WhatFinger


Hasan refuses to shave a beard he grew beginning in June to express his allegiance to Islamo-fascism

The PC Insanity Surrounding the Nidal Hasan Trial



One could be forgiven for thinking that political correctness is only one step away from complete insanity. Last Friday, a military appeals court halted the murder case against Maj. Nidal Hasan indefinitely. Why? Because Hasan refuses to shave a beard he grew beginning in June to express his allegiance to Islamo-fascism.
According to CNN, U.S. Army Col. Gregory Gross, the military judge presiding over the case, "had previously held that Hassan's beard disrupts the court proceedings and held him in contempt of court five times, the Army said in a news release." The case is on hold in order to "sort out issues" surrounding the judge's threat to have Hasan forcibly shaved. Let me tell what this case is not about. It's not about trying an alleged mass murderer in a timely manner, for killing 13 people and wounding another 32. We already know that the PC-infested swamp of the Obama administration's Defense Department has referred to this atrocity as "workplace violence," as opposed to the Islamic terrorist attack it truly was. That in and of itself is a flirtation with insanity, one that allows for such a definition despite the reality that Hasan was shouting Allahu Akhbar! as he executed one person after another. Equally insane was what Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey was apparently most concerned about shortly after the shooting. After noting that "what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy," Casey contended "it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here." Got that? Compare the tragedy of 13 people killed and 32 wounded against the potential tragedy of a less diverse military, and diversity wins. Best news here? Casey has retired.

Support Canada Free Press


Unfortunately, Col. Gregory Gross has not. And he is apparently going to let Hasan's beard become a far bigger issue than it has to be. Is the beard a violation of Army regulations? Absolutely. But so is mass murder and attempted mass murder. Gross's fallback position is that Hasan's beard is a disruption and he wants to avoid any such disruptions during the trial. Closing the trial to anyone, including the media, not directly involved in the case? Apparently not part of the PC playbook. Gross is hardly alone in the swamp. Prosecutors claim Hasan grew the beard so trial witnesses would have a hard time identifying him--even as they have said they doubt religion is his motive, because he was clean-shaven at the time of the shootings. That would be clean-shaven and shouting Allahu Akhbar, yet the prosecutors have chosen to ignore this inconvenient reality. Crazier still? The defense attorneys have said Hasan won't shave because the beard represents an expression of his faith, which the prosecuting attorneys insist wasn't part of his motive. "He does not wish to die without a beard as he believes not having a beard is a sin," one of Hasan's attorneys wrote in his appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. Because of the beard issue, that's where this case is headed: an appeals court will determine if Hasan can be forcibly shaved. Now let me tell what this case is about. It's about delay, delay, delay, until we are past the election in November. It's about an Obama administration that doesn't want any timely reminders being put in front of an American public about its willingness to view Islamic terrorism through a PC lens so thick that reality becomes the first casualty. The last thing this president needs during the next few months is a high profile trial during which all of the PC-inspired blindness that allowed Hasan to maintain his commission, even as he was becoming more and more radicalized, to be exposed. That includes the numerous email exchanges between Hasan and radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki intercepted by American intelligence agencies, who then proceeded to do nothing. That would be the same Anwar al-Awlaki who was executed by a predator drone, despite the fact that he was an American citizen, because the Obama administration concluded his Islamo-fascist worldview represented a mortal threat to our nation. In short, there is absolutely nothing about trying Nidal Hasan that accrues to the interest of this president or his administration--including that fact that Obama managed to wait almost two minutes during the middle of a press conference before mentioning the shooting. Higher on his priority list? A "shout out" to audience members who attended the Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Interior Department, and a pitch about the need to pass Obamacare. It doesn't get any more PC--or ideologically bankrupt--than that.


View Comments

Arnold Ahlert -- Bio and Archives

Arnold Ahlert was an op-ed columist with the NY Post for eight years.


Sponsored