Major Hasan and the Unravelling Of America by Patrick Buchanan

Nidal Malik Hasan was two men.

One was the proud Army major who wore battle fatigues to mosque; the other, the proud Arab who wore Muslim garb in civilian life.

What brought Hasan’s identities into fatal conflict was his belief that Iraq and Afghanistan were unjust wars, and his shock that he, a Muslim, was to be sent to serve in one of those wars, against fellow Muslims—a sin against Allah meriting damnation.

Hasan was conflicted by a dual loyalty—to the country he had sworn to protect, and to his perceived duty as a Muslim. When Hasan told his neighbor that morning, “I am going to do good work for God,” the call of jihad overrode his oath of loyalty as an American soldier.

Hasan proceeded to shoot, wound or kill 44 U.S. soldiers, and die on what he saw as the side of right, the side of Islam, against America. “Allahu Akbar!”—”God is great!”—Hasan shouted as he began firing.

An Internet posting by “Nidal Hasan” compared suicide bombers to Medal-Of-Honor winners who throw themselves on grenades to save fellow soldiers. Hasan had decided to become a suicider for Allah.

Though this was an act of treachery against his fellow soldiers, of treason in wartime, of terrorism and mass murder, Hasan must have seen himself as a hero and martyr.

Few ever commit atrocities like this. But conflicts in identities and loyalties are common in the cauldrons of war.

“Let none but Americans stand guard tonight,” said Washington at Valley Forge. Irish Catholics deserted the Union army to fight beside Mexican Catholics in the San Patricio battalion against what they thought was American aggression. Honored today by Mexico, the San Patricios were hanged when captured by Winfield Scott’s army.

In Scott’s march to Mexico City was Robert E. Lee. The hero of Buena Vista was Col. Jefferson Davis, who had married the daughter of his commanding officer, future President Zachary Taylor. Davis went on to serve in the Cabinet of Franklin Pierce and the U.S. Senate.

Yet, in 1861, Davis and Lee would depart the service of their country to wage war against the United States on behalf of their new nation and the kinfolk to whom they belonged and whom they believed had a right to be free of the Union. Were they traitors—or patriots?

This is not to compare the deeds of the San Patricios, Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, all of whom declared themselves openly and fought heroically and honorably, with the crimes of Maj. Hasan.

But it is to raise the issue of conflicting loyalties in the hearts of men in a nation that has declared religious, racial and ethnic diversity to be not only a national good but a national goal.

Whence came this idea? No previous generation believed this.

In World War I, Wilson feared that if he went to war, German-Americans might march on Washington. FDR was so fearful that the blood ties of Japanese citizens and residents would trump their loyalty to the United States he ordered 110,000 transferred from California to detention camps for the duration of the war.

In Arkansas last year, a Muslim opposed to the U.S. wars shot two soldiers at a recruitment center, killing one. In Kuwait, before the invasion of Iraq, a Muslim soldier threw a grenade into the tent of his commanding officer, killing two and wounding 14.

This is not to suggest that all American Muslims or Arabs should be citizens under suspicion. Muslims have died fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, as German-Americans died fighting against Germany in two world wars. But it is to say this:

America is unraveling. No longer are we one nation and one people. Tens of millions have come and tens of millions are coming whose first loyalty is to the kinfolk and country they left behind, and to the faith they carry in their hearts. And if, in our long war against “Islamofascism,” we are seen as trampling on their nation, faith or kinsmen, they will see us, as Hasan came to see us, as the enemy of their sacred identity.

There is no American Melting Pot anymore. It was discarded by our elites as an instrument of cultural genocide. Now we celebrate America as the most multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural country on earth, the Universal Nation of Ben Wattenberg’s warblings.

And, yet, we are surprised by ethnic espionage in our midst, the cursing of America from mosques in our cities, the news that Somali immigrants are going home to fight our Somali allies, and that illegal aliens march under Mexican flags to demand American citizenship.

Eisenhower’s America was a nation of 160 million with a Euro-Christian core and a culture all its own. We were a people then. And when we have become, in 2050, a stew of 435 millions, of every creed, culture, color and country of Earth, what holds us together then?

