When President Kennedy was assassinated, government authoritires hastened to assure us that the gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a random nut acting alone. There was no conspiracy. Now they're attempting to do the same thing with Major Hassan, only it's not reassuring. Here's why.
If any random person can wreak havoc on a grouip of American citizens anywhere in the world including in the heart of a military installation located in the American heartland, then invading countries with the full force of the American military in order to track down the "terrorists" is a futile effort. Potentially, they're everywhere including right here. They are not localized to Afghanistan or Pakistan or Yemen or Somalia.
And Major Hassan was not just your average random nut. He was a co-religionist of the people the American military just happens to be tracking down. All the people the US military are fighting just happen to be Muslims. Major Hassan just happens to be a Muslim. Major Hassan just happens to have resented the fact that the US is fighting and killing Muslims.
The larger implications are that Muslims located anywhere in the world just might decide to take exception to the fact that the US is fighting and killing Muslims. It would have been more reassuring if Hassan were taking direct orders from Osama bin Laden. Then we can say 'it's that bin Laden again. We need to track down and kill bin Laden and stamp out al Quaida.' But there was no conspiracy. There were no orders given that Major Hassan carried out. This means that any random nut Muslim could potentially do the same thing. And in all fairness any random nut right wing true blue American can gun down abortion doctors or blow up a Federal building. There are random nuts of the right, the left, the religious oriented and probably a few other categories. Is it too much to ask that the FBI be sophisticated enough to realiuze that there are a whole variety of random nuts?
And all our efforts to distinguish between "good" Muslims and "bad" Muslims are in vain. All our efforts to localize and therefore rationalize large scale military involvement are in vain. The myth of al Quaida as a localized "enemy" has been stripped away. So then what are we doing in Afghanistan supporting a corrupt government? There have been more homegrown plots that have been thankfully thwarted lately than Osama directed plots. Muslims located anywhere in the world are rightfully incensed that the US is attacking their co-religionists and invading Islamic countries around the world. Remember that Osama's original grievance with the US was that we established a military base on the "holy" ground of Saudi Arabia. A military solution involving land invasions by US armies is totally futile as a solution to this problem. We can be attacked by anyone anywhere, and Muslims are the most likely attackers because they have the biggest grievances. Not to mention that there are a billion people in the world on the verge of starvation according to the UN. Each of these is a potential suicide attacker of the US and its interests and people around the world simply out of resentment.
Hassan was essentially a suicide bomber only he used guns instead of a bomb and despite his best efforts he was not able to commit suicide. There is no difference as to the outcome whether or not Hassan strapped on a suicide vest or used handguns. In fact he had expressed some admiration for suicide bombers. He had also exchanged emails with a radical cleric who, nevertheless, apparently had not "ordered" Hassan to do what he did. One wonders did Osama bin Laden really "order" the 9/11 hijackers to do what they did or did he only express admiration for what they did. This quest to get bin Laden - is it really worth the hundreds of billions of dollars that we've already spent? Remember Osama's strategy was to "bleed us dry" financially. So far he has been very successful. When a $10. IED in Afghanistan can blow up a "buffalo" that costs US taxpayers millions of dollars, this gives new meaning to the words 'asymetric warfare.'
For the military-industrial complex's sake, it would have been better if Hassan had not acted alone. Then we could have tracked down his "network" and killed them. This would have been a raison d'etre for more military spending and more large scale military action. As it is, it seems that the military and intelligence assets once again failed to connect the dots that would have prevented Hassan's actions, and that could have been done without spending another cent. A couple of phone calls would have sufficed. Once again the FBI has been caught flatfooted. It seems that they and the military were just too stupid to realize that, despite all the warning signs, they had a jihadist right in their midst. It's political correctness gone amuck. And our invasion and occupation of Islamic countries is only fueling the anger of Muslims in our midst.
While the Congress agonizes over the cost of the health care bill and has the CBO score every version and revision of it, no one seems to care about having the CBO score the cost of war. For each additional troop Obama sends to Afghanistan, there will be an additional cost of $1 million a year to the US taxpayers. So 40,000 troops will cost us an additional $40 billion. So CBO and Congress, SCORE THAT!
And it turns out that the FBI knew Hassan was a terrorist (they had intercepted emails with the radical cleric discussing "under the radar" money transfers) so in another epic failure to "connect the dots" we have 9/11 deja vu all over again. It's a 9/11 redux. The FBI and the military establishment not only has egg on its face, they have their collective heads up their asses as it turns out. Our $500 billion military-industrial complex is a big boondoggle which - surprise, surprise - does not even protect our country. Our borders and ports remain unprotected. Our electrical grid is subject to hacking. Meanwhile we are squandering our money on overseas military adventurism. If there is any lesson in the Major Hassan debacle, it is that the money should be spent here at home protecting our own citizens and borders.
