Tonight, we saw an ABC news story and an article in The Wall Street Journal that reported that the FBI and the Army knew that Army Major Nidal Hasan, the accused shooter at Fort Hood, had many contacts with radical Islamic cleric and recruiter, Anwar al-Awlaki.
Nothing was done about it. According to the Journal, “The communications between the men appeared related to Maj. Hasan’s work at Walter Reed Medical Center and his pursuit of a master’s degree…”
So let’s try to understand this. It’s okay to be a U.S. Army officer and contact a radical cleric who tries to recruit for the jihad on his web site…if it’s for “educational” purposes. (We imagine that one “educational” purpose would be, say, “I want to learn more about the jihad and what I can do to help.”)
Geez, we recall when Pete Townshend (and a few others) were caught with kiddie-porn on their computers, and their defense was that they had it for “research” (read educational) purposes, only. Not very compelling there, either.
Think of the billions of dollars and millions (if not billions of man-hours) used to harass honest citizens at the nation’s airports. Folks for whom the prior probability that they are, in fact, terrorists is as close to zero as practically possible. (We ask, how many zeros are to the right of that decimal point for you, dear reader?) Folks who have never contacted radical clerics for “educational” reasons or any other reasons. In fact, folks who would prefer that the government take actions to block or remove such sites–even if it means taking down the power grid in Yemen. Folks like you and us and your grandmother or your children’s grandmother.
As a citizen, Major Nidal has rights, but as an Army officer, he doesn’t have the same freedoms as civilians, yet the FBI and Army are too emasculated and weak-willed (and politically correct) to play the probabilities.
What’s the probability that someone has terroristic or severe anti-Western tendencies GIVEN that they sought out and conversed with a radical Islamic cleric and jihad recruiter?
It seems to be quite a bit higher than the probability that the federal government can effectively manage health care–by at least one order of magnitude.
While we’d like to close with the previous sentence–we think it’s kind of pithy–we must ask: how many other individuals like Major Nidal, have the agencies ignored, deemed harmless, or not bother with? Wonder if any of them live near you, or us?
