THE ARMY AND MAJOR HASAN - AT 5:52 P.M. ET:  Superb investigative report Joel Mowbray delves deeper into the relationship between the United States Army and the murderous Major Hasan.  Joe Lieberman will begin his own committee's investigation into the matter this week, an undertaking I trust far more than the probe that will be conducted by the ultra-liberal Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont.  From the Washington Times:

What officials knew about Maj. Hasan was neither trivial nor inconsequential.

In spring, Maj. Hasan wrote an Internet posting that compared suicide bombers to soldiers who sacrifice their lives by falling on a grenade. His reasoning was that suicide bombers "help save Muslims by killing enemy soldiers."

No more explicit justification could be made for the terrorists who have been targeting U.S. service personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet reports indicate there was no formal investigation into a soldier who praised suicide bombers who "save Muslims" by killing the very people among whom he lived and worked.

More ominous is that only mild concern was sparked by Maj. Hasan's repeated contacts with a cleric openly affiliated with al Qaeda. Although the content of the 10 to 20 e-mails has been described officially as related to "religious guidance" and Maj. Hasan's "research," no rationale could possibly exist for any soldier independently contacting a high-level enemy figure.

Yet there are commentators who are arguing, with a straight face, that it wasn't "illegal" to contact al Qaeda. 

Someone falling into the lure of jihadist ideology becomes a threat long before he even discusses violence. Danger begins with the embrace of a paranoid worldview in which the United States has waged war on pious, peace-loving Muslims. That the United States is fighting self-identified Muslims in two Islamic nations, of course, only makes it easier for jihadists to win over Muslims.

Maj. Hasan didn't just parrot jihadist lines about evil America, though. He openly argued for Islamic violence against the United States. And that was just what he said in front of his colleagues.

And what about the Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey, who worried out loud that Major Hasan's case would affect "diversity"?  Perhaps the word "retirement" might be placed anonymously on the general's desk.

Much of the evidence points to a critical question: Was Maj. Hasan treated differently because he was a Muslim?

Perhaps the simplest analysis is by way of comparison. In one reported instance, Maj. Hasan told his colleagues that he supported the Muslim who shot two soldiers, killing one, at a military recruitment center in Little Rock, Ark.

Imagine if Maj. Hasan had instead been a secular, garden-variety anti-American radical who told his colleagues that he supported the murder of his fellow soldiers. Is there any doubt such remarks would have generated at least more than the indifference Maj. Hasan's various comments did?

No doubt whatever.

If the military doesn't change the mind-set that allowed those actions to be ignored or shrugged off, the consequences could be even more devastating the next time.

COMMENT:  Those changes can only come about with the assent of the civilian authority.  And look who's in the White House.  True, this politically correct trendiness began long before Barack Obama came to office, but he can put a stop to it.

He won't.

November 16, 2009