Posts by Spencer Ackerman

Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy thinks he sees light at the end of the Obama administration’s strategy and resource review tunnel:
Reliable sources tell The Cable that the review has entered its final stages, with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and National Security Advisor Jim Jones now taking the lead and putting on the final touches.

Just released from the White House press office:
Our Nation’s thoughts and prayers are with the service members, civilians, and families affected by the tragic events at Fort Hood, Texas. The brave victims, who risked their lives to protect their fellow countrymen, serve as a constant source of strength and inspiration to all Americans. We ask [...]

This is starting to make the veins in my forehead throb. Sarah Posner finds Vision America’s Rick Scarborough untethering himself completely from reality to opine on Maj. Hasan’s murders in Ft. Hood. Here’s what the former pastor of the First Baptist Church of Pearland, Texas, had to say:
We know that Dr. Hasan is a devout [...]

The Hill reports that Allen West, a former Army lieutenant colonel promoted by the National Republican Congressional Committee as one of its “young guns,” has come to some conclusions about the meaning of Maj. Hasan’s murders at Ft. Hood:
“This enemy preys on downtrodden soldiers and teaches them extremism will lift them up,” West said in [...]

You might think that that commentary about a deranged lone gunman ought to await the facts, but you’re not going to get a job at Fox News with that attitude. Raw Story catches Fox’s Brian Kilmeade asking a guest, “Do you think it’s time for the military to have special debriefings of Muslim Army officers [...]

Jason Linkins, in fine form after Jerome Corsi’s conspiracy ramblings about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and President Obama, does some reporting:
I contacted Frank Cillusso, the director of the HSPI at George Washington University, who tells me that Nidal Hasan has no affiliation with the HSPI or with George Washington University, at all. “[Hasan] has no [...]

Conspiracy-theorist Website WorldNetDaily posts the inevitable “connection” between Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and President Obama, and it possesses the same level of rigor and responsibility we’ve come to expect from the leading source of disinformation that the president wasn’t born an American. Under the headline “Shooter Advised Obama Transition,” Jerome Corsi — [...]

Adam Serwer has an absolutely sterling post about the dangers of assigning collective guilt to American Muslims for the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan:
In the past few months, we’ve seen a number of shootings performed by white men with right-wing fringe beliefs–but while an attempt to assign the responsibility for the murder of George [...]

Ft. Hood’s commander, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, said today that there are unconfirmed reports that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan shouted “God is great” in Arabic before opening fire yesterday at the Army base. Again: we will soon be able to hear Hasan’s motivations in his own words. Even if he shouted such a thing, it [...]

Here is a statement issued by the Association of Patriotic Arab Americans in Military on Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s murder of 13 people at Ft. Hood yesterday:
At a time of deep sorrow in the midst of this horrific tragedy, our thoughts are first and foremost with the Fort Hood shooting victims and their families. One [...]