ABC News reports:
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.
This information is a bit hazy at the moment. We could be talking about another example of the intelligence community getting burned because they refuse to share information, or because they collect information without warrants, or because they misdiagnosed the threat this man posed and didn’t move from investigation to some kind of disciplinary or legal action.
The hardest thing in the world is to tell a victim’s family that you knew this guy was sympathizing with al-Qaeda and you let him continue in his job as an Army psychiatrist.
But even though ABC News is a reputable source most of the time, I want to see a statement from the administration before I believe this report is 100% accurate.
Oh Noes!! He was a terrorist!!!! The Bushies was right!! Dick Cheney was right!! Rush Limbaugh was right!!
Wrong!
I don’t really get this kind of response. Let’s assume, for a moment, that the thrust of this ABC News story is basically correct. You had a man who was making comments openly critical of U.S. military policy, who fellow soldiers had complained about, who was telling people that he was a Muslim first and an American second, who was posting comments sympathetic to suicide bombing on internet boards, and who was known to have made efforts to contact people in al-Qaeda. He had also requested to be discharged from the army because of his opposition to the wars we were fighting.
If all that is basically true, then it was a mistake to leave him on active duty. His loyalties were obviously suspect. They seem to have confirmed that rather conclusively, and they also appear to have done nothing about it. Now, over a dozen soldiers are dead and over thirty more are wounded. I don’t think it’s important that we classify this man as a terrorist vs. a disgruntled employee. It’s the failure to address the threat he represented that is at issue.
And, now that this has happened, it’s also a trick to address the issues its raised without making things worse. We need Muslims for translation and intelligence purposes, and also we need them to feel welcome in the armed services. So, we don’t want some witchhunt that will be counterproductive. But we also have to look carefully at the reasons this man was left on active duty, given what is alleged here.
I don’t understand that response either.
If there is a sliver of truth to the ABC report, then the story is going to have huge ramifications, I fear, and could even impact (politically) the pending Afghanistan decision.
Having said that, I add that just because the shooter was trying to contact Al Qaeda hardly means that Al Qaeda had a role in the incident. I hope this distinction will be made by the media.
The media doesn’t make distinctions. It sensationalizes the stories it reports. That’s what boosts ratings after all.
I’m curious if this guy had a higher level security clearance (I’m not sure what they do for medical people). I know that the lower-level investigations tend to be rubber-stampish (fill out some forms and a general background check), but the higher clearances always involve interviews with people who supposedly know the person. As BooMan pointed out, what’s particularly concerning is that authorities may have had specific information warning of a possible threat, but may have chosen not to take action. What I can live without, though, is Holy Joe pontificating some more (not to mention seeing this as a golden opportunity to trash Obama).
Quite simple to me – for the Republicans, this is an opportunity to play “told ya so”.
Yeah – this will get big – The ‘Thugs will try to blame Obama for it & there’s gonna be a lotta competition to be “more patriotic than thou” – but that last thing that a lot of people, on the both the left & the right, are going to want to know is what *really* triggered this guy.
Not everyone who suffers from PTSD does so for what he saw done to “friendlies”. A lot of people suffer for what they saw done, or did themselves, to the enemy.
The enemy that was a lot like this guy himself.
Unbelievable.
Absolutely unbelievable.
1-ABC?
The same ABC that willingly took part in the insanely false runup to the Iraq invasion?
The same ABC that gets most of its ad revenue (as do all major U.S. networks) from the sickest parts of the Corporate PermaGov structure? The Banking/Credit Card/Insurance/Big Pharma monolith?
The same ABC that is without any doubt whatsoever infiltrated by intelligence-controlled assets on every level of its news and entertainment (read “cultural hypnosis”) departments? (As are all of the other major U.S. networks…network or cable…and all other major news disseminators as well.)
Please.
2-This administration? (Or any administration that has made the compromises necessary to get elected here in the United States of Omertica.) A report that is 100% accurate? Your naiveté is amazing. Especially if you expect a statement that is 100% accurate regarding the failures of the intelligence and armed forces segments of the government.
“This administration” has not been told “100%”accurately” what is going on. Bet on it. It is entirely possible that there is no single person or department that knows 100% of what is happening in the entire governing structure, but if there is one it most certainly is not a group of elected officials and their underlings. Elected officials cannot be trusted with secrets, because they can be unelected and there goes the hammer that maintains this kind of secrecy in the first place.
