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Paul Greenberg
A familiar pattern emerges after every treacherous assault on this country. The surprise attack is dissected not just to learn who wreaked all the havoc, but who was responsible for missing the clues that it was coming.
It happened after Pearl Harbor, when Americans wanted to know why it took so long to get the warning to Hawaii, particularly because our people in Washington knew an attack was likely, having broken the Japanese diplomatic code. Why, on that Sunday morning,
The country's lack of preparedness became more than just another campaign issue in the presidential election of 1944. It inspired accusations of criminal negligence, if not outright treason. A small industry of conspiracy theorists sprouted. To this day, such accusations pop up not just in the smudgy pamphlets of fringe groups but in weighty tomes of revisionist history.
It happened again after
Predictably enough, high-ranking officials responsible for counter-terrorism operations that failed to counter terrorism wrote self-justifying memoirs casting the blame on higher-ups. Congressional investigations verged on witch hunts. The partisan search for villains soon went all the way to the
Now it's still happening again. All the clues leading to that murderous attack at Fort Hood aren't just being investigated and laid out for the public, as they should be, but arranged in a pattern that points the finger at those who, we can now see in perfect hindsight, should have seen it coming.
The bloody rampage has already been blamed on everything from American Muslims in general to the
How long before the lunatic fringe, which has a way of becoming the lunatic warp-and-woof at such times, finds a way to blame the massacre at Fort Hood on the current occupant of the
By all means, let's note all the clues that were missed. But let us remember that they appear evident only now, after they culminated in the massacre at Fort Hood. Leave out that one, culminating piece of the bloody puzzle, and it's easier to understand how the others were ignored.
Yes, the suspect may or may not have talked about leaving the
Yes, the suspect had communicated with a radical imam -- but he was engaged in writing a research paper at the time, which was the reason officials concluded he didn't warrant further investigation.
Yes, the suspect had criticized the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but if every soldier who ever criticized a war were court-martialed, American ranks would be seriously depleted.
And how take action on the basis of a soldier's comments without inviting a lawsuit from the
There was a time when such matters were handled by the military courts -- with a dispatch, justice and finality unknown today.
This isn't General Washington's continental army any more, in which serious offenses could be tried promptly by military commission and the verdict carried out with exemplary dispatch. See the case of the gallant British officer who conspired with Benedict Arnold to hand over West Point to the enemy in what would become the best known act of treason in American history:
The bravery of Major John Andre on his way to the gallows excited the admiration of even his executioners. The major had made the mistake of being caught out of uniform while on his mission, and paid for it with his life by order of a board of American officers. He would be hanged as a spy rather than treated as a prisoner of war.
To quote an aide to General Washington, a colonel by the name of Alexander Hamilton, the major's execution was as necessary as it was regrettable. Such sentiments were to be expected in an age before lawyering had replaced a sense of honor -- on the part of both the major and his judges.
Imagine how many years Major Andre's case might have taken in this oh-so-enlightened age, and how many appeals to the
Today the whole idea of trial by military commissions is under fire, the military prison at Guantanamo is due to be shut down by the end of the year, and some of the bloodiest, most dangerous and self-confessed terrorists now imprisoned there could wind up in extended trials with no prompt or certain result.
For that growing possibility, this administration does bear a heavy responsibility. Its promise to close Guantanamo, and transfer case after case to the United States mainland, strikes at the integrity and competence of the whole system of military justice that once served this country and its security so well.
The most heartening aspect of the developing case of U.S. v. Nidal Malik Hasan is that it seems likely the suspect will be tried according to time-tested military law. Justice may yet be done. The country may even learn something from this awful event. For if anything reveals the folly of fighting a war against terror as if it were a matter for the ordinary criminal law, surely it is the massacre at Fort Hood. But will this administration get the message?
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Fort Hood: The Scapegoat Syndrome | Global Viewpoint