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| The Arab Quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem. Step back in time 2000 years - and listen very carefully. |
Ft.
Hood – A visit to the courtroom where Major Abu Nidal Malik Hasan
will answer for the ultraviolent deaths of 13 unarmed soldiers and
the wounding of 32 others means discomfort, cramped seating, and very
poor audio quality.
In
this game of psychological warfare, carried out on a world-wide
electronic stage, exactly what is said is much more important than
what you see, the images being so easy to manipulate, distort,
defocus, obscure. Besides, no cameras or electronic devices of any
kind are allowed inside – even cell phones. Stand-up television
reports are made from a remote location nearly a half-mile distant.
The
big screen televisions in the “digital courtroom” where overflow
spectators are seated carry an image in the darkest mahogany tones of
the courtroom furniture. They are images that remind one of a
Rembrandt portrait, out of which swim the illuminated faces of the
military judge and the court reporter seated at a bench one row below
her. A small corner of the rail around the witness stand is visible,
upon which someone placed a box of Kleenex tissues.
The
voices of the defendant, his standby counsel, and a trio of
high-ranking Army prosecutors come through crisp and clear over
closed circuit video in a darkened room in building remote from the
courthouse, the blinds drawn against the vicious onslaught of the
heat of the summer sun, and the message they carry is laden with
legal jargon, abstruse and obscure to one without legal training or a
lot of courtroom experience – except for vivid, isolated moments of
extreme clarity.
As
the Article 39, pre-trial hearing came to a close on Thursday, June
27, just such a moment passed in the blink of an eye.
Col.
Tara Osborn declared that she expected to hear a plea from Maj. Hasan
the following Tuesday, June 2 – guilty or not guilty.
“If
you choose not to enter a plea, I will enter a plea of not guilty for
you.”
And
then, the moment was gone.
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| A Palestinian arrested by Israeli police on the national holiday, Jerusalem Day, June 6, 2013 |
In
less than the blink of an eye, that unblinking eye of the video
camera passed over the moment as just a sliver in time - something
the judge had earlier in the proceeding described as “an endless
series of still images.”
These
images she instructed prosecutors to somehow “redact” when it
comes to the blood and carnage of the crime scene video they plan to
show prospective jurors who will be seated and questioned in groups
of 12 during the process of selection, and in their opening
statements in this long-awaited trial, which is expected to begin as
a case in chief on August 6.
That
moment flashed fire, an intense, diamond-hard, brilliant light that
bored into the mind's eye like the rotating beam of a massive
lighthouse. It blazed for a millisecond, then revolved into the
endless spiral of time, but it left a very, very clear impression of
the Islamic holy war of terror and one of the chief tactics its
commanders practice.
Hasan
has steadily refused to enter a plea of not guilty, knowing that if
he does nothing, We The People, represented by The Army of The United
States of America, will oblige both he and the cause of jihad and
tell the world, in no uncertain terms, that he is not guilty.
Certainly, for in American, secular jurisprudence, one is considered
not guilty until it is so proven to a jury of one's peers.
The
doctor, a psychiatrist by profession, and by extension a licensed
practitioner of the art of healing through the study of human
behavior and the skillful application of therapeutic prescription and
treatment, is performing on a global stage, prompting his enemy, “the
Great Satan,” as the Imams and Mullahs of theocratic nations of
Islam term our republic, to assert his innocence at every twist and
turn of the legal process.
It
is a process of reaching the ultimate goal – his execution for the
cold-blooded, premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder
of unarmed soldiers standing in line, all hurried up and waiting for
the Army to ship them overseas to fight in what the former
Commander-in-Chief, President George W. Bush, once referred to as a
“Crusade.”
The
prize, the target, the key to the struggle – is aa clear and
present control over the clear and present danger of loss of control
over an entire region rich in petroleum reserves, and the security of
the trade routes by which this precious commodity is shipped to
markets in the west.
And
there you have it. Thus, the reason for all crusades in that area of
the world, century by century, is and has always been control over
certain commodities and the security of the trade routes by which
they are brought to markets in the west.
Cultural
anthropologists and certain ecclesiastic authorities seem to agree
that Herod the Great was actually an Arab, a monarch of a nation that
is today fighting for recognition. It is called Palestine. Jesus was
a claimant to the throne of Israel, a direct heir of David, whose son
Solomon erected the Temple of Jerusalem, the Holy of Holies.
Destroyed not once, but twice – once by the Persians, secondly by
the Romans, the last remnant of that temple remains at the Wailing
Wall, which is surmounted by the Dome of the Rock, an Islamic mosque.
The
State of Israel had no sooner declared its independence in 1948
following a favorable resolution of the United Nations Security
Council than the Arab world attacked. Since then, Israel has never
waited around for an enemy to attack. Its chief defensive strategy is
the practice of pre-emptive, surgical strikes at key offensive
targets – always. It's the national defensive posture.
When
the Jordanian Army began lobbing artillery rounds into the West Bank
in 1967, the Israelis attacked on June 6. On the June 7, they
declared a victorious return to the holiest of holy sites in their
world, Jerusalem. And thus, the Arab Quarter of the “Old City”
became a part of the new capital of Israel.
As
a Palestinian-American, Dr. Hasan is clearly sending the message each
time the military police roll his wheelchair into the courtroom that
he considers himself not guilty of murder, that he is a soldier,
performing a holy duty. Jurors will hear ample evidence of his
convictions when extensive e-mail correspondence with the Mullah
Anwar Awlaki, an Islamic Imam whose hyphenated American citizenship
was of the Yemeni lineage.
A
native American citizen, he defected to the homeland of his parents,
where American forces targeted him last year in an unmanned aerial
vehicle rocket strike as he rode through a desert in that nation. He
previously served as a mentor and teacher of Islam to Maj. Hasan at
an Arlington mosque during Hasan's psychiatric residency at Walter
Reed Army Hospital.
Maj.
Hasan relies on the highest commanders of his enemy, his own nation,
in which Army he still holds the rank of a commissioned officer, to
declare his innocence. It is a classic psychological warfare
operation – one for the books.
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