Unbelievable.
Cheney and Bush still walk free; the torturers and planners of torture remain in positions of real power; crooked pols like Joe Lieberman still fight the good fight for their corporate PermaGov controllers without fear of prosecution orf public calling out by networks like ABC and you use the words “administration” and “100% accurate” in the same sentence?
Wake the fuck up.
AG
It’s all relative, arthur. ABC is less likely to post garbage that they’ll have to retract than the UK Telegraph or World Net Daily. But, until the administration publicly acknowledges that the intelligence services had this information, I’m not going to believe it is true.
Since this information would be highly embarrassing to both the IC and the administration, I would not expect them to push this story if it is false. So, they’ll either deny it (perhaps, even if it is true) or they will confirm it because covering it up will be too difficult.
.
As I have written about Maj. Nidal Hasan since Friday, there is an established link to Shaikh Anwar al-Awlaki.
This photograph taken on Friday, Nov. 6, 2009 in Killeen, Texas, shows a business card that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan gave to his neighbor a day before going on a shooting spree at the Fort Hood Army Base. (AP Photo/Jack Plunkett)S.O.A- 1924- Soldiers of Allah- History
≈ More information in my diary — A Soldier of Allah … Nidal Hasan ≈
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I’d agree, of course, about World Nut Daily. I don’t think I’d agree on the Torygraph. Daily Fail? Sure. But the Torygraph at least occasionally produces news. It was downright respectable in the US election last year compared with even the NYT or MSNBC.
ABC is teeing up the ball for Lieberman and the Homeland Security Committee. Watch him try to turn his committee into the new version of HUAC.
It’s insurance against his getting stripped of his chair because of his healthcare vote. If that happens, he and his right-wing buddies will scream “cover-up”.
Just watch. Lieberman is out to purge government of muslims on national security grounds.
I’ll keep my eye out for signs of that. I think you’re jumping the gun a bit with that conclusion. The administration is going to get asked about this report today, no later than Gibbs’ press briefing. They can say the report is bullshit, or they can say they aren’t commenting, or they can confirm it. If they confirm it, then it’s true, because they have no interest in making something like this up. It makes them look like idiots.
You have to ask that if there is a serious investigation going on and if Nidal is indeed conscious again, who is it that is putting out these leaks? Because it can hinder both investigation and prosecution. Or is that the point?
There is only one desired result of this tragedy.
Desired by the dominant parts of the PermaGov, anyway.
Racheting up in any and every way possible the fear factor of the American population so that the war in and on the Islamic nations continues.
Now…as far as I am concerned the fear regarding large segments of Islam…the so-called “fundamentalist” parts, which are about as fundamentalist as are the right wing-American militias that promote war in the name of The Prince Of Peace… as a powerful anti-Western force is perfectly rational. I have seen it with my own eyes and felt it in my own heart while in North Africa fairly recently. The west has fucked up big time regarding almost every non-European civilization in the world over the past 500 years or so, and lotsa them cullud people got weapons and economic power now. What the fuck else would one expect?
What is insane is the idea that we can control this hatred through military means. Have we learned nothing from 40 years of failure in this regard?
The same fools who are promoting the Homeland Security agenda of paranoia and hatred had learned by the time that they were in third grade about how the American Revolution was won by al Queda/Taliban-like fighters against a bloated and inefficient empire.
But they really learned nothing, because here they are, running the same game only with more dangerous weapons.
Weapons of mass destruction are just one slip-up away from being used, and the even more dangerous WMDs…weapons of mass deception…are being used at home on a level that makes any other propaganda machine ever invented by man look like child’s play.
And here a so-called left-wing blog’s owner gives props to an arm of that propaganda machine that is about .005 degrees to the left of dead center because that’s as far as his own understanding of how things are working here travels.
Fucking incredible.
“ABC News is a reputable source most of the time” my royal Irish ass!!!
Nightline (for instance) has been a “left wing of the right wing” propaganda juggernaut for well over a decade.
ABC slants towards Obama?
Then…beware Obama.
Watch.
They are simply fanning the flames of paranoia in an effort to force the people of this country to back further war in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East in general.
