Maj Nidal Malik Hasan’s attorney, John Galligan, has told the press he has received notice the military plans to present evidence of “aggravating factors” to the Article 32 hearing which will determine the judicial course of the case. According to Galligan and others, the only reason to include such factors would be to support a capital sentence.
Hasan faces 13 counts of premeditated murder, among other charges.
The Department of Defense announced yesterday that 26 recommendations from the investigation of the Fort Hood massacre would be implemented in the “near term.” Some articles have focused on the decision to implement a DoD-wide privately owned weapon policy, but a more interesting policy change is about Chaplains (as was the related portion of the original report).
The DoD will implement a policy Read more
The Washington Post has an interesting article on a Muslim American Soldier who is engaged in “battles on friendly ground.” The article is essentially a superficial re-telling of US Army Spc Zachari Klawonn’s story, even to the point of being dismissive toward two other Muslim Soldiers (Capt. Rhana Kurdi and Sgt. Fahad Kamal) who gave statements supportive of the Army with regard to their faith.
According to the article, Klawonn has filed “complaint after complaint with his commanders.” (It is unclear if this is inclusive of the “20 complaints” he has filed with the equal opportunity office.) He believes he has mild depression and has seen a psychologist a half dozen times since joining the Army. When he enlisted, he was “grilled” by those at his mosque who wanted to know how he could kill Muslims, which was “forbidden.”
Klawonn was allegedly told by superiors that he needed to be careful, because he fit the same profile as Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan–a Muslim soldier disgruntled with the Army, complete with a psychological history and close associates who seem to believe his military service is incompatible with Islam. While Klawonn may have been understandably Read more
A somewhat under-the-radar controversy erupted in late January at Vanderbilt University. Apparently, the Muslim Students Association and the Army and Navy ROTC programs jointly sponsored a discussion about Muslims in the military, a forum entitled “Common Ground: Being Muslim in the Military.”
Vanderbilt junior Devin Saucier, who is also a member of the Youth for Western Civilization, and Vanderbilt Islamic chaplain Awadh Binhazim participated in a heated exchange that was videotaped and made the rounds of the internet. (It received enough publicity that Vanderbilt issued a statement clarifying Binhazim’s relationship with the school and expressing its support for free speech.)
Through several iterations of the question, Saucier asked Binhazim if he supported the Islamic belief that homosexuality was a capital crime. After a variety Read more
The Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers was one of several groups that recently met with White House staff members as part of a White House meeting with the Secular Coalition for America.
According to the MAAF web page on the meeting, president Jason Torpy presented a briefing at the meeting that claimed to explain the relative percentages of faiths represented in the military. His briefing grossly misrepresented numeric government data, apparently in an attempt to strengthen the MAAF position and demands.
In what the MAAF called a “new MAAF demographics study,” which was actually an MAAF presentation of a study done by the Defense Manpower Data Center, the MAAF said
DoD data show nearly one-quarter of the military is nontheistic
Using the DMDC data, the MAAF claimed that 23.4% of the Department of Defense was “nontheistic.” Based on this number, according to the MAAF, “nontheists constitute a significant portion of the military.” Thus,
Military and Civilian leadership must recognize and support this significant demographic
Some might say numbers don’t lie, but the MAAF certainly demonstrated that one can misrepresent them to support untrue Read more
Local Texas news reports indicate that the reaction to the Fort Hood massacre may be having some reaching and current consequences.
The Dallas Morning News reportedly asked why Louay Safi was allowed to lecture about Islam on US military bases. Initially, the Army praised Safi, but it subsequently announced that he had been banned from military bases due to a criminal inquiry initiated by NCIS. According to The News, Safi Read more
Trijicon, the now-infamous maker of high quality gun sights, has been accused of illegally “proselytizing” for adding Bible references to the weapon sights it provided to the US military. The initial accusation has already been discussed, as has Trijicon’s voluntary offer to remove the inscriptions.
The term proselytize carries a negative stigma and is frequently misused, as it has been in this case. An astute letter to the editor at the Stars and Stripes notes that it would likely take more than 6 characters “to convert” someone from or to a faith, as the definition of proselytize indicates.
Still, the accusations of “conversion by Bible reference” have been largely based on the presence of New Testament references to Jesus Christ on Trijicon’s sights. However, not a single major news outlet asked why Trijicon selected the specific verses they did. It would appear most, if not all, made the assumption that Trijicon was picking “Jesus verses” for the ineptly worded purpose of “proselytizing”–an assessment supported by news organizations generally paraphrasing only the “Jesus” part of the relevant verses, as well as the popularity of the inaccurate and perjorative term “Jesus rifle” that resulted. However, an elementary web search reveals that is not the case. If one considers all of the verses that Trijicon has selected, it puts their “intent” in a whole new light. Read more
The investigations into the Fort Hood massacre are increasingly highlighting the less-than-optimal military evaluation system. They ask a simple question: how can a person with identified deficiencies be rated as satisfactory or outstanding rather than having those faults documented? One reporter (at both the LA Times and Baltimore Sun) caught on to this indicator of a wide-spread problem with the military rating system (key points highlighted):
As widely practiced in Army culture, few performance reviews contain negative comments, and almost all seem outwardly positive. However, at senior levels and in competitive fields, where only a few officers are promoted, an evaluation that is less than effusive in its praise can derail an officer’s promotion.
In less competitive fields and at junior levels, the Army has promoted the vast majority of its officers.
As noted here in 2006 and in Christian Fighter Pilot is Not an Oxymoron, these criticisms of the evaluation system apply outside of the Army, and likely apply to the military as a whole. Embellishment and overly positive reviews Read more