From http://www.buchanan.org/ 

Sometimes an Extremist Really Is an Extremist by Jonah Goldberg for National Review Online

Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan demonstrated many things when he allegedly committed treason in the war on terror. For starters, he showed — gratuitously, alas — that evil is still thriving.

He demonstrated that being a trained psychiatrist provides no immunity to ancient hatreds and religious fanaticism, nor does psychiatric training provide much acuity in spotting such things in others. For example, the London Telegraph reports that, in what was supposed to be a medical lecture, Hasan instead gave an hour-long briefing on the Koran, explaining to colleagues at Walter Reed Army Medical Center that nonbelievers should be beheaded, have boiling oil poured down their throats, and be set on fire.

His fellow psychiatrists completely missed this “red flag” — a suddenly popular euphemism for incandescently obvious evidence this man had no place in the U.S. Army.

He proved how lacking our domestic security system is. According to ABC News, intelligence agencies were aware for months that Hasan had tried to contact al-Qaeda. His colleagues reportedly knew he sympathized with suicide bombings and attacks on U.S. troops abroad, and one colleague said Hasan was pleased by an attack on an Army recruiting office and suggested more of the same might be desirable. That’s treason, even if you’re a Muslim.

Which raises the most troubling revelation: For many people, the idea that he is a Muslim fanatic, motivated by other Muslim fanatics, was — at least initially — too terrible to contemplate. How else to explain the reflexive insistence after the attack that the real culprit was post-traumatic stress disorder? The fact that PTSD is usually diagnosed in people who’ve been through trauma (hence the “post”), and that Hasan had never seen combat, didn’t seem to matter much.

Apparently the “P” in PTSD can now stand for “pre.”

A few months ago, an anti-Semitic old nut named James von Brunn allegedly took a gun to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to get payback against “the Jews” and killed a black security guard in the process.

In response to this horrific crime, the leading lights of American liberalism knew who was to blame: Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and the GOP. One writer for the Huffington Post put it succinctly: “Thank you very much Karl Rove and your minions.”

The fact that Von Brunn was a 9/11 “truther” who railed against capitalism, neocons, and the Bush administration didn’t matter. Nor did the glaring lack of evidence that Rove et al. ever showed antipathy for the museum. It was simply obvious that Von Brunn was the offspring of the “right-wing extremism (that) is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment,” wrote columnist Paul Krugman.

If only Hasan were a fan of Glenn Beck!

President Obama was right when he said, in the hours after the shooting, that people shouldn’t “jump to conclusions” (a lesson he might have learned when he jumped to the wrong conclusion about a white cop who arrested Henry Louis Gates, a black Harvard professor). But just as we should not jump to conclusions, we shouldn’t jump away from them.

Despite reports that Hasan had shouted “Allahu Akbar!” as he opened fire, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews insisted that “we may never know if religion was a factor at Fort Hood.” Thursday night, NBC and CBS declined to mention that Hasan is a Muslim. Meanwhile, ABC’s Martha Raddatz’s reporting on the subject reflected a yearning for denial: “As for the suspect, Nadal Hasan, as one officer’s wife told me, ‘I wish his name was Smith.’”

We have a real problem when much of the political and journalistic establishment is eager to jump to the conclusion that peaceful political opponents are in league with violent extremists, but is terrified to consider the possibility that violent extremists really are violent extremists if doing so means calling attention to the fact that they are Muslims.

I am more sympathetic toward this reluctance to state the truth of the matter than are some of my colleagues on the Right. There is a powerful case to be made that Islamic extremism is not some fringe phenomenon but part of the mainstream of Islamic life around the world. And yet, to work from that assumption might make the assumption all the more self-fulfilling. If we act as if “Islam is the problem,” as some say, we will guarantee that Islam will become the problem. But outright denial, like we are seeing today, surely is not the beginning of wisdom either.

I have no remedy for the challenge we face. But I do take some solace in George Orwell’s observation that “to see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”

— Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and the author of Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.

