Tag Archives: joe lieberman

Purple Heart for Soldier Killed in Arkansas?

Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn) has joined lawmakers from Texas and Arkansas who have been lobbying to have victims of the Fort Hood and Arkansas recruiting center attacks awarded Purple Hearts.

At a hearing Wednesday, Lieberman said he will try to insert an amendment in the annual defense authorization bill (currently in conference committee) to award a posthumous Purple Heart to Army recruiter Pvt. William Long, who was killed in a brazen 2009 shooting by a radical Islamic adherent.

The Purple Heart is awarded for wounds due to combat.  In order to award the medal, the US government would have to recognize the attack in Arkansas by Abdulhakim Muhammad — now serving a life sentence for the attack — as an act of combat by the enemy.  The same justification might ultimately be used for every other attack by terrorists inside the borders of the United States, including the attack at Fort Hood (“allegedly”) by US Army Maj Nidal Malik Hasan.

Interestingly, that would also open up such attacks to charges of treason Read more

Rep King: Extremists have Joined US Military

Update:  Members of the joint Congressional committee “blasted” the Department of Defense for downplaying talk of terrorism and referring to the Fort Hood massacre as “workplace violence.”  The DoD was accused of being “politically correct” in avoiding association of the terrorist attacks with Islam — the same thing it was found at fault for in the months leading up to the Fort Hood shooting.

US Representative Peter King (R-NY), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is holding another hearing on “homegrown terrorism.”  While he was criticized for his earlier hearings on the subject for the implied negativity toward American Muslims, these new hearings are a joint meeting between the House and Senate committees, showing “threat is legitimate,” according to King.

King and Senator Joe Lieberman, his Senate counterpart from Connecticut, both agreed that US military soft targets are “increasingly in the terrorists’ scope.”

There is growing evidence that homegrown terrorists see military personnel and bases as legitimate, high-value targets, lawmakers Read more

Jewish Chaplain Gets Waiver for Beard

Rabbi Menachem Stern previously sued the US Army for accepting him as a chaplain candidate — and then unaccepting him when they realized he intended to keep his beard.

The Aleph Institute, a Chabad-Lubavitch organization that assists Jewish military personnel, Jewish inmates and their families, and Sens. Charles E. Schumer, Kristen Gillibrand and Joseph Lieberman sought to persuade top brass that the rabbi should be able to keep his beard.

As have many others, they cited Chaplain Goldstein Read more

Fort Hood Families, Victims Seek $750M from Army

The US Army is facing “administrative claims” by 83 victims and families of the Fort Hood massacre in 2009 seeking $750 million in compensation.  The filings assert

willful negligence enabled psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan to carry out a terrorist attack at Fort Hood, Texas…
 
[They] said the government had clear warnings that Hasan, who is scheduled to go on trial in March, posed a grave danger to the lives of soldiers and civilians.  Read more

Report: Troops Who Support DADT Can Find Another Job

As reported at FoxNews, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen took those who might still support DADT to task:

Military members who have a problem with a change in policy to allow gays to serve openly may find themselves looking for a new job, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned Thursday.

This seems consistent with prior leadership statements that those who support the current law could “vote with their feet.”  However, to be fair, it seems the Admiral was excessively paraphrased.  It seems the relevant quote is actually:  Read more