OPINION:
Nidal Malik Hasan is scheduled for death by firing squad on Dec. 3. He’s the guy who shot and killed 13 individuals — 14, if you include an unborn baby — and injured another 32 while screaming “Allahu akbar” at a Fort Hood, Texas, bloody massacre in November 2009. He’s also the guy who then-White House chief Barack Obama bent over backward to portray as more disgruntled worker, less psychotic jihadist.
It was Obama’s administration that labeled the attack an act of “workplace violence,” despite Hasan’s open embrace of radical Islamism.
Hasan will soon be dead. But Obama’s legacy of watering down, defending and ultimately enabling Islamic terror will live on.
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From the website of Rep. Roger Williams in September 2013: “Hasan was convicted … of killing 13 and wounding more than 30 when he went on a shooting spree in 2009 on the base near Killeen, Texas, shouting ‘Allahu akbar,’ Arabic for ‘God is great,’ before opening fire. … Since the attack, investigators revealed that the FBI knew Hasan was in email contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, an al Qaeda leader who was killed in a 2011 drone strike in Yemen. During his trial, the American-born Muslim stated that he was a soldier who had ‘switched sides’ and that his goal in killing American soldiers was to protect Islamic insurgents abroad.”
The post made the media rounds in the context of explaining the congressional push for passage of legislation cosponsored by Williams and Rep. John Carter, both of Texas, that was titled “Honoring the Fort Hood Heroes Act” — to change the designation of Hasan’s murderous rampage from “workplace violence” to an act of terror. The legislation was aimed at stripping the lie and replacing it with truth. It was also aimed at opening the doors for victims and their families to receive more benefits, including the Purple Heart. Thankfully, it passed, and Hasan’s “workplace violence” tag was ultimately stripped.
But Team Obama resisted.
Team Obama’s FBI and Defense Department resisted.
Why the resistance? Why the lie? Team Obama wanted to put an end to the previous administration’s global war on terror and reframe the narratives of radical Islamic jihad.
But simply watering down definitions and reshaping messaging doesn’t put a stop to terrorism. Rather, it emboldens it.
From The Washington Institute in October 2013: “In August, former U.S. Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was convicted on 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder. … In May, President Obama referenced this attack in a major speech at the National Defense University: ‘Deranged or alienated individuals — often U.S. citizens or legal residents — can do enormous damage, particularly when inspired by larger notions of violent jihad. That pull towards extremism appears to have led to the shooting at Fort Hood.’”
It was like pulling teeth to get Obama — four years after the terror attack — to even suggest something other than workplace violence drove Hasan.
As The Washington Institute noted, “This is the closest the president, or any government official from the executive or judicial branch, has come to calling the attack in Fort Hood what it is: an act of terrorism. Instead, the attack was classified even in the Department of Defense’s final report as a case of ‘workplace violence.’”
This — even as Hasan, serving as his own attorney, tried to plead guilty at his trial and admit to switching sides to defend Islam.
“Army prosecutors could have incorporated federal terrorism charges into the case, but for reasons that are not clear, they instead charged him with murder and attempted murder,” The Washington Institute wrote.
Hmm. The reasons may not be clearly stated.
But that doesn’t mean they aren’t clear.
Early in his presidency, Obama spoke to the Muslim world from Cairo and called for a “new beginning” based on mutual respect. From there, it was one conciliatory reach-out to Muslims after another. Don’t use the phrase radical Islamist. Don’t say radical Islam. Don’t say global war on terror — say countering violent extremism. ISIS, anyone?
Shhh. Close eyes. Pretend away the peril.
“Obama raised eyebrows after making a somber statement over the brutal killing of American journalist James Foley by Islamic State militants,” CBS News wrote in 2014. Militants? CBS went on: “Obama called Foley’s death ‘an act of violence that shocks the conscience of the entire world.’”
Then he went golfing.
He issued a statement about the gruesome Islamic terrorist murder of a U.S. journalist — calling it an “act of violence” — and then he headed off to a round of golf with friends.
As Rep. Michael McCaul said in 2016, “For eight years, the Obama administration reluctantly played global whack-a-mole with terrorists rather than leaning into the fight with decisive leadership.” Yep. It took four years and an act of Congress to even get the record corrected about Hasan.
And that’s how terrorism grows. And that’s why terrorists feel emboldened to grow. And that is what Obama will be remembered for, at least by those who are willing to see the truth.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.
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