Veterans Day 2009

Personal commentary from Father James - Corpus Christi, Texas has a large military presence.  Located about 15 mintues from my parish is a large military base.  Not too far from the city there are two other bases one of which is scheduled to close.  My parish is blessed to have numerous men and women who are active members of the military and others that work on the Corpus Christi base as civilians.  We also have numersous veterans who decided to stay in the Corpus Christi area.    Every year at least two or three flight school students pass through the parish as they do their training.  We have also had a few parishioners and former parishioners who have been stationed in Iraq.  All of them have returned safely.  For this I most grateful to God.   All of these men and women are and have been outstanding parishioners.  They are all serious Catholics and great patriots.  They are an inspiration to work with.  I am very grateful for their friendship, their support and their fine example. 

The Road Ahead by Robert Costa

Personal Commentary from Father James:  I do not understand why the Conference of Catholic Bishops is supporting Obama's health care plan as long as it does not fund abortion.  Can someone explain this to me using the social teachings of the Catholic Church?  My understanding of the principle of subsidiarity would affirm that the Church should be opposing government run health care.  The clearest statement on the Church's position on the health care issue comes from a joint pastoral statement from Bishops Naumann and Finn.  I posted their statement back in September.  Please click here to review their statement again.  The official position of the Conference seems to contradict what these two Bishops are saying.  Based on my understanding of the Church's social teaching we can't support government run health care.  Am I missing something or are we faced with the usual confusion coming from the American Bishops? 

...

After passing in the U.S. House of Representatives by a 220–215 vote on Saturday, Obamacare heads to the U.S. Senate this week, where it faces five major obstacles. NRO spoke with Republican senators and numerous aides on Monday about potential roadblocks in the Democrats’ way as they try to cobble together 60 votes.

1. Time. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, tells NRO that time is on the GOP’s side. Let the Senate debate go on for a couple months, he says, and the American people will become fully aware of what’s actually in the bill. “Then there will be a revulsion,” he predicts.

The Democrats, meanwhile, are struggling to agree on a soft deadline for getting a bill to the president’s desk. The White House would very much like to see a bill passed before the winter recess, in order to avoid the chance that fence-sitting senators will change their minds after a couple weeks of hearing from constituents back home.

2. President Obama. Though still the Democrats’ greatest political asset, President Obama is also quickly becoming a handicap for numerous Democratic senators who are worried about their re-election campaigns next year, from Blanche Lincoln (D., Ark.) to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.). As the White House continues to push hard on issues like the public option, leery Democrats see the president as their Don Draper — a fabled salesman who seems to have lost his touch.

“This is very much an uphill climb for the president,” says Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas). “I have a hard time seeing this end well for the Democrats. They’re looking at some serious challenges in 2010. That kind of pressure has a tendency to focus the mind.”

Sen. Mike Johanns (R., Neb.) agrees. “I was in Pres. George W. Bush’s cabinet during the second term, when the honeymoon was, shall we say, long since over,” he says. “President Obama seems to have hit that difficult position very early in his administration. He’s in a real pickle.”

3. GOP Amendments. As the bill heads to the Senate floor for debate, the Republicans, though only numbering 40, are preparing a strong amendment strategy that they hope will overwhelm Democrats, forcing them to confront every aspect of the bill. “Senator Mitch McConnell is working on a coordinated package of amendments,” says Cornyn. “We’re trying to do this thematically, looking at various parts of the bill, from taxes to Medicare to malpractice reform, to make sure the American people see all the angles.”

4. Abortion. After the Stupak amendment split the House Democratic caucus, Senate Republicans predict a similar fight among Democrats in the Senate. “The Democrats need 60 votes,” says Cornyn. “The Conference of Catholic Bishops helped to push the House bill along, but on abortion, the bill is only as good as the final product.” If the Stupak amendment gets stripped out in the Senate, “watch for some cold feet in the conference,” he says. “If they water this down, it will be a lynchpin issue.”

The Stupak amendment is “right on,” adds Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R., Tex.). “I hope the Senate keeps that amendment to keep Democrats like Senator Casey from Pennsylvania comfortable with the bill,” and perhaps, others uncomfortable.