Watch.
I do not know…nor particularly care…whether this Nadal guy is some sort on Manchurian candidate sleeper (from either side…or both sides simultaneously… of the fence), simply a weak-minded loser (a description that could be accurately applied to almost the whole of the U.S. military today) whose ethnicity drove him to kill Americans rather than third-world people as is the case with most of the rest of our armies or a homicidal time bomb in shrink’s fatigues just waiting to go postal for any reason whatsoever.
No matter.
Like political debates, presidential speeches, natural disasters or any other occurrence…the real deal is whatever spin is put upon it by the media.
Had the same New Orleans hurricane tragedy and the same set of lame responses been reported upon favorably by the media…“Brave U.S. First Responders Fail Gallantly Against An Overwhelming Act Of God. President Bush Cries In Anguish!!!” Katrina would have been a plus for the RatPubs, not a felling blow. But they had so fucked up already in both the war and in the financial sector that the PermaGov wanted to get rid of them. Bush could have levitated right out of Air Force One and stopped that hurricane in its tracks and the headlines would have screamed “Satanic Forces At Work In Our White House!!!”
Bet on it.
It’s all a con game now.
And a con game is something upon which one should not bet.
Suspension of disbelief in matter of this sort is life-threatening.
Remember…it’s all a con.
The only real possible answer?
But NOOOOoooooooo….
It’s “ABC News is a reputable source most of the time” all of the time.
Wake the fuck UP!!!
You been had.
Again.
AG
Don’t know how the story could get much bigger, even with Herr Lieberman pimping the ‘Crazy Muslim’ angle. But it is moving virally, even Sullivan is tracking the madness. I think Fallows had it right:
Relax. It’s going to be a long investigation, and after all, the lunatic shooter is still alive. The last people to trust at this point are those farthest removed from facts: the media and idiot politicians.
Why would the administration of all people be the one to determine an the accuracy of this? It’s in their interests to finesse this to hell and back. I’m not saying just belief it now, no. But I think you’ll have better luck when/if we can see actual evidence than an administration statement.
We’re not going to see evidence. Any evidence would be highly classified. But, if the administration confirms this report, then it’s true. They might try to finesse it, so a denial will be less convincing than a confirmation. But, the stronger the denial, the more likely that the report is bunk, because they’d want to be able to backtrack if necessary.
Hmm, so you’re saying we’re just going to hold him and not try him? Or that the Courts-Martial proceedings will be private?
He will be convicted of murder based on eyewitness testimony and ballistics.
they already knew what he had posted online. see, I’m trying to get past the thought of what would happen if you or I had done what they said he had already done online – forget this report. Somehow, I doubt we’d be allowed to just be walking around. this isn’t a case of someone does something, they go to his apartment and find all this stuff HIDDEN. the stuff he published online; the reports from other folks in the Army, you’re telling me that this guy was on NOBODY’S list? and, if was on a list, then what good are the lists?
And his job performance was so bad at Walter Reed that they shuffled him off to Ft. Hood. I would think if a doctor was so against being deployed, no one in their right mind would let him counsel returning troops.
The Army dropped the ball big time and now we’ll find out just how badly. I suspect they’ll put a gag order out on this because it will enrage Americans-both the right wing Muslim hating right or the families of the people killed. In any case I hope someone looks into who the hell is running Ft. Hood and why they blew this so badly.
There are 400,000 people on the “watch list”. Is this guy ON the list? If not, why not?
hey everyone! remember the new term that came out of the 9/11 hearingfs? STOVEPIPE! the bastards have their own agenda and nothing is going to stop them. Please- let us not forget that approximately 3:00pm the general came out and said that the killer was DEAD! What? 4 or 5 hours later the killer was alive!!!!
wtf.miracle!! who the hell are they kidding. once again, we are being played like a fine violin.
.
The general did mention victims by friendly fire, so they killed the wrong man.
KILLEEN, Texas (AP) – A lawyer for the Army psychiatrist accused in a deadly shooting spree at Fort Hood asked investigators not to question his client and expressed doubt that the suspect would be able to get a fair trial, given the widespread attention to the case.
Retired Col. John P. Galligan said he was contacted Monday by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s family and was headed to an Army hospital in San Antonio to meet Hasan.
