The Fort Hood terrorist as a military role model

Right after the Fort Hood shooting, I referred in an email to Major Nidal Hasan.  Steve Schippert, who was one of the email’s recipients, immediately wrote me back saying that I should never use the word “Major” in the same sentence as that killer’s name.  Through his act of murderous treason, Steve, said Hasan had forever forfeited his right to associate with that honorable rank.

Steve’s instincts were right on the money.  Almost as if on schedule, James Taranto, writing at Best of the Web Today, reports on the heinous use to which Code Pink, the radical anti-military organization, is putting Hasan’s rank:

“We support our troops when they shoot their officers,” read a banner held aloft by some “antiwar” protesters back in the spring of 2003. Well, jejune anarchists have as much right to free speech as the rest of us, and anyway, surely they were just being provocative. They don’t really believe that, do they?

Don’t be so sure. On Veterans Day, six days after the Fort Hood massacre, a group that styles itself Code Pink: Women for Peace issued a statement urging President Obama not to send more troops to Afghanistan. It began as follows:

This Veterans Day, our hearts ache for the soldiers and their families affected by the recent shootings at Ft. Hood. Our hearts also ache for the soldiers and their families who continue to be affected by war in Iraq and Afghanistan on a daily basis. Now more than ever, CODEPINK is committed to helping to heal the hearts of those touched by war, and doing whatever we can to bring our troops home.

(Hat tip: BigGovernment.com.)

It’s bad enough to draw a moral equivalence between professional soldiers, who volunteer to risk their lives in defense of their country, and murder victims. But it gets much worse:

Our soldiers clearly need more care; the last thing they need is to be put into more harm’s way. Even US military officers think so–Matthew Hoh resigned from the Foreign Service in protest of the lack of clear mission and achievable results in Afghanistan, and of course the Ft. Hood shooter was a Major who did not wish to be deployed to Afghanistan.

We have read a lot about the background of the alleged killer, Nidal Hasan, and we don’t know of any basis on which to think he agreed with Code Pink’s stated position that “our soldiers clearly need more care.” In any case, mowing them down in cold blood would seem an odd way to give voice to such a view. Yet the Code Pink ladies are eager to have us believe that the killer is a kindred spirit. They think that imputing their opinions to him strengthens their case via an appeal to authority: “Even US military officers think so.”

This isn’t precisely the same as the banner we cited atop this item. But Code Pink’s motto could be: “Our officers support Code Pink when they shoot their troops.”