The way the Ft. Hood massacre is being investigated has raised important questions. I see three immediate areas of concern.

Fourteen dead, but thirteen counts of murder

Fourteen people were killed during the shooting, yet only thirteen counts of murder were lodged. One of the troops was pregnant, and her baby died with her. It has been well-established by now that even in a prevailing humanist ethos that countenances the taking of human life in the womb, when that is done without the consent of the mother it is murder. For the humanists, it’s about pro-choice, solely from the mother’s prospective, and clearly in this case the baby was taken unwillingly and violently from the mother.

Why then did the army bring only thirteen murder charges, when an unborn child was killed as well? From the prosecutor’s point of view, wouldn’t you want to include every count? Wouldn’t the murder of a pregnant woman and her baby add to the case for depraved indifference? Why did the government pull its punches?

I can see no practical or theoretical legal reason for doing so, so I must turn to politics. Obama, you will recall, had the most pro-abortion record of all the senators. Previous to that, he was the only Illinois legislator to vote against the Born Alive Infant Act, which mandated that a doctor be called in to protect the life of a baby if it had survived an abortion attempt. When questioned on this vote during the presidential debates, Obama made an articulate case for the bill being redundant, because Illinois already required that a doctor look to such a baby’s interests. He was so logical and cool that even I doubted the information I had been given on this issue – until I made the effort to dig deeper.

While the proposed law called for an independent pediatrician to be called in to attend to the baby, the existing Illinois law required that the abortionist, on seeing that a baby had survived his killing attempts, himself now look to the baby’s wellbeing. Consider the abortionist, obviously with no scruples toward killing the child, faced with the choice of, on one hand, simply finishing the job he had started, or on the other hand, ensuring that the baby lived, knowing that if there was any damage he would be facing some very ugly press and ruinous lawsuits from the mother. How strong do you think that existing law was, compared to the proposed statute? Do you think Obama was essentially telling the truth to the American people when he gave his explanation?

Delayed and obstructed investigation

Secondly, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, has charged that the Obama administration has delayed and obstructed his attempts at oversight of the ensuing Ft. Hood investigation. Requested materials were delivered late, incomplete, or not at all. And now just today Obama has personally requested that congress delay its investigation until the military completes its, because he doesn’t want “political theatre”. “The stakes are too high”, Obama cautions.

I suspect the stakes are high, but for Obama himself, not for the investigation. The days since the massacre have been filled with heartbreaking revelations that the alleged shooter’s ideology, behavior and stability had been under question, but time and again, in the politically correct ethos in which the military has been forced to operate, no one dared to act decisively, and he slipped through the cracks.

Recall that the CIA’s interrogation techniques were a big issue during the presidential campaign. But torture and waterboarding weren’t enough for this administration. Shortly after being installed, it announced an investigation into interrogation techniques, with indictments possible. Clearly, this was a priority with the new powers that be, and you can bet the intelligence community took notice. However you feel about waterboarding, there is a way to review policy and make changes that preserves the morale of the people who have done such a good job – until now – of protecting the U.S. from terrorist acts.

Could it be that congress fulfilling its Constitutional mandate to oversee the nation’s intelligence apparatus would expose the Obama administration’s antipathy toward the military and the intelligence gatherers?

Recall that during his campaign Obama loftily promised us a transparent administration. Yet he not only has failed to deliver on that promise, he has delivered the exact opposite, and allusions to “Chicago-style” politics are rampant even in liberal organs such as Time and Newsweek, let alone the conservative blogosphere. And that leads me to my third point.

A troubling lack of accountability

It increasingly has been my experience, and the experience of many, that to get the most accurate news about what is going on behind the scenes in D.C., one must turn to the foreign press. Much of the details of the army’s failure to stop the Ft. Hood perpetrator came via the Telegraph.uk and other British papers.

Consider the condition of the American press. Time Magazine had Obama on its cover some seventeen times in one year, and you can bet these were not critical articles. The American press failed to dig into Obama’s past radical associations, any one of which should have sunk his candidacy. They failed to investigate Obama’s unethical campaign fundraising, in which even the most basic and routine fraud-checks were disabled at his online site, enabling gifts above limit and from foreigners – both illegal. And yes, they failed to adequately investigate Obama’s birth credentials. (And one really has to wonder where the Federal Election Commission was and is on all this. To date, the only one being audited is McCain!)

What would the media have done in this regard if Obama was a conservative Republican? As you ponder that, consider the treatment afforded Sarah Palin

If our media is not telling us the truth, but is projecting its own agenda, then amidst a dumbed-down population that has learned to value its entertainment more than attending to its governance, it is manufacturing consent. And it is doing so with as much ease as taking candy from a baby.

Upshot for the Christian

What does this bode for the Christian? I believe we are watching a brazen attempt to take away the Biblical foundations on which this nation was established. Never before has so much been attempted so quickly.

America, far from perfect, has been a light to the world in terms of liberty and governance. We have produced more missionaries and given more aid than any nation in history. We have fought in two world wars and other smaller wars to keep the forces of tyranny at bay. But we are in grave danger of losing our national identity. In that case, we no longer will be able to staunch the tide of globalist humanism on one hand, and militant Islam on the other, that threaten to engulf us. This will mean times of persecution for the Christian.

God can and does work in all situations. Indeed, He does some of His best work in more difficult circumstances. So if all this is His will, we need to accept it and pray to be effective in it. But the Holy Spirit in us is “that which restrains”, and we should not pray for evil to come so that grace can abound. We should be overcoming evil with good.

I’m reading some dramatic accounts of courage and steadfastness by Vietnamese Christians in this month’s Voice of the Martyrs magazine. Each month this periodical presents compelling stories that will both humble and encourage, and which will connect you to what’s happening to so many Christians around the world, who have it so much worse than we. This may, in fact, be a good way to prepare oneself for what may be coming upon us unless things change. I’d like to recommend that you sign up for a free subscription at www.persecution.com.

But most of all, we need to pray, and to act in whatever way we can to magnify Kingdom grace and truth. The day may be coming in which no man can work.

I’ll close with an appropriate music video from a group, Casting Crowns, whose music not only sounds great, but also has a lot of spiritual relevancy.

Blessings,
Paul

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w4KNRk3Jqo&feature=fvw]