“Until I meet with him, it’s best to say we’re just going to protect all of his rights,” Galligan said.
Hasan, 39, is accused of opening fire on the Army post on Thursday, killing 13 people and wounding 29 before civilian police shot him in the torso. He was taken into custody and eventually moved to Brooke Army Medical Center, where he was in stable condition Monday and able to talk, hospital spokesman Dewey Mitchell said.
Galligan said he didn’t know if Hasan had been medically cleared to talk.
“There’s a lot of facts that still need to be developed, and the time for that will come in due course,” he said.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."TPM Muckraker says that CIA claims the ABC report is bogus.
An interesting line from the ABC report:
I do believe that Joe Lieberman qualifies as a “senior lawmaker”.
Pete Hoekstra, eh? This story could fall apart in a hurry.
Yep, but don’t think that the media will drop its “The Enemy Within” narrative.
Their job is to scare. They do it well. They serve their masters well. And yet some still believe the media are some kind of check.
.
(TPMMuckraker) – Hoekstra’s beef is not that the Obama Administration, including the CIA, haven’t released any information. Rather, he’s upset that only the Gang of Eight, not the full intelligence committees, have been briefed — and that the information released has been “limited.”
Earlier today, ABC News quoted a senior lawmaker, later revealed to be Hoekstra, claiming that “the CIA had, so far, refused to brief the intelligence committees on what, if any, knowledge they had about Hasan’s efforts” to attempt to contact unspecified people associated with al Qaeda. The CIA responded by denying it had refused to brief Congress.
Jamal Ware, a spokesman for Hoekstra, told TPMmuckraker that the congressman’s concerns are not centered on the CIA. “We’re not suggesting that CIA is the beginning or the end of this in any shape or form,” Ware says. “Congressman Hoekstra believes the committee has a process to go through here — to see what the intelligence agencies, plural, had relative to this threat, and what they did with the information that was in their possession.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Since ABC News put out all of the bogus information about the Anthrax attacks, linking them to Iraq, and refused to even issue corrections on any of it when Glenn Greenwald and others busted them on it, I don’t give alot of weight to any of ABC’s original reporting.
That’s not to say that there’s nothing there. I’ll wait for the Inspector General report. If there is any truth to this, the investigations will go that high.
ABC pretty reliable? Weren’t they the ones who had four independent sources inside the anthrax letter investigation that said there was bentonite in the anthrax and thus it was Iraqi? And what’s the latest version of the truth? A lone nut working for the DOD sent them.
Hey, here’s a thought: Maybe the CIA knew about Hasan because he was one of theirs. Just like the anthrax letters were blamed on Iraq to get the war drums going, and more helped to get the Patriot Act going, the popularity of the war is sagging, parts of the Patriot Act are about to sunset, etc. Time to rally ’round the flag.
Oh, yeah, I know, they wouldn’t be that EVIL, now, would they?
This sounds like a typical psyops that they bastards would orchestrate. Over a hundred shots with one gun? How many times have I heard that before?
Thank you.
I couldn’t remember the word “Bentonite” but that’s the key in the Anthrax case. Bentonite is like volcanic ash or Portland Cement. Bentonite is what’s used in self-clumping kitty litter to make cat pee turn into clumps that can be scooped out of the cat box. It causes things it attaches to to get very heavy, and if moistened, very sticky. So it would stick to the ground, by default, with an airborne viral spore like Anthrax. Which makes no sense, scientifically, if you are trying to infect people with an airborne virus.
But despite this basic scientific controversy, Brian Ross and his associates a ABC News went wild accusing Saddam Hussein of spreading Anthrax all around the US, insisting it was designed to work with Bentonite in order to infect more Americans. Huh? Makes no sense. But they published it anyway. And the rest of the media picked it up and convinced the gullible that Iraq did 9/11 without any fact-checking whatsoever.
It was insane and no one has ever come forward to admit how idiotic it all was. But it worked and scared the hell out of millions of Americans.
Hi Bob,
I have to admit, regarding cia, that was my first thought too. That the guy was a Manchurian candidate. Must escalate the war on terra in Afghanistan, you know.
Just a thought of course.
Any reliance on anything the “Intelligence Community” reports–especially about terrorism–especially the Army Intelligence Service, is not even suspect. It’s presumed false until proven credible.