5. The public option. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I., Conn.), a member of the Democratic caucus, already has said that if a public option is included, he will not support the bill, leaving the Democrats with only 59 votes. Lieberman has been “very strong and principled on this,” says Hutchison. Others may follow suit, she says.

These five issues are just the beginning. With the Congressional Budget Office said to be coming out with a new score of the bill later this week, other wary Democrats such as Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and Evan Bayh of Indiana probably already have a much longer checklist of concerns.

— Robert Costa is the William F. Buckley Jr. Fellow at the National Review Institute.  The article is taken from National Review Online. 

The Hole at the Heart of Our Strategy - We’re scrupulously non-judgmental about the ideology that drives terrorism by Mark Steyn for National Review Online

Thirteen dead and 31 wounded would be a bad day for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, and a great victory for the Taliban. When it happens in Texas, in the heart of the biggest military base in the nation, at a processing center for soldiers either returning from or deploying to combat overseas, it is not merely a “tragedy” (as too many people called it) but a glimpse of a potentially fatal flaw at the heart of what we have called, since 9/11, the “War on Terror.” Brave soldiers trained to hunt down and kill America’s enemy abroad were killed in the safety and security of home by, in essence, the same enemy — a man who believes in and supports everything the enemy does.

And he’s a U.S. Army major.

And his superior officers and other authorities knew about his beliefs but seemed to think it was just a bit of harmless multicultural diversity — as if believing that “the Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor” (i.e., his fellow American soldiers) and writing Internet paeans to the “noble” “heroism” of suicide bombers and, indeed, objectively supporting the other side in an active war is to be regarded as just some kind of alternative lifestyle that adds to the general vibrancy of the base.

When it emerged early on Thursday afternoon that the shooter was Nidal Malik Hasan, there appeared shortly thereafter on Twitter a flurry of posts with the striking formulation: “Please judge Major Malik Nadal [sic] by his actions and not by his name.”

Concerned Tweeters can relax: There was never really any danger of that — and not just in the sense that the New York Times’s first report on Major Hasan never mentioned the words “Muslim” or “Islam,” or that ABC’s Martha Raddatz’s only observation on his name was that “as for the suspect, Nadal Hasan, as one officer’s wife told me, ‘I wish his name was Smith.’”

What a strange reaction. I suppose what she means is that, if his name were Smith, we could all retreat back into the same comforting illusions that allowed the bureaucracy to advance Nidal Malik Hasan to major and into the heart of Fort Hood while ignoring everything that mattered about the essence of this man.

Since 9/11, we have, as the Twitterers recommend, judged people by their actions — flying planes into skyscrapers, blowing themselves up in Bali nightclubs or London Tube trains, planting IEDs by the roadside in Baghdad or Tikrit. And on the whole we’re effective at responding with action of our own — taking out training camps in Afghanistan, rolling up insurgency networks in Fallujah and Ramadi, intercepting terror plots in London and Toronto and Dearborn.

But we’re scrupulously non-judgmental about the ideology that drives a man to fly into a building or self-detonate on the subway, and thus we have a hole at the heart of our strategy. We use rhetorical conveniences like “radical Islam” or, if that seems a wee bit Islamophobic, just plain old “radical extremism.” But we never make any effort to delineate the line which separates “radical Islam” from non-radical Islam. Indeed, we go to great lengths to make it even fuzzier. And somewhere in that woozy blur the pathologies of a Nidal Malik Hasan incubate. An army psychiatrist, Major Hasan was an American, born and raised, who graduated from Viriginia Tech and then received his doctorate from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, which works out to the best part of half a million dollars’ worth of elite education. But he opposed America’s actions in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and made approving remarks about jihadists on American soil. “You need to lock it up, Major,” cautioned his superior officer, Col. Terry Lee.

