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Major Nidal Hasan IS a Terrorist
Saturday, November 21, 2009 
The Washingon Post relegates this embarrassing story to the Saturday pages—dumping it on Friday night, no less. Whenever there’s something that the government wants to get out, they dump it on a Friday afternoon or evening. It doesn’t matter who’s running things. The media is complicit in this. The real story here is why is the Washington Post dumping this story in the way that it is dumping it when it could preview the story and make it page one on Sunday.
Yes, this is a page one story. It’s a story that needs to be told to anyone and everyone, and it needs to be given the consideration that it deserves. To me, it crystalizes the discussion—I have what I need to feel like my opinion was correct.
Anyway, we learn the worst about Major Nidal Hasan’s activities:
In the months before the deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Army Maj. Nidal M. Hasan intensified his communications with a radical Yemeni American cleric and began to discuss surreptitious financial transfers and other steps that could translate his thoughts into action, according to two sources briefed on a collection of secret e-mails between the two.
The e-mails were obtained by an FBI-led task force in San Diego between late last year and June but were not forwarded to the military, according to government and congressional sources. Some were sent to the FBI’s Washington field office, triggering an assessment into whether they raised national security concerns, but those intercepted later were not, the sources said.
Hasan’s contacts with extremist imam Anwar al-Aulaqi began as religious queries but took on a more specific and concrete tone before he moved to Texas, where he allegedly unleashed the Nov. 5 attack that killed 13 people and wounded nearly three dozen, said the sources who were briefed on the e-mails, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the case is sensitive and unfolding. One of those sources said the two discussed in “cryptic and coded exchanges” the transfer of money overseas in ways that would not attract law enforcement attention.
“He [Hasan] clearly became more radicalized toward the end, and was having discussions related to the transfer of money and finances …,” said the source, who spoke at length in part because he was concerned the public accounting of the events has been incomplete. “It became very clear toward the end of those e-mails he was interested in taking action.”
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said Friday that he would investigate the handling of the e-mails — 18 or 19 in all — and why military officials were not aware of them before the deadly attack. Levin told reporters after a briefing from Pentagon staff members that “there are some who are reluctant to call it terrorism, but there is significant evidence that it is.”
Bits and pieces of Hasan’s communications with Aulaqi have become public since the Fort Hood massacre, but the sources provided the most detailed description yet of the messages. The e-mails will help investigators determine whether Hasan’s alleged actions were motivated by psychological deterioration or inspired by radical religious views he found online and through e-mail exchanges with Aulaqi.
The sources said the e-mail correspondence is particularly troubling because Aulaqi, who has been on the law enforcement radar for years, is considered by U.S. officials to be an al-Qaeda supporter who has inspired terrorism suspects in Britain, Canada and the United States. Lawmakers and counterterrorism experts have questioned why no one in the government interceded earlier given Aulaqi’s history and Hasan’s military position.
We already know this man was sending a massive chunk of his annual pay—nearly $30,000 per year, in fact—overseas. Now we see that he was attempting to send money overseas? To a known supporter of al Qaeda? That makes him a terrorist.
If any of your liberal pals say otherwise, tell them to shush. It’s over. It’s done. The man is a terrorist. Plain and simple. End of story. Case closed. We’re done on that front.
The story itself seems well written. Too bad no one will read it. I called him a terrorist the day this terrible tragedy happened and was laughed at.
This man will go down as one of the worst to have ever worn the uniform, and I’m afraid not enough will be done to turn this AWAY from an examination of Islam and towards an examination of why our military is so hollowed out and broken that this man would make Major. There are many, many people who either are serving or have served in our military who practice Islam and they should not be tainted by what Hasan did.
What a disgrace.
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Reader Comments (2)
LEARN HOW TO PREVENT FUTURE NIDAL HASANS
The dilemma caused by the shooting at Fort Hood by Major Hasan exemplifies how each of our programs have failed us. When supervisors, counselors and task forces members rely on subjective references of culture and mental illness, observers miss the signs specific to aggression referenced in post analysis. When observers focus specifically on aggressive behavior, the objective and culturally neutral signs of “aggression” standout, providing the opportunity to prevent these violent encounters.
Major Hasan was under surveillance by two Terrorist Task Forces, one with Department of Defense oversight and the other with FBI oversight. So why wasn’t he stopped?
The use of subjective/qualitative indicators, prone to stereotype individuals by culture or religion; versus quantitative indicators and the use of mental health references know to mislead and misconstrue, fails us repeatedly in our attempts to prevent acts of violence. Only when we use the specificity of “aggression” and its objective, culturally neutral indicators can we get-out-in-front of these acts of aggression and prevent them. Why are current systems uses on campus failing us?
The answer is quite simple – The military does not have an objective and culturally neutral system that collects information and evaluates it to determine the degree (or level) of aggression an individual is displaying, nor has it people who have a clear responsibility to observe and report this information. Learn more about the problem and the solution by reading our Blog: http://Blog.AggressionManagement.com
I completely agree with you that the really troublesome thing about Hasan and the Fort Hood shootings is that the Army proved itself completely useless at monitoring its own people. Whether one takes Hasan as a madman or as a religious fanatic(not that there is any difference between the 2 concepts) it has become clear that the Army and the NSA, FBI, CIA, etc.
had enough information to throw the man out of the Army and put him under serious surveillance. Instead, the vast internal security establishment which the US government has become preferred to chase phantoms.
It is not the terrorists who pose a serious threat to the USA or any other place. It is lack of communication among all the spooks who have been created or newly empowered since 9/11, lack of coordination, just plain incompetence and stupidity.
Having to live in what is evolving into a police state, with millions of spooks and everyone being advised to rat out the neighbors is bad enough. The fact that those spooks do not contribute one iota to improve safety and security is really just about intolerable.