Fort Hood: The Al Qaeda question
Why did the FBI disregard the Fort Hood shooter's emails to an Al Qaeda-linked cleric?
Radical Islamist cleric Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, above, was contacted repeatedly by the suspected Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan.
(Wikipedia Commons/Muhammad ud-Deen)
Another indication has surfaced that authorities missed key warning signs about Maj. Nidal Hasan: ABC News reports that Hasan tried to “make contact with people associated with al Qaeda," with later reports specifying that the FBI had intercepted 10 to 20 e-mails from Hasan to radical Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, now based in Yemen. (See "Who is Anwar al-Awlaki?") Denying culpability, the FBI says the emails were justified by Hasan's academic research and did not merit more investigation. Did elite intelligence experts fall down on the job? (Watch a CBS report about Nidal Hasan's ties to Anwar al-Awlaki)
This is another FBI failure: This is our third failure since 2000 to take al-Awlaki seriously, says Thomas Joscelyn in The Weekly Standard, and now 13 more Americans are dead. Seriously, “how dense can the FBI be?” There is no legitimate reason for a U.S. Army officer to “contact a major Al Qaeda ideologue.” It’s “myopic to the point of absurdity” to say there’s “no evidence of a ‘broader terrorist plot.’”
“The Federal Bureau of Non-Investigation”
Al Qaeda and neocons agree on something: The Hasan-Al Qaeda reports are “sketchy,” says John Cook in Gawker, but they’re clearly “something both terrorists and wingnuts wish were true.” Both Sen. Joe Lieberman and al-Awlaki’s team “want Hasan to be a Muslim terrorist,” and for the same political reason: it “helps them scare the sh*t out of people.” It’s hard to show that Al Qaeda jihadists are lurking everywhere if Hasan was a mere lone-wolf murderer.
“How the Ft. Hood shooter brings radical clerics and right-wing nuts together”
It’s hard to stop fanatics, period: I think the evidence is actually growing that Hasan’s “a crazy fanatic who wanted to get in touch with Al Qaeda,” says Megan McArdle in The Atlantic, and that somebody should have done something about him. But what? The FBI has done “very well” at disrupting terrorist plots, but it’s harder to stop a “lone gunman with no need for a support team.” And that’s true if you’re an Al Qaeda wannabe or an abortion-doctor killer.
“The lessons of Fort Hood”
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SEE THE WEEK'S LATEST COVERAGE OF FORT HOOD:
• Who is Anwar al-Awlaki: What's known about Hasan's Al-Qaeda's connection
• Fort Hood: What the world is saying
• Red flags at Fort Hood
• Sunday Talk Show Briefing: Religion's role in Fort Hood (Video)
• Fort Hood: Obama's "flippant" speech
• Who is Nidal Hasan: A timeline of the suspect's life
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220 Comments
Posted by Ray, Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 1:00 pm FBI dropped the ball.
Posted by gary m, Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 1:21 pm He should not have been in the U.S. ARMY to begin with. This country needs to stop being politically correct and get back to OUR GOD AND OUR COUNTRY!
Posted by mohammed abdulraheem, Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 1:22 pm i saw the latest news
Posted by Rob Marchi, Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 1:30 pm its pretty clear that the shooter had a link to alqaeda. if the FBI didnt notice this there is something wrong with our criteria for potential terrorists. just the fact that he converted to islam so late into his service should be a big red flag to his superiors. the fact that he was command rank and that he was contacting an alqaeda suspect gives away his intentions.
Posted by nkdpagan, Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 1:36 pm gary mCan you claify what you mean by 'policitcally correct'? If your worried about his religion, I need only point you to the first amendment of our Constitution.
Posted by PAUL WILLIAMS, Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 1:50 pm I CAN ANSWER THAT NKDPAGAN, THIS COUNTRY AND IT'S LIBERAL, ISLAM S KISSING TOLERANCE, HAS AND WILL CASUSE THE DEATH OF MORE INNOCENT AMERICANS. THAT SO CALLED RELIGION SPEWS HATRED AND DEATH TO ALL WHO DO NOT BELIEVE AND FOLLOW IT, PERIOD. THE PROOF IS VIEWABLE BY ALL AND THOSE WHO SAY IT IS NOT A VIOLENT OR WESTERN HATING TEACHING IS COMPLETELY MORONIC AND CANNOT READ THE WORDS TYPED IN THE KORAN, OR ON A COMPUTER SCREEN. GOOGLE VIOLENCE IN THE KORAN AND SEE WHAT IT SAYS FOR YOURSELF. I FOR ONE AM SICK OF THIS AND DECLARE A CHRISTIAN JIHAD!
Posted by shraria, Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 1:55 pm This is appalling to me that they didn't pay more attention to all of this information on Nidal Hasan. He should have never been in the military and investigated thoroughly. The military does some crazy things, they ignore someone like him and my son may be chaptered out cause he failed his PT test and got down to 1 PERCENT, in which he did a lot of unhealthy things his superiors told him to do to lose weight. After serving 5 years and a year deployment in Afghanistan, but they live someone with terrorist thoughts in......so wrong
Posted by nkdpagan, Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 1:57 pm PAUL WILLIAMS y ou need to fix your cap lock, it makes you look like a lunatic.....and I have found that Christianity is just as aggressive as Islam, and for much longer as well...its not about religion, its about politics.
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