But he didn’t really need to “lock it up” at all. He could pretty much say anything he liked, and if any “red flags” were raised they were quickly mothballed. Lots of people are “anti-war.” Some of them are objectively on the other side — that’s to say, they encourage and support attacks on American troops and civilians. But not many of those in that latter category are U.S. Army majors. Or so one would hope. Yet why be surprised? Azad Ali, a man who approvingly quotes such observations as “If I saw an American or British man wearing a soldier’s uniform inside Iraq I would kill him because that is my obligation” is an adviser to Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (the equivalent of the U.S. attorneys). In Toronto this week, the brave ex-Muslim Nonie Darwish mentioned en passant that, on flying from the U.S. to Canada, she was questioned at length about the purpose of her visit by an apparently Muslim border official. When she revealed that she was giving a speech about Islamic law, he rebuked her: “We are not to question sharia.”

That’s the guy manning the airport-security desk.

In the New York Times, Maria Newman touched on Hasan’s faith only obliquely: “He was single, according to the records, and he listed no religious preference.” Thank goodness for that, eh? A neighbor in Texas says the major had “Allah” and “another word” pinned up in Arabic on his door. “Akbar” maybe? On Thursday morning he is said to have passed out copies of the Koran to his neighbors. He shouted in Arabic as he fired. But don’t worry: As the FBI spokesman assured us in nothing flat, there’s no terrorism angle.

That’s true, in a very narrow sense: Major Hasan is not a card-carrying member of the Texas branch of al-Qaeda reporting to a control officer in Yemen or Waziristan. If he were, things would be a lot easier. But the pathologies that drive al-Qaeda beat within Major Hasan too, and in the end his Islamic impulses trumped his expensive Western education, his psychiatric training, his military discipline — his entire American identity. One might say the same about Faleh Hassan Almaleki of Glendale, Ariz., arrested last week after fatally running over his “too Westernized” daughter Noor in the latest American honor killing. Or the two U.S. residents — one American, one Canadian — arrested a few days earlier for plotting to fly to Denmark for the purposes of murdering the editor who commissioned the famous Mohammed cartoons. But Noor Almaleki’s brother shrugs that’s just the way it is. “One thing to one culture doesn’t make sense to another culture,” he says.

Indeed. To infidels, Islam is in a certain sense unknowable, and most of us are content to leave it at that. The vast majority of Muslims don’t conspire to kill cartoonists or murder their daughters or shoot dozens of their fellow soldiers. But Islam inspires enough of this behavior to make it a legitimate topic of analysis. Don’t hold your breath. We’d rather talk about anything else — even in the Army.

What happened to those men and women at Fort Hood had a horrible symbolism: Members of the best trained, best equipped fighting force on the planet gunned down by a guy who said a few goofy things no one took seriously. And that’s the problem: America has the best troops and fiercest firepower, but no strategy for throttling the ideology that drives the enemy — in Afghanistan and in Texas.

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone.

The Sunday Homily - SMALL GIFT, BIG SACRIFICE

Perhaps Jesus was tired, maybe even disturbed after his confrontation with the Pharisees, so he sat down to rest, reflect, or simply just to get away from a tense situation. As he was sitting down he watched the people putting money into the treasury of the Temple. This Sunday’s Gospel narrative teaches us a beautiful lesson about generosity. “A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents” (Mark 12: 42)

Generosity is a beautiful virtue. Not only are we to be generous with our financial resources, but we need to be generous in everything that we do.

Not too long ago my parents were telling me about a dear friend of theirs that passed away. The wake and the funeral were packed with people from all over the city. For many years their friend used to help out the elderly homebound people of his neighborhood by cutting their lawns, shoveling their snow and doing their food shopping at no cost to the people that he was helping.

Locally, here in Corpus Christi, many stories are told about how the Fuedo brothers used to help the poor. For many years Ron and Joe ran a few very successful grocery stores. They were always helping people who could not afford to buy the necessary groceries that they needed for their homes.

People still remember how the telephone would ring just as Ron was finally able to sit down with his wife and children for Thanksgiving dinner after so many long hours dedicated to the grocery store. Without a complaint, he would excuse himself from the table, answer the call and then inform his wife that he would return shortly. The call was from a person who did not have food for their Thanksgiving Day meal.

Ron would drive down to his grocery store which was located close to his home, open the door and go into the backroom with large paper bags which he generously filled with enough food for a hearty Thanksgiving dinner.

