Fort Hood Terrorist’s Attorneys Working Overtime to Keep Him from Confessing to Terrorism

FRONT PAGE MAGAZINE
by Daniel Greenfield
August 8, 2013

Nidal Hasan’s lawyers have a problem. The Fort Hood terrorist keeps confessing to being a terrorist, naming Islamic terrorism as his motive and doing everything possible to disprove the “Workplace Violence” tag stuck on him.

So his lawyers are trying to save him from himself. Or to save the narrative that has been painstakingly built up.

 The court-martial of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of carrying out the 2009 mass shootings at Fort Hood, was suspended Wednesday after a lawyer accused the defendant of deliberately trying to secure a death sentence….

Wednesday morning, one of [Hasan's standby attorneys] Lt. Col. Kris Poppe, offered to step in and represent Hasan.

Poppe told military judge Col. Tara Osborn that it is “clear [Hasan’s] goal is to remove impediments or obstacles to the death penalty and is working toward a death penalty.” …

“I object. That’s a twist of the facts,” Hasan responded. He repeatedly asked the judge for permission to explain why Poppe’s claim was wrong, but refused to do so in writing.

Hasan is actually correct here. Poppe is twisting the facts. Hasan is trying to assert his motive, not trying to die. Death would be a side benefit, assuming he wants to die.

Al Qaeda terrorists routinely assert their Islamic motives. And lawyers and judges routinely try to stop them because it upends the entire liberal judicial process in which defendants pretend to be innocent and the system pretends Islam is a religion of peace.

There’s more at stake in the Fort Hood case because the military has gone out on a limb to claim that Islam is not the issue in order to make Muslims feel more comfy in the military. Now Nidal Hasan is ruining the PC party by reminding everyone that Islam and the military are incompatible.

That’s actually the theme of his defense and he couldn’t have found a sorer spot to strike.

About Daniel Greenfield

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.