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Officials: U.S. Aware of Hasan Efforts to Contact al Qaeda

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Army Major in Fort Hood Massacre Used 'Electronic Means' to Connect with Terrorists
By RICHARD ESPOSITO, MATTHEW COLE and BRIAN ROSS
Nov. 9, 2009 —

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.
It is not known whether the intelligence agencies informed the Army that one of its officers was seeking to connect with suspected al Qaeda figures, the officials said.
One senior lawmaker said the CIA had, so far, refused to brief the intelligence committees on what, if any, knowledge they had about Hasan's efforts.
CIA director Leon Panetta and the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, have been asked by Congress "to preserve" all documents and intelligence files that relate to Hasan, according to the lawmaker.
On Sunday, Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) called for an investigation into whether the Army missed signs as to whether Hasan was an Islamic extremist.
"If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have a zero tolerance," Lieberman told Fox News Sunday.
Investigators want to know if Hasan maintained contact with a radical mosque leader from Virginia, Anwar al Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen and runs a web site that promotes jihad around the world against the U.S.
In a blog posting early Monday titled "Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing," Awlaki calls Hassan a "hero" and a "man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people."
According to his site, Awlaki served as an imam in Denver, San Diego and Falls Church, Virginia.
Interesting development going on here. Lieberman might be right.
 
Wow, the so the FBI was watching him for six months or so because he was an Islamist officer in the U.S. military, and now the CIA had been watching him for the same thing. A whole bunch of fellow Army officers had complained several times that he was an anti-American Islamist.

Yet nobody ever made it a point to go visit this guy?

Yeah, okay. If that is the case then a nice big portion of our intelligence community, the FBI, and the officer corp of the U.S. Army is an absolute joke...completely incompetent.
 
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Well, this doesn't point to any real improvements to the boundaries between the intelligence agencies that were supposed to have been addressed by the Patriot Act.
 
He was probably being used as an intelligence resource to locate and prevent any al-Qaeda plans for a terror attack.

That he decided to go mad and shoot everyone was not, most likely, the result of a long planning, and the intelligence agencies could not put their finger on whether or not, when and how, will he do it.

Individual attacks are very hard to prevent.
 
Individual attacks are very hard to prevent.

VERY, very true. If someone really goes nuts and decides to go on a shooting rampage, this is almost impossible to prevent, and we have had very little success in doing so, historically.
 
Yeah, okay. If that is the case then a nice big portion of our intelligence community, the FBI, and the officer corp of the U.S. Army is an absolute joke...completely incompetent.

It's starting to look more and more like this is the case, isn't it?

Maybe they hoped he would lead them to some big Islamic fish. Or maybe what they had on him was so circumstantial, they couldn't really make a move yet.
 
Maybe they hoped he would lead them to some big Islamic fish. Or maybe what they had on him was so circumstantial, they couldn't really make a move yet.
The former, most likely.
 
Maybe they hoped he would lead them to some big Islamic fish. Or maybe what they had on him was so circumstantial, they couldn't really make a move yet.

In the case of the latter, just holding fanatical views in the U.S. isn't a crime. He would have had to act on those views in a way that was criminal before he could be arrested. I'm surprised, however, that he wasn't given a discharge in light of his problems with performing his role.
 
Wow, the so the FBI was watching him for six months or so because he was an Islamist officer in the U.S. military, and now the CIA had been watching him for the same thing. A whole bunch of fellow Army officers had complained several times that he was an anti-American Islamist.

Yet nobody ever made it a point to go visit this guy?

Yeah, okay. If that is the case then a nice big portion of our intelligence community, the FBI, and the officer corp of the U.S. Army is an absolute joke...completely incompetent.

That's what I've been saying.

Our security is, regardless of the man's intention, only as good as our security front-line is.

You tell that whenever there is any sort of distrubing attack, such as the Fort Hood incident, that there is "Epic Fail" written all over the FBI and CIA's front door.
 
You tell that whenever there is any sort of distrubing attack, such as the Fort Hood incident, that there is "Epic Fail" written all over the FBI and CIA's front door.

There is some epic fail in Fort Hood's SECURITY response to this attack. But, I'm not sure exactly what the FBI or CIA could have done to prevent this attack in lieue of the suspect committing a crime. We don't pursue thought crimes in this country. There didn't appear to be anything he did that was something he could be arrested for...UNTIL THE SHOOTING.

We don't arrest people in this country in advance of criminal acts..."Oh, he might commit a crime, let's arrest him and detain him indefinitely."

Duh.
 