These stories all remind me about a nurse that took care of grandmother during the last years of her life. My grandmother spent her last years in a nursing home because she was unable to care for herself. Alzheimer’s completely sapped her joyful vitality and totally changed her personality.

Every time I went home to visit my parents, we would always spend time with my grandmother. The visits were always very sad. After my mother briefly reminded her as to whom we were, my grandmother would be delighted by our visits. The sadness was caused by what the illness had done to my grandmother.

The nurses at the nursing home were extraordinary women. In their own simple way, they would take care of every tiny detail of the patients. There were many other patients that were in worse shape than my grandmother. I often wondered how the nurses could be so cheerful and so loving in such a difficult environment.

One day, during one of our family visits, the nurse that always took care of my grandmother, told me that she could not wait to retire so that she could come back every day to the nursing home and spend her entire day with the patients at no charge to the home. She was so excited about the possibility of generously giving of herself without any restrictions.

My dear friends, we will only be truly happy if we are generous with God and generous with our neighbor. The virtue of generosity allows us to become fully human. By nature, we are made to love.

I like to quote to you often the words that Pope John Paul II wrote in his first encyclical letter. “Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it”.

“Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood (Mark 12: 44).

This Sunday’s Gospel narrative brings us to reflect upon even a deeper dimension of the virtue of generosity. The poor widow gave all that she had. Her gift was small, but her sacrifice was great.

There are two virtues that go deeper than the generosity. The first deeper virtue is magnanimity. Magnanimous people go beyond generosity. They have a noble soul and a disposition to take on great things for God and for their neighbor. These are the people who are passionate about their ideals and convictions. They live for God and for their neighbor by taking on great projects without any hesitation. They are the great leaders, the great reformers and the great entrepreneurs.

The second deeper virtue is magnificence. People with great souls and big hearts practice this virtue by taking on great things for God and for neighbor while undertaking the financial burden that such a project costs. These are the Tom Monaghan’s of the world who took the fortune that he made by selling his Domino’s Pizza and created a Catholic university for the education of young people.

How then can we apply today’s Gospel passage to our lives? We need to examine ourselves and see just how generous we are with God and our neighbor. We can do this by looking at three things that pretty well covers all of life; i.e., our time, our talents and our money. Are we generous? Do we make sacrifices for others? Remember the words of Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta when she said: “This is the meaning of true love, to give until it hurts”.

Are we generous at home? This is where all of this has to begin. How do we live our family life? Once generosity is lived out in the home, it carries over to our parish family, or place of work and our school.

A number of years ago I was invited to give a retreat to a group of lay people in New York City. A seminarian graciously accompanied me in order to help with the practical details. Prior to the evening retreat, we had a number of appointments, and so that meant that we would have lunch in New York. The seminarian really enjoyed Asian cuisine, so I accommodated his palate by inviting him to lunch at a Korean restaurant.

As we went to our table, we were met by a Korean woman who graciously attended us with delicate courtesy. Having had many years of experience at my father's restaurant, I was able to notice that her kindness, manners, and spirit of service were far from ordinary.

Towards the end of the meal, another Korean woman finished waiting on our table. When we were ready, I asked her for the check. She then proceeded to tell me that there would be no charge for the lunch because the first waitress took care of the bill. I was very surprised and I asked her why she had decided to pay for our meal. "She is Christian", was the unanticipated answer from the waitress.

"She is Christian", meant that all the other waitresses were not Christian, and that all though encountering a free meal in the middle of downtown New York City surprised me, they were not surprised at all. They knew that this woman was different. Because of her Christianity, she was different.

God is a God of unconditional love. We will never be able to outdo God’s generosity for us. The more generous we are with God and our neighbor, the more God will be generous with us. So, be generous with your time. Give yourself to others. Use and develop the talents that God has given to you. Be generous with your money. Do not be cheap. Besides, you can’t take it with you. What’s the point of being cheap?

Just imagine what parish life would be like if everyone was generous with their time, their talents and their money. One Catholic parish where everyone lived the Gospel with authenticity, maturity, coherence and passion could do a lot of good.

