 11:48 AM | Send