Fact Check

Col. Allen B. West - Tragedy at Ft. Hood

Col. Allen B. West penned an essay about the 'Tragedy at Ft. Hood'?

Published May 31, 2009

Claim:

Claim:   Col. Allen B. West penned an essay about the "Tragedy at Ft. Hood."


CORRECTLY ATTRIBUTED


Example:   [Collected via e-mail, November 2009]


For those of you who don't know, Col. Allen West is running for U.S. Congressman Ron Klein's seat in Florida. Attached is his article
regarding the shootings at Ft. Hood, Texas.

Please take a few minutes to read what he wrote.
 


"Tragedy at Ft Hood"
Lieutenant Colonel Allen B West (US Army, Ret)

This past Thursday 13 American Soldiers were killed and another 30 wounded at a horrific mass shooting at US Army installation, Ft Hood Texas. As I watched in horror and then anger I recalled my two years of final service
in the Army as a Battalion Commander at Ft Hood, 2002-2004.

My wife and two daughters were stunned at the incident having lived on the post in family housing.

A military installation, whether it is Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, or Coast Guard, is supposed to be a safe sanctuary for our Warriors and their families. It is intended to provide a home whereby our "Band of Brothers and Sisters" can find solace and bond beyond just the foxhole but as family units.

A military installation is supposed to be a place where our Warriors train for war, to serve and protect our Nation.

On Thursday, 5 November 2009 Ft Hood became a part of the battlefield in the war against Islamic totalitarianism and state sponsored terrorism.

There may be those who feel threatened by my words and would even recommend they not be uttered. To those individuals I say step aside

because now is not the time for cowardice. Our Country has become so paralyzed by political correctness that we have allowed a vile and determined enemy to breach what should be the safest place in America, an Army post.

We have become so politically correct that our media is more concerned about the stress of the shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan. The misplaced benevolence intending to portray him as a victim is despicable. The fact that there are some who have now created an entire new classification called; "pre-virtual vicarious Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)" is unconscionable.

This is not a "man caused disaster". It is what it is, an Islamic jihadist attack.

We have seen this before in 2003 when a SGT Hasan of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) threw hand grenades and opened fire into his Commanding Officer's tent in Kuwait. We have seen the foiled attempt of Albanian Muslims who sought to attack Ft Dix, NJ. Recently we saw a young convert to Islam named Carlos Bledsoe travel to Yemen, receive terrorist training, and return to gun down two US Soldiers at a Little Rock, Arkansas Army recruiting station. We thwarted another Islamic terrorist plot in North Carolina which had US Marine Corps Base, Quantico as a target.

What have we done with all these prevalent trends? Nothing.

What we see are recalcitrant leaders who are refusing to confront the issue, Islamic terrorist infiltration into America, and possibly further into our Armed Services. Instead we have a multiculturalism and diversity syndrome on steroids.

Major Hasan should have never been transferred to Ft Hood, matter of fact he should have been Chaptered from the Army. His previous statements, poor evaluation reports, and the fact that the FBI had him under investigation for jihadist website posting should have been proof positive.

However, what we have is a typical liberal approach to find a victim, not the 13 and 30 Soldiers and Civilian, but rather the poor shooter. A shooter who we are told was a great American, who loved the Army and serving his Nation and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) stating that his actions had nothing to do with religious belief.

We know that Major Hasan deliberately planned this episode; he did give away his possessions. He stood atop a table in the confined space of the Soldier Readiness Center shouting "Allahu Akhbar", same chant as the 9-11 terrorists and those we fight against overseas in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters of operation.

No one in leadership seems willing to sound the alarm for the American people; they are therefore complicit in any future attacks. Our Congress
should suspend the insidious action to vote on a preposterous and
unconstitutional healthcare bill and resolve the issue of "protecting the
American people".

The recent incidents in Dearborn Michigan, Boston Massachusetts, Dallas
Texas, and Chicago Illinois should bear witness to the fact that we have
an Islamic terrorism issue in America. And don't have CAIR call me and try
to issue a vanilla press statement; they are an illegitimate terrorist
associated organization which should be disbanded.

We have Saudi Arabia funding close to 80% of the mosques in the United
States, one right here in South Florida, Pompano Beach. Are we building
churches and synagogues in Saudi Arabia? Are "Kaffirs" and "Infidels"
allowed travel to Mecca?

So much for peaceful coexistence.

Saudi Arabia is sponsoring radical Imams who enter into our prisons and
convert young men into a virulent Wahabbist ideology ... one resulting in
four individuals wanting to destroy synagogues in New York with plastic
explosives. Thank God the explosives were dummy. They are sponsoring
textbooks which present Islamic centric revisionist history in our
schools.

We must recognize that there is an urgent need to separate the
theo-political radical Islamic ideology out of our American society. We
must begin to demand surveillance of suspected Imams and mosques that are
spreading hate and preaching the overthrow of our Constitutional
Republic ... that speech is not protected under First Amendment, it is
sedition and if done by an American treason.

There should not be some 30 Islamic terrorist training camps in America
that has nothing to do with First Amendment, Freedom of Religion. The
Saudis are not our friends and any American political figure who believes
such is delusional.

When tolerance becomes a one way street it certainly leads to cultural
suicide. We are on that street. Liberals cannot be trusted to defend our
Republic, because their sympathies obviously lie with their perceived
victim, Major Nidal Malik Hasan.

I make no apologies for these words, and anyone angered by them, please,
go to Ft Hood and look into the eyes of the real victims. The tragedy at
Ft Hood Texas did not have to happen. Consider now the feelings of those
there and on every military installation in the world. Consider the
feelings of the Warriors deployed into combat zones who now are concerned
that their loved ones at home are in a combat zone.

Ft Hood suffered an Islamic jihadist attack, stop the denial, and realize
a simple point.

The reality of your enemy must become your own.

Steadfast and Loyal,
Lieutenant Colonel Allen B West (US Army, Ret)


 

Origins:   The above-quoted opinion piece about the Fort Hood shootings was penned by Army veteran Lieutenant Colonel Allen West and was published on the Red County web site on 8 November 2009. It is also linked from the Allen West for Congress web site, which includes biographical information and other writings by its author. (West won election to Congress as a Florida representative in November 2010.)

In January 2012, the Weekly Standard published a letter from Rep. West commenting on the controversy over a video clip showing U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters:



I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?

The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.


Last updated:   17 January 2012


Sources:




    Halper, Daniel.   "Allen West on the Marines Incident: 'Shut Your Mouth, War Is Hell.'"

    The Weekly Standard.   13 January 2012.


David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.

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