Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Ft. Hood: The Rush to Exonerate, and Progressives and Their "Tragedies"

The news, garbled and confused as usual, is coming in re a mass shooting at Ft. Hood. As of this writing many basic facts are unknown. Some outlets are identifying the shooter as an Ivan Lopez, who might or might not have been a soldier. We'll see.

In the press two days ago, there were reports that the FBI and the Army were hunting for an ex-recruit who had been cut because of jihadist tendencies, and was now feared to be a threat to Ft. Hood. Whether that story is connected to the shooting today, we'll just have to wait to see.

While we wait for the facts to come in, there are some legitimate issues we can ponder. Given what happened at Ft Hood five years ago when a wacky jihadi Army psychiatrist opened fire, what had been done to make Ft Hood and other installations safer? Was a double-plus-good policy of "weapon free" zone instituted? Were illegal guns on base made doubly illegal? That would be my guess.

It does not seem that some of the world's most highly trained soldiers are allowed the ability to defend themselves, their colleagues, and their installations from single shooters. In Afghanistan some lone shooter like this would have gotten maybe five feet before he would have been shredded. Our soldiers whom we expect to lay it on the line for us overseas, when home have to cower like scared school children under desks, and behind locked doors, and hope and pray that the cops will come save them.

Something seems terribly wrong with this picture. This administration, let us not forget, was perfectly willing to send thousands of weapons to Mexican drug cartels, but seems incapable of entrusting sidearms to our soldiers on base.

This shooting has, again, prompted the knee-jerk comment from the FBI and other law enforcement that, "The initial assessment is the incident is not terror-related." Yeah, and it's not related to Martians, either. When will the idiots learn to shut-up re this topic. What initial assessment? A couple of FBI agents peering into the base have decided that it is not terror-related? Who made this assessment and on what basis?

We have heard the same nonsense after nearly every terror attack.  I was in LA, July 4, 2002, when an Arab jihadi tried to shoot-up the El Al counter, and was killed by El Al security. The initial assessment: no terrorism involved. Before that, we saw this same "assessment" in the 1999 Egypt Air crash, and more recently in the Boston Marathon bombing, and the MH370 disappearance. I am sure you can come out with many examples of this rush to exonerate the jihadis among us. I don't know that the shooter today was or was not a jihadi, but I'll bet that neither do the cops, and given what happened at Hood before, it would behoove them to keep silent.

Lastly our ponderous and more than dopey SecDef has come out with the standard line about this being a "tragedy." Really? The original use of the word "tragedy" dealt with players who undertook actions that could be foreseen to lead to death, destruction, downfall, but they undertook those actions regardless. So did our SecDef and his minions know that this shooting would happen but undertook actions that either would not prevent it or, perhaps, facilitate it?

Let's ask our Congress, our high military command, our SecDef, and our exalted President, who could not be bothered to cancel his fund-raising trip, what has been done to protect our troops? Hold those in charge accountable.

Heads had better roll on this one, and not just that of some poor security guard.

26 comments:

  1. I wonder if the shooting is related to General Casey's beloved "diversity?" That was his chief concern after the last one.

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    1. You mean the diversity that makes us stronger?

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    2. Yeah, that diversity. Occasionally it misfires, apparently.

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  2. Officers and senior NCOs should be armed, at their discretion. From a retired soldier.

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  3. The man being pursued was named Booker. The dead shooter is a man named Lopez. FWIW

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    1. Yes, but we don't know, yet, whether they were connected.

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    2. No, we do not. As I said, FWIW. We shall see, today, probably.

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  4. The name John Kerry and the phrase "protect our troops" are two of the most odious words in the English language. By definition troops should not need "protection", they should feared by all enemies. I despise the the term and those who use it believing it is a valid concept.
    James the Lessor

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  5. According to Drudge, Lopez had the usual list of mental ailments and was taking psychiatric medications. Psychiatry has become a train wreck. I understand that most training programs for psychiatrists no longer teach them to talk to patients, only to write prescriptions. Does the military have any pilot programs for alternative treatment of PTSD? One name that comes to mind is Peter Levine and his interesting book Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma.

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    1. Psychiatry has become a train wreck?

      First, it is not a science. If it were, predictions could be made from the models. Even the practioners avoid claiming that (though mostly to avoid the justly due lawsuits). Thus, anything the do is more akin to wishful hoping than to any reality.

      Second, the "train wreck" has been happening for decades. See, for example the Connecticut shooting of school children.

      Yet Obamacare says that more money must be spent on this nonsense?

      Green Bear

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  6. B.C. (before Clinton), I patrolled the base in the military police. I was armed. We had our usual city-type crime (because that is pretty much what any large base is...a city) which included disputes between unhappy and aggrieved persons. They shoot. They stab. They strangle. They beat the hell out of each other.

    Never heard of any incident like this, though, because folks that lived on base had their own personal weapons at their residence. In the company arms rooms, they had their private weapons locked up. I hate that the military has been turned into a defense free zone, and I'm glad I wasn't around when it happened.

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    1. Yes, the same for me in the Australian Army Swamp Woman (30 year man btw). We had our own weapons, rifles, shotguns, handguns even crossbows but they were all registered and secured in the company armoury with the issue weapons and were only released on designated range days.

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  7. Yes, Fort Hood is (still) a "gun-free zone."

    http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/04/robert-farago/memo-fort-hood-gun-free-zone/

    And I just heard some military bureaucrat on Fox lamenting that the military couldn't force soldiers living off-post - such as Lopez - to register their guns on post. Jeesh. Plus all the usual blather about "stigmatizing" PTSD and other mental illnesses while demanding that anyone actually seeking treatment for PTSD, depression, etc. be presumptively stripped of their gun rights, or otherwise treated as untrustworthy...

