The carnage at Fort Hood Texas yesterday allegedly by Major Malik Nadal Hasan, a Muslim, a military psychiatrist, with radical and troubling Internet postings, who took the lives of 13 and wounded 31 others, with a non-military pistol and a semi-automatic, raises the serious question in this day an age, whether Hasan was a cell of radical Islam?

Why was this question not being asked by the media?  Why did the military not address this issue during press conferences in these days of a War on Terrorism? Why didn’t the White House address this concern?

According to early reports Hasan spent 6-8 years in medical school, became a psychiatrist, and thereafter became a Major earning a 6 figure income.  He received poor performance reviews during his career, which raises the question as to why he was a Major?

According to a cousin of Hasan, he didn’t believe the United States should be involved in Iraq and Afghanistan and expressed these opinions, widely and openly.  When asked when he converted to Islam, his cousin said, he has always been a Muslim.

Hasan felt he was being harassed by colleagues and protested his assignment to Afghanistan.

This horrific scene at Ft.Hood and the alleged shooter’s background raises the question of whether Hasan was properly vetted by the government for the position he held.

Although all the facts are not in and investigations are ongoing, it will be important to ferret-out whether this incident was a single act of a radical Islamist, or part of a more sophisticated act of terror.

Whether it is a single act or not, it demonstrates what we have said in a previous column that it makes no sense to close Gitmo and release proponents of Jihad to US prisons and allow them to influence Islam converts to perform terrorist acts when they are released.

For after all, if our military can’t properly vet their officers and can’t recognize a potential radical, how can we expect our criminal justice system to perform this act?