The things Hasan's jurors won't hear about

“How many of you believe that Muslim soldiers accused of intentionally killing fellow soldiers should have to prove their innocence?” - a question proposed by Maj. Hasan and disallowed by the judge

Ft. Hood – It's the thing no one talks about, no one is allowed to bring up, and no one dares to give voice in this global war of wits and nerve that long ago reached American shores – the war of terror.

But it's a reality in the U.S. Army, and it figures very large in the case of Major Abu Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist accused of the murder of 13 and the intentional attempted premeditated murder of an additional 32 persons on Nov. 5, 2009.

Soldiers of the Muslim faith who kill or attempt to kill their fellow Americans in uniform do so for religious reasons.

Victims who survived the murderous onslaught at the Soldier Readiness Center recall two things with perfect unanimity. The killer had cold, penetrating eyes; he stared with an intensity they had never before seen as he stalked his victims with a blazing pistol.

As he began his rampage, he shouted, more than once, “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.”

It is the traditional battle cry of the jihad.

In spite of that fact and mountains of evidence to the contrary, the Army will not acknowledge that his attack and the attacks of numerous other soldiers are part of a war of terror. The ruling is that what happened was a case of workplace violence, the victims of which are not eligible for a Purple Heart decoration, veterans benefits, and disability compensation.

There are other facts in similar cases little known or acknowledged and dating back decades. The cases are too numerous to list here, but Erik Stakelbeck has authored a book-length account with a comprehensive listing of similar crimes. Its title, “The TerroristNext Door,” tells the story very well. (click here)

Here are a few, and they all have one central theme involving murderous attacks on Americans both in and out of uniform. The perpetrators were devout Muslims who had a conscientious objection to making war on their fellow Islamic faithful.

John Williams changed his last name to Muhammad following a conversion to Islam in 1987 in which he joined the Nation of Islam. Despite a court martial for striking a fellow non-commissioned officer, willfully disobeying orders and wrongfully taking property, he was admitted into the Army following 8 years of service in the Louisiana National Guard.

MP's placed him in handcuffs and the Army reassigned him to another outfit after suspecting him in a stealthy night time attack with thermite grenades on a tent full of sleeping soldiers at a staging area in Kuwait during the build up to the 1991 ground attack in the Gulf War. He was never charged with the crime. (click here)

Following his honorable discharge in 1994, he kidnapped his children and took them to the Caribbean island of Antigua where he engaged in the brokering of false identity documents and smuggling illegal immigrants. In November, 2009, justice caught up with him when he was executed for the sniper murders of 10 persons in Virginia and Maryland and the attempted murder of an additional 3.

Before a confidential informant gave federal officers a clue to his identity, he and his fellow assailant John Malvo, a Jamaican youth, claimed 11 victims in a cross-country murder spree from Washington state through Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama. Authorities suspect that he intended to kill his ex-wife in Washington, D.C.; he taunted law men with messages that pointed to motives some claim were those of a serial killer, while other experts classify as a string of murders carried out by killers on a spree.

It is known that he helped provide security during the Nation of Islam's 1995 Million Man March on D.C. He is said to have modeled his ideas on those of Osama bin Laden and approved of the 9/11 attacks.

Sergeant Hasan Akbar of the 101st Airborne awaits execution at theArmy Disciplinary Barracks, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, for his conviction for the premeditated murder of two officers and attempting to kill 14 other men as they slept in a tent at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait in 2003. (click here)

It is the first fatal fragging case since Vietnam. Akbar was rated as a substandard soldier and experienced hostility from his fellow servicemen over his religion. A native of Watts, California, he was raised by a stepfather of Palestinian extraction and a mother who converted to Islam when he was a child. Jurors held that his acts were premeditated because he shut off a generator prior to the attack in order to plunge the crime scene into darkness.

His execution is pending a Supreme Court review and the signature of the President on his death order.

Private First Class Jason Naser Abdo grew up in Garland, Texas, the son of aChristian American woman and a Palestinian father who raised him as a devout Muslim. He claimed conscientious objector status in 2010 when he learned he would be deployed to Afghanistan. (click here)

Army commanders of the 101^st Airborne Division decided to discharge him, but while processing the order, they discovered child pornography on a laptop computer issued to him for language training. When he learned of his court martial, he fled Ft. Knox, Kentucky, AWOL, and turned up at Ft. Hood where, according to a news lead written by two “Los Angeles Times” reporters, he had “holed up in a motel room in Killeen this week...with a 40-caliber handgun, a cache of bomb-making ingredients and a plan to make this military city ache all over again.” (click here)

Pfc. Jason Naser Abdo

A suspicious clerk at a gun store who had retired from the local police department and the Marine Corps called the cops when Abdo started asking off the wall questions about what kind of gunpowder to use in an improvised explosive device.

When a federal judge in Waco sentenced him to two consecutive life terms and many years more in the pen, he shouted the name of Maj. Hasan as U.S.Marshals led him away. (click here)

Maj. Hasan presented a slide show to his fellow psychiatric residents at Walter Reed Army Hospital in 2007. Its title, “The Koranic World as it Relates to Muslims in the Military,” told the story about his eventual conscientious objection to serving in Afghanistan. 

Its conclusion, “We love death more than you love life,” is that Muslim soldiers should not be ordered to fight in wars against fellow Muslims, as a matter of conscientious objection. (click here)

Jurors will eventually hear about Maj. Hasan's religious objections to serving in Afghanistan, where he was scheduled to deploy in 2009, but not during their selection.

They will be admonished and instructed that the reason the accused is wearing the ACU, or camouflaged Army Combat Uniform, is related to his medical condition of paralysis from the chest down. They will also be instructed by the judge, Col. Tara Osborn, that he is wearing a beard for religious reasons, those of an Islamic faithful.

Judge Osborn will instruct the prospective panelists that they are not to allow personal prejudice against his appearance or his avowed religious convictions to taint their ability to assess the facts in the accusations against Maj. Hasan.