    Words fail.

    --Wes S.

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    1. PTSD can be treated with very mild drugs...thousands of our Soldiers are dealing with it without killing anyone.
      What I want to know is:
      what kind of drugs was Lopez given?...

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    2. Ambien as I understand it.

      "Tell your doctor right away if any of these unlikely but serious side effects occur: memory loss, mental/mood/behavior changes (such as new/worsening depression, abnormal thoughts, thoughts of suicide, hallucinations, confusion, agitation, aggressive behavior, anxiety).

      This is not a complete list of possible side effects. If you notice other effects not listed above, contact your doctor or pharmacist."

      Arkie

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  8. Mr DiploMad,
    I am so angry I am physically sick to my stomach!
    How on earth we came to a point where our soldiers can not carry weapons in a military base???!!!
    it is so absurd to me, my comrehension is at "0"..
    our ROE killed hundreds if not thousands of our braves...
    ...
    but you know what bothers me the most?
    NONE!!!!
    not a single one!
    of our 535 representatives is standing up DEMANDING answers...
    heck...I should have invested my money in Kleenex ...
    ...
    ..the whole kabooki show is not going to end well...

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  9. Psychiatry has been pretty well gutted of any relevance to mental illness. It went through a period of psychoanalysis when the older psychiatrists, who studied things like family histories of bipolar disorder, were dismissed from academic posts. When I was a medical student, the psych departments were all run by analysts. The anti-psychotic drugs were the first thing that worked in psychosis and they have gotten better.

    Talk therapy works for neuroses and family therapy. PTSD got corrupted after Vietnam as thousands of anti-war kids went into "the helping professions." Many of them went there to hide from the draft, then to punish the US for the war (Many went to work in the VA) and they stayed. Major Hassan was telling vets back from Afghanistan that they had committed war crimes.

    Now, we have to hope that research on psychosis and autism will find a real link and good treatment. For now, we have the homeless.

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  10. Orwellian, isn't it? Like so many other things these days. "Sigh".

    LibertyGrace'sGrandma

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  11. How can you roll an underling's head when his direct superior was responsible and escapes punishment?

    The head that should roll is on Obama's neck.

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    1. What ever is going on, it seems to be showing up in the Secret Service too.

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  12. Alpha you are under the understandable misapprehension that the CO is always responsible for no matter what. Only works in the Services mate - elsewhere it is "cover your arse" and look for a more junior bunny to wear it. Obama has been AWOL since his initial election - no responsibility there my friend just holidays and golf and the old one finger salute to a fine people.

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  13. The Army has had a serious alcohol abuse problem for decades. In light of over a decade of high op tempo deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, with many soldiers and families coping with 4-6 year-long deployments, domestic problems escalated too. I would suspect drug use is also on the climb. This is the real Army life no one talks about. My husband is a retired soldier and I have lived my entire adult life around the Army, so I speak from what I have seen. The command structure for the past few decades has weakened and under Obama that is happening at warp speed - mostly officers who follow the new political agenda make it to the top brass level, with this administration weeding out dissenters. Many of our best mid-level officers will jump ship in this new Army. The chaplain services is being gutted too, along with troops and weapons systems. Only Islamic-approved religious topics are exempt from the new zero tolerance for proselytizing rules. Chaplains need to use caution talking to troubled soldiers and their families now. At the heart of the problem is not guns or no guns. The problem is a lack of leadership and what's needed is character development - not more guns or mental health professionals. Oh my, rest assured America the commander told us.......... this soldier had been receiving mental health services from a psychiatrist on Fort Hood - that should make you feel better.... (keep walking, don't think about psychiatrists and a chain of command which ignored MAJ Hasan. at more than one of his duty assignments..... yes, just your usual run of the mill workplace violence again at Fort Hood, no less ..... oh yeah, MAJ Hasan, the one who treated soldiers for mental health problems, including PTSD. There's a lack of character and leadership, where the soldiers with problems are shuffled along, instead of dealt with. PTSD is a series of behaviors, we are human beings and the mind controls the body, the body does not control the mind, so leaders should be talking to their soldiers and building trust, so they can identify problems and take care of their troops. Everyone, including Army leaders, in America refers the problems to experts and I wonder how people survived and thrived before the advent of modern American mental health care....

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  14. Come on, Dip, get with the program; any reference to "terrorists/terrorism" bees all racccist don't cha know. As somebody pointed out to me once, "What race is Islim anyway?"
    The first time my FL Guard unit went to Ft Stewart, GA, for our annual two weeks of training was in the early '80's. The gate guards were all armed MPs. When my unit returned the following year, the base had been declared an "open" base which meant no guards on the gates and anyone could just drive on in/through...

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  15. Fort Stewart has had gate guards since 9/11 - contracted and recently I think they're going back to MPs, but they also have a swipe your military ID thing for one lane, that you have to register your ID card to use - it's for single occupancy vehicles. With the amount of traffic on these large Army posts, there would be no feasible way to physically search every vehicle. They have gone to that when the threat levels escalated.

    Usually people around those "who suddenly went berserk without warning" report all sorts of other incidences or troubling behavior prior to the incident. Going postal is about as speedy as the USPS...... just saying.

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  16. "In Afghanistan some lone shooter like this would have gotten maybe five feet before he would have been shredded."

    Having been to Kandahar, Bagram, Bastion and a couple of other bases, it seems like the Americans are the only group of military personnel who seem to realise they are at war. Everyone else walks around with their weapons "secured in armouries", a kid with a .22 could do a lot of damage on most non-US bases. A pity that the thinking on carrying weapons hasn't been extended to ALL US bases. Quite strange that professional soldiers need to have their weapons locked away from them.

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