13 Counts Of Premeditated Murder Filed Against Hasan

On Thursday, it was announced that the Army has formally filed 13 counts of premeditated murder against Major Nidal Hasan. The charges were read to Hasan in his hospital room at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. His civilian attorney, John Galligan apparently wasn't present and was upset that he wasn't there when the charges were read to Hasan. At this time, an Army CID spokesman said that they were still determining whether he would be charged with an additional count of murder in the death of the unborn child who died as a result. Additional charges are still possible. In my opinion, he should also be charged with, at the minimum Aggravated Assault for the injuries of each person who survived the attack on November 5th. I would hope however that the Army will charge him with attempted Murder for each of the victims, because that was his goal, to murder as many of his fellow Soldiers as he possibly could. (http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/11/ap_army_hasan_murder_charges_111209/)

The distinction of premeditation in the charges is a very important one. That means that Hasan willfully and methodically planned what he was going to do, how he was going to do it and carried those plans out. The definition of premeditation, completely fits these horrific crimes. Premeditation is defined as:
1. The act of speculating, arranging, or plotting in advance.
2. Law The contemplation of a crime well enough in advance to show deliberate intent to commit the crime; forethought. (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/premeditation) All the information that has been released to the public definitely shows that Hasan’s rampage completely fits this definition. If found guilty of the charges, Hasan could face the death penalty. He deserves no less than the death penalty.

President Obama has apparently ordered a complete review of any intelligence that agencies have gathered in relation to Hasan. As we know, there have been reports that the FBI and other intelligence agencies have been watching Hasan for quite some time, due to some postings made by him or someone using his name, at various radical muslim websites. There have been conflicting reports about this. Some stating that the FBI and Homeland Security were indeed watching Hasan, while others have claimed that Intelligence Agencies have denied this. Hopefully any review and investigation will uncover the truth. If it shows that these agencies were indeed watching Hasas, then they have a whole lot of questions to answer, in light of his actions of November 5th. There is also information that has been released, showing that he worshiped at the same Mosque that 2 of the 9/11 terrorists worshipped at and questions on whether he had any dealing with them. Information as well as surfaced that he may have been attempting to get in contact with a radical Muslim cleric, who encouraged Muslims to kill US Troops. Had they alerted Army officials, perhaps the tragedy at Fort Hood would not have occurred.

Officials in the Army, also have a lot of questions to answer. This monster spent several years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. His performance there was far from stellar. Doctors and staff there report him at times as being belligerent, defensive and argumentative, especially when it came to discussing his Muslim faith. He was reprimanded on at least one occasion for the way that he interacted with patients and placed under closer supervision. He was considered a mediocre student and a lazy worker at Walter Reed as well as the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. Despite those documented problems, he was transferred to Fort Hood, where his superiors felt that because of the size of Fort Hood, if he continued to perform poorly, other doctors could handle the workload and his superiors could document any continued behavior problems. (http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/11/ap_army_hasan_murder_charges_111209/)

That angers me on so many levels. First and foremost, while Fort Hood is the largest military installation, and thus has many more doctors in place than on smaller installations, it also means that there are also a larger number of patients for these doctors to see. Having personally dealt with the medical system at Fort Hood, I know firsthand that the doctors there are stretched to the limit as it is, with their own patients, without having to cover the workload of another doctor who doesn’t do their job. Besides the fact that these patients deserve the very best care that can be provided, instead of care from a doctor who has already been classified as someone who is lazy and mediocre. That’s not fair to the other doctors and certainly not fair to the patients that he would be seeing. In my opinion, the officials at Walter Reed and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences dropped the ball big time and in typical fashion, passed the buck and sent him to Fort Hood, so that they didn’t have to deal with Hasan themselves. The officials who made that decision should be reprimanded for that decision, as they too are partly culpable for what has transpired. Had they chose to remove him from practice and from the Army, perhaps this tragedy could have been averted.

Now I’ll address the medias’ handling of this, from the start. It infuriates me, that immediately upon learning who the shooter was at Fort Hood, the media began to question whether he was suffering from PTSD. Upon learning that he never deployed, they immediately began suggesting that he was suffering from secondary PTSD. That’s probably the biggest load of crap that I’ve heard so far! How then, do they explain the countless doctors, nurses, paramedics, police officers, counselors, soldiers and others, who deal with human suffering every day in their jobs, that never commit these types of crimes. Heck, if that were the case, then I should be a prime candidate for secondary PTSD due to the nature of work that I’ve done my entire adult life. I’ve never even considered doing something like this, let alone carried it out, nor have the others who do this same kind of work, day in and day out. When I first heard that mentioned in the media, my immediate thought and something that I still believe, was that the media was rushing to provide Hasan’s attorney’s with something that they could use as a defense in this case. It’s almost as if the media is instead attempting to blame everyone BUT the evil, depraved individual who committed these atrocities. Enough is enough. Eyewitness accounts and evidence show that Hasan committed these crimes and he should PAY for his actions. Were it you or I, you can bet we’d be held accountable for our actions, as we should be.

This is a story that I will continue to follow very closely. This whole thing hit close to home. I lived and worked at Fort Hood for 3 years. I still consider Fort Hood home and the people there, I consider my family. I feel violated, helpless and I feel that the government, from the Intelligence agencies to the Army itself, let the entire Fort Hood community and the Army community as a whole down. They dropped the ball, big time and they too should answer for their part in this horrific tragedy, that perhaps they had the power to prevent.