For the Fear of a Lawsuit 13 Lives Were Lost

The real question is will the Fort Hood shootings make any difference in the future (except, of course, in the lives of the victims):

The warning signs were all there: the justification of homicide bombings; the spewing of anti-American hatred; the efforts to reach Al Qaeda ...

But the U.S. military treated Major Nidal Malik Hasan with kid gloves, even after giving him a poor performance review. And though he was on the radar screen of at least one U.S. intelligence agency, no action was taken that might have prevented the Army psychiatrist from allegedly gunning down 13 people and wounding 29 others in the Fort Hood massacre last week.

"There were definitely clear indications that Hasan's loyalties were not with America," Lt. Col. Val Finnell, Hasan's classmate at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., told FoxNews.com in an exclusive interview. He and Hasan were students in the school's public health master's degree program from 2007-2008.

"There were all sorts of ... comments made throughout the year that made me question his loyalty to the United States, but nothing was done," said Finnell, who recalled one class during which Hasan gave a presentation justifying homicide bombings.

"The issue here is that there's a political correctness climate in the military. They don't want to say anything because it would be considered questioning somebody's religious belief, or they're afraid of an equal opportunity lawsuit.

Just wait until you see the lawsuits that are going to come out of this. And some of these people who have all the sudden found their voice as they talk about Hasan's past rantings had better be careful. I could very easily see how they could be drawn into these lawsuits by virtue of their failure to act in the past.