Why Was Hasan In the Army?

It's becoming more and more evident that Major Hasan, the man responsible for the Fort Hood shooting last week was a known muslim extremist. The question then becomes why was he still in the military?

The question is two fold. First, why didn't he, if he was so convinced the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were so wrong; resign his commission. He obviously had some courage in convictions to kill all those folks, but not enough conviction to resign his commission (and paycheck) as a protest.

The second is why didn't the military do something to get rid of him. That's actually pretty easy, it's called the press. Without every duck in a row, had the military tried to remove him from the service all he had to do was hire a decent lawyer and start a media battle.

Let me give you an example. The military life insurance (SGLI) has a suicide clause in it that says you receive no insurance money for suicide. Yet in 21 years in the military I saw quite a large number of them due to some of the jobs I had. In every case the family was paid the full amount of the insurance. When I asked the Captain I worked for why he said the cost of fighting the legal battle over the money was much more than just paying the insurance. A destitute wife and three kids will always win over the law infront of a jury, plus the bad publicity cost in recruiting.

In Hasan's case we have a lot of apologists in America for Muslim extremists who would be more than happy to rally around a guy getting tossed from the military for his religious beliefs. What we lack is moderate Muslims with the courage of their convictions to stand up and say "That guy is a whack job and should be tossed from the military".