What Do You Want?!?!

[KBayDog]

You have a good point about the over-coverage of the "Runaway Bride," Rochelle, but I submit this to you: If the military were to investigate its own members to weed out Akbar-types, you media-types would jump all over us as being on a witch hunt, being racist, etc. The ACLU would accuse us of violating civil rights. Etc, etc, etc - the list goes on. We know the drill; we've been through it before. Many times. It's old news to us.

What we had here was a freak incident...the exception, not the norm. I feel for the victims and the families of all involved. However, for the tens of thousands of people that are recruited each month, I have to say that the military does a pretty good job of weeding out the freaks (obviously they missed Fly Navy, but eh, that's the Navy for ya). Still, sheer numbers dictate that a few slip will through the cracks. Sooner or later, though, they are exposed and dropped from our ranks. Quickly. No prolonged investigations, circus-type trials (except the ones sponsored by Dr. Pepper), no fanfare. They are simply dropped.

I have one question for you, Rochelle: Every year, there are dozens of school shootings across the country. Kids, usually with past behavioral problems, exhibit good warning signs ("I want to kill my classmates," "I hate this school," "I can't wait for it to end," etc.), which are usually "ignored." Obviously there is no question that those kids are still out there - if they weren't, the school shootings would have stopped long ago. Since public schools tend to be a little smaller than the U.S. military, why haven't the school administration-types been able to drop those kinds of students from their ranks? Many of the kids are even mentally ill - why haven't school officials been able to get rid of those kids? Why don't they "keep up" with their students? Why do they keep missing these kids?

Oh, that's right, I forgot who I was dealing with. You media-types would report that as being a violation of their civil rights and chastise the administraton for being on a witch hunt. You'd report that kids were being singled out based on race, gender, etc. The ACLU would be all over something like that.

You bring up good questions, Rochelle, but don't worry about the military. We know how to police our own.

Detroit Free Press
May 4, 2005

Why Was Sergeant Still In The Army?

By Rochelle Riley, Free Press Columnist

Am I missing something?

Two years ago, just days before his unit was set to join the invasion of Iraq, an Army sergeant threw grenades into the tents of fellow soldiers and shot those able to flee the flames. When he was done, two soldiers lay dead, 14 wounded.

The sergeant, Hasan Akbar, a 34-year-old Muslim convert who grew up in south-central Los Angeles, was captured, not killed, that night in Kuwait, and returned to the United States to become the first American since the Vietnam War to be prosecuted for killing a fellow soldier during wartime.

A 15-member military jury sentenced him to death last week, making him the sixth inmate on military death row at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan.

Akbar said he'd endured anti-Muslim taunts and threats and felt that his life was in danger. He claimed that he had no choice but to launch the March 2003 attack on the U.S. soldiers who threatened him.

His own defense attorneys said Akbar was mentally ill.

But prosecutors said that Akbar made it his mission to stop his fellow soldiers from killing other Muslims and that he had wanted to kill Americans for some time.

Akbar's diary, one he kept by computer for 13 years, spoke loudest:

In 1992, he wrote: "I made a promise that if I am not able to achieve success because of some Caucasians, I will kill as many of them as possible."

In a 1996 entry, he wrote: "Destroying America is my greatest goal."

In 1998, he joined the Army.

And in 2003, in the week before he went to Kuwait, he wrote: "As soon as I am in Iraq, I am going to try and kill as many of them as possible." (Prosecutors say he was referring to fellow soldiers).

Akbar's former platoon leader testified during his trial that Akbar was unfit for duty. He got fired from a leadership position just before the invasion. "He really was kind of fired and forgotten," Capt David Storch told a jury.

So which question is the right one: How could the U.S. military send an obviously mentally ill man who abhorred fellow soldiers and walked around talking to himself to Kuwait with those soldiers?

Or: How could officers be so fed up with Akbar's poor performance that they removed from him a leadership position, but didn't relieve him of duty because it was "too complex" at a chaotic time?

Or: Why isn't the case of a domestic terrorist who infiltrated the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., and later attacked his own unit at the top of the news?

No matter where the truth lies, one thing is clear: Somebody messed up. Somebody slipped up. Somebody wasn't paying attention. Now two soldiers are dead; one is on death row. And 14 bear scars.

Hasan Akbar's hatred may have been borne of racism or frustration or lunacy. But whatever its origin, he should not have been allowed to carry that hatred into battle.

When he joined the Army in 1998 to pay off college loans, someone should have kept up with where his mind went. Soldiers still fighting in Iraq need to know that their comrades have their backs, and not get fatally shot in the back as Capt. Christopher Seifert, 27, was as he tried to escape Akbar's grenade attack. (Air Force Major Gregory Stone, 40, died in that blast.)

News networks spent more time on a runaway bride than with stories about how a man who pledged to destroy America could be shipped to Kuwait with men he believed were enemies.

I'm not interested in the bride. I want to know how officials missed Hasan Akbar and whether there are others like him still in the ranks.