Fort Hood Tragedy - Military jihadists fill 'every branch' - by World Net Daily

"Muslims should stand up and fight the aggressor." That's what Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan said about America before he and possibly other Muslim soldiers at Fort Hood shot 43 fellow soldiers, killing 12, who were returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"He said Muslims had a right to attack" the U.S., said Col. Terry Lee, who worked with Hasan at the Texas post, where the devout Sunni Muslim refused deployment. "He said Muslims shouldn't be fighting Muslims," he added. "He was very clear on that."

Shockingly, a growing number of other Muslim American soldiers as well as civilian contractors have put their religion before their duty. Some like Hasan have killed, or tried to kill, their fellow soldiers. Others have infiltrated the military in order to undermine it and aid and comfort the enemy.

According to an explosive new book, "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America," Hasan is just the tip of a jihadist Fifth Column operating within the ranks of the U.S. military – which is too blinded by political correctness to see the threat.

Quoting from a classified military briefing, "Muslim Mafia" reveals that this Fifth Column has penetrated "every branch of the U.S. military." The Islamist enemy has even infiltrated the al-Qaida detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Security officials at Gitmo have been investigating a possible new spy ring involving several "dirty" Arabic linguists who are accused among other things of -

omitting valuable intelligence from their translations of detainee interrogations;

slipping notes to detainees inside copies of the Quran;

coaching detainees to make allegations of abuse against interrogators; and

meeting with suspects on the terrorist watchlist while traveling back in the United States.

More than 75 former Gitmo detainees have returned to the battlefield or anti-American jihad. Some met with the suspect Muslim translators. Others were privately counseled by chaplains also under investigation for security breaches.

Gitmo security officials recently met with FBI agents in Philadelphia to aid their investigation into one of the Muslim linguists under contract at Gitmo, according to sources quoted in the book who are familiar with the investigation.

They also this summer briefed members of Congress about the prison camp's internal security breaches, according to "Muslim Mafia," which is co-authored by former federal agent P. David Gaubatz and investigative journalist Paul Sperry, author of "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington," which is being used by law enforcement and the military.

"Three years of investigations have revealed the presence of pro-jihad/anti-Western activities among the civilian contractor and military linguist population serving Joint Task Force Guantanamo," states a copy of the classified Gitmo briefing, which was prepared in May 2009 for the FBI and CIA, as well as the congressional intelligence committees.

The report explains that dirty Arabic linguists have gathered classified data involving detainees, interrogations and security operations in an effort to "disrupt" Gitmo operations and U.S. "intelligence-collection capabilities."

It goes on to specifically finger the Muslim Brotherhood, which it calls a terrorist group, in the conspiracy. The Muslim Brotherhood and its U.S. operations and front groups are the subject of "Muslim Mafia."

"These actions are deliberate, carefully planned, global, and to the benefit of the detainees and multiple terrorist organizations, to include al-Qaida and Muslim Brotherhood," the briefing states, according to the bestselling book.

The enemy infiltration is not limited to Guantanamo.

The report strongly suggests that Islamist spies have penetrated nearly every sensitive U.S. security agency involved in the war on terror, potentially compromising intelligence government-wide.

"Persons participating in this activity move regularly between multiple contracting companies, various intelligence agencies in the U.S. government [FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, etc.], and every branch of the U.S. military."

The investigation comes on the heels of a major Muslim espionage ring that the FBI broke up at Gitmo in 2004.

A former Army Muslim chaplain was charged with espionage, mishandling classified documents, and lying to investigators, and served hard time in the stockade. Two of his Muslim brothers at Gitmo, both Arabic interpreters, were convicted of stealing or mishandling classified documents.

Hasan, the alleged Fort Hood terrorist, is a U.S. citizen whose Palestinian parents emigrated from the West Bank.

Col. Lee said Hasan complained about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had hoped President Obama would quickly end them, but when they "didn't come to a quick end, he got more agitated."

This summer, Lee says he overheard Hasan praise the Muslim who shot two soldiers at a military recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark.

"He was happy" about it, Lee said in an interview with Fox News. "He said 'Maybe we should have more of these people. Maybe people should strap [on] bombs and go into town squares.'"

