Past the first reports ....

There are some simple truths about what happened at Fort Hood.

First, to get the best picture this weekend, you needed to head across the pond to get the right information.

Second was that this was a terrorist attack and/or an act of treason. Full stop.

URR over at USNIBlog about caught my mood in my darker moments. What I would like to do is repeat my comments there, here.

I think the time may at last be ripe to pull a page from the past. Remember back in the Cold War the questions you were asked about when you joined and/or went for a security clearance? The ones about any association you had or once had that with Communist organizations and/or philosophy?

Take that and mix in the more recent push against hate groups – then give it to the lawyers to chew on.

Well – even without singling out a single religion, something to the effect “Do you now, or have you in the past been associated with any secular or religious organizations that advocate violence against the United States government, military or people – or supports those who advocate such violence.”

That isn’t too much of a departure from what we do right now, and should give some more top cover to those who hear one of their coworkers spout off.

We don’t tolerate those who voice sympathy with Nazis – we shouldn’t tolerate those who support Islamic terrorism, or terrorism of any kind.

There are some things a tolerant society must be intolerant of. And yes, it takes moral and professional courage.

Right now, the only high profile official I see with overt intellectual, moral, and professional courage from is Senator Lieberman (D-CT).

Mr. Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said he will work with the panel's ranking Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, to investigate the shooter's motives.

"I think the first steps that should be taken in this regard should be taken by the U.S. Army, because this was an attack on American troops," Mr. Lieberman said. "You've got to see it as if 12 American troops were killed in Afghanistan.

"I am intending to begin a congressional investigation of my homeland security committee into what were the motives, what were the motives of Hasan in carrying out this brutal mass murder ... and to ask whether the Army missed warning signs that should have led them to essentially discharge him."

Mr. Lieberman dismissed the notion that Maj. Hasan's freedom of speech rights would have been violated if the Army had stepped in to discipline or discharge him for his reported comments before the shooting.

"Really, in the U.S. Army, this is not a matter of constitutional freedom of speech," he said. "If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have zero tolerance. He should have been gone."

'Nuff said, because you are not going to get anything of use from the MSM.

For example, from Greyhawk.

ROBERTS: So you were acting like a soldier. You were acting heroically. We should point out that you're with the 20th Engineer Battalion and despite your best efforts and I guess the efforts of your comrades, as well, four members of the battalion were killed, 10 others were injured. And you were shot in the hip and you didn't realize it at the time?

Foster: I had realized it at first, but with that much adrenaline, you tend to forget things.

But here's how CNN is reporting their own interview now:

Among the wounded in the shooting was Pvt. Joseph Foster, 21, who was hit in the hip as he sat at the base's military processing center, preparing paperwork for his January deployment to Afghanistan.

He said he "was sitting in about the second row back when the assailant stood up and yelled 'Allahu akbar' in Arabic and he opened fire," Foster said Monday on CNN's "American Morning."

Foster, 21, said he wasn't clear about whether the gunman said those exact words, noting that "with that much adrenaline, you tend to forget things."

And hero or not, that's what you get for telling CNN something they don't want to hear.

Pathetic.

It also appears that you cannot look to senior uniformed leadership for direction and guidance as well.

Over at BLACKFIVE, LaughingWolf outlines it well.

Now add the final ingredient: A General of the Army who says that losing diversity would be a greater loss than 13 dead and 29 wounded.

And you wonder why no one was willing to step forward and make a formal complaint or notice about a killer who was very open about who and what he was? You wonder why no one pushed the obvious investigations, from the FBI on?

I had more, but right now, just am not sure it is worth it. No leader, civilian or military, is going to own up to their responsibility and all have just shown how much they truly think of those who serve in our military. Disgusted doesn't begin to cover my feelings, and I truly fear what is to come, for if we are not willing to deal fairly and evenly with all, then we have already lost all. Failure to face facts and deal realistically means more and true horrors to come.

For the terminally stupid out there, I am NOT advocating discrimination. On the contrary, I am pointing out the reverse discrimination -- and rampant PC idiocy -- that allowed this horrific event to take place. Or, do you think that if this had been someone with Savage or Beck book to their name that our great and mighty media would not be shouting about the right wing terrorist as loudly as they could?

There you go. Who do I wish we had right now to lead from the front? How about General/Admiral Varadarajan?

So, first, it should be part of the mandatory duty of every member of the armed forces to report any remarks or behavior of fellow service members that could be construed as indicating unfitness for duty for any reason.

Second, there should be a duty to report such data up the chain of command, regardless of the assessment of the local commander.

Third, there should be a single high-level Pentagon or army department that follows all such cases in real time, whether the potential ground for alarm is sympathy with white supremacism, radical Islamism, endorsement of suicide bombing or simple mental unfitness.

Let the first lesson of the Hasan atrocity be this: The U.S. Army has to be a PC-free zone. Our democracy and our way of life depend on it.

Read the whole thing by Tunku Varadarajan at Forbes, but look back at the above --- and be sad.

Why sad? Because the three points he brings up above already exist. The problem is that there is a command climate that causes people to balk because they have no top cover. What General Casey did over the weekend reinforce that command climate.

There must be a change in either the personalities or the climate. Right now, we are stuck in the status quo - and that won't do.

---

UPDATE: If you want to see the shooter's brief - here it is.