If this guy was a radical Islamist, as some on here are claiming he was, then the military should have taken action. According to some interviews there are officers allegedly stating they reported him numerous times for anti-American sentiment and firebrand preaching. And nobody did anything. Of course there are also the claims that they didn't report him because of PC. Balderdash.

Again, if the CIA and FBI were investigating this guy and the claims in the media about his radicalism turn out to be true and nobody called this serving U.S. Army officer on the carpet...well then somebody's jobs should be on the line.

The only defense is that he never appeared to actually be a threat to anyone. Which will serve to undermine many statements that are being made about him right now.

And now the machine is fostering theories that he may have been linked to the 9/11 hijackers in some way and attempting to hook with AQ.

Boy, I'd sure like to hear what it is the investigators actually have before I make such grandiose leaps.
 
If this guy was a radical Islamist, as some on here are claiming he was, then the military should have taken action. According to some interviews there are officers allegedly stating they reported him numerous times for anti-American sentiment and firebrand preaching. And nobody did anything. Of course there are also the claims that they didn't report him because of PC. Balderdash.

Again, if the CIA and FBI were investigating this guy and the claims in the media about his radicalism turn out to be true and nobody called this serving U.S. Army officer on the carpet...well then somebody's jobs should be on the line.

The person whose job should be on the line is his commanding officer, frankly.
 
We don't arrest people in this country in advance of criminal acts..."Oh, he might commit a crime, let's arrest him and detain him indefinitely."

Duh.

Actually we have arrested or detained many, many people both at home and abroad for just that reason.
 
I believe they were afraid to act out of being labeled islamaphobic. The PR problems would have been very hard to over come. You arrest him/go after him and he gets a lawyer to go to the media, the Muslim groups like CAIR take the cause and it's a nightmare. People feared for their jobs.
 
I believe they were afraid to act out of being labeled islamaphobic. The PR problems would have been very hard to over come.
That's a cop out. They had a duty to act and they failed. They should be mustered out of the military if that's their excuse. Cowards.
You arrest him/go after him and he gets a lawyer to go to the media, the Muslim groups like CAIR take the cause and it's a nightmare. People feared for their jobs.
You are setting up a false dichotomy here. There are plenty of steps that could have been taken that didn't involve arrest. And who cares if CAIR or the media get involved? There is a code of conduct and an oath. If he violated those there was plenty of grounds to deal with him in low profile ways. If he in fact did lecture fellow officers about killing non-muslims and pouring hot oil down their throats then he should have been psychologically evaluated at the bare minimum.
 
That's a cop out. They had a duty to act and they failed. They should be mustered out of the military if that's their excuse. Cowards.

You are setting up a false dichotomy here. There are plenty of steps that could have been taken that didn't involve arrest. And who cares if CAIR or the media get involved? There is a code of conduct and an oath. If he violated those there was plenty of grounds to deal with him in low profile ways. If he in fact did lecture fellow officers about killing non-muslims and pouring hot oil down their throats then he should have been psychologically evaluated at the bare minimum.

They could have, but didn't. There are two reasons for this.

1. They were wrong, he was a danger and didn't lead them to bigger fish.

2. They were afraid to act because of politics.

You decide.
 
Yeah, okay. If that is the case then a nice big portion of our intelligence community, the FBI, and the officer corp of the U.S. Army is an absolute joke...completely incompetent.

epic-fail-career-fair-fail.jpg
 
They could have, but didn't. There are two reasons for this.

1. They were wrong, he was a danger and didn't lead them to bigger fish.

2. They were afraid to act because of politics.

You decide.

You're confusing the actions of the CIA/FBI (item 1) with the actions of his commanding officers (Item 2). His commanding officers would not have hoped for Item 1. And, there are other possibilities besides Item 2 to explain their failure to act.
 
Wow, the so the FBI was watching him for six months or so because he was an Islamist officer in the U.S. military, and now the CIA had been watching him for the same thing. A whole bunch of fellow Army officers had complained several times that he was an anti-American Islamist.

Yet nobody ever made it a point to go visit this guy?

Yeah, okay. If that is the case then a nice big portion of our intelligence community, the FBI, and the officer corp of the U.S. Army is an absolute joke...completely incompetent.

I blame it on PC BS
 
I blame it on a great lizardman conspiracy...

Hey, there's as much anecdotal evidence for that as people clearly stating the only, or one of only two, options is "Political Correctness caused it"
 
Are you sure it wasn't the sparkly pink elephant's fault? I hear he is VERY mischievous.
 
I blame it on a great lizardman conspiracy...

I KNEW IT!

But srsly. Political Correctness has brought us nothing but trouble.

Example 1: The Race Card.

Does that **** work in any other country? Do they even use it in other countries?
 
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