There are some 40 Muslims at Fort Hood, and an estimated 15,000 Muslims serving throughout the U.S. armed forces.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations cautioned against a rush to judgment about the shooter's motives.

"The motive of the attacker is not yet known," insisted CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad. (The FBI recently cut off ties to the Washington-based group after identifying it as a front group for Hamas terrorists in the largest terror finance case in U.S. history. CAIR and its founding chairman were named unindicted terrorist co-conspirators in the case.)

But other current and former Muslims, who oppose CAIR and dispute its claims to representing American Muslims, say the shooter's motive is clear: violent jihad in the name of radical Islam.

"America needs to awaken from its sleep and its unwillingness to face the issue of fundamentalist Islam in our midst which undoubtedly is the cause of the tragedy in Fort Hood," said Walid Shoebat, a former Islamist terrorist.

"Some very serious decisions need to [be] made when it comes to having Muslims protecting our country, as it is impossible to know whether they may be honorable or foxes in the hen house."

Abortion is Not Health Care by Joseph Meaney

Bumper stickers with the message "Abortion is Not Health Care" have started appearing around the country. They could also say infanticide and euthanasia are not health care.

Our first child, Therese Marie, was born on September 29th the Feast of the Archangels. While in the hospital I met the mother of a child born prematurely and who had to be treated in the neo-natal intensive care unit. That baby was fortunate to arrive in the USA and not Great Britain.

Sarah Capewell's boy Jayden came prematurely at 21 weeks and 5 days of pregnancy in an English hospital. Had Jayden been born 48 hours later he would have been eligible for intensive care treatment. Instead, following their medical guidelines, the British National Health Service staff allowed him to gasp for breath for two hours before dying in his mother's arms.

Welcome to socialized medicine.

My wife and I saw some of the problems with the US health care system firsthand through the delivery and neo-natal care of our daughter. The fear of lawsuits leads directly to costly defensive medicine, including the ordering of unnecessary medical tests. At times it seems like the whole health care system is oriented towards the convenience of medical staff rather than the best interests of the patients. Costs are indeed very high.

On the other hand, we had no fear that the very best trained personnel and technology were ready and willing to care for the patients. For example, the USA has 27 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, very effective tools for accurate diagnosis, per million Americans. The figure for both Canada and Great Britain is 6 per million inhabitants. One could go on about the things that America's flawed system provides that are simply not available under socialized medical regimes, but the end results of both systems when compared are clear for all to see. Overall cancer survival rates after 5 years for American men are 66% and 63% for women. In Europe they are 47% for men and 56% for women.

"Health Care Reform should be about saving lives NOT destroying them" is the slogan of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' campaign to oppose vigorously the current health care legislation before the US Congress. Abortion providers stand to receive millions of our taxpayer dollars for their deadly work if the bills are not properly amended. The right of medical practitioners to decline to perform immoral procedures because of conscientious objection is not protected in the current drafts. Bureaucrats will be giving the gravely ill and elderly voluntary "end of life counseling" and others will decide who gets life-saving treatments and who won't, as we see already in Britain.

The legislation as it currently stands in the almost 2,000-page House bill is totally unacceptable from a pro-life perspective. Please join us in taking action to inform our political representatives of how you feel about the health care bills that will be voted on in the next few days (click here). We must act and pray, asking for Divine deliverance from this impending disaster.

 

One of the world's leading experts on the international pro-life movement, Joseph Meaney speaks French, Spanish, and Italian fluently and is HLI's Director of International Coordination. His bachelors and masters degrees from the Catholic University of Dallas and the University of Texas Institute of Latin American Studies prepared him for an international career that has included lectures and investigative journalism missions on all continents and over 64 countries.

One of the world's leading experts in the international pro-life movement, Joseph Meaney speaks French, Spanish, and Italian fluently and is Human Life International's Director of International Coordination. His bachelors and masters degrees from the Catholic University of Dallas and the University of Texas Institute of Latin American Studies prepared him for an international career that has included lectures and investigative journalism missions on all continents and over 64 countries.  Joseph's parents, Dr. Michael and Dr. Francette Meaney live in Corpus Christi, Texas.