Military and FBI missed terrorist links at Fort Hood

If you read the article in the Post, you will see that the investigation began during the Bush administration. There is plenty of blame to spread around. Remember you assertions the next time 911 is blamed on the Clinton administration.

Until the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and Military Intelligence begin to share information and stop acting like a bunch of kids protecting their turf, the lapse in security is going to occur over and over.

This guy was a nut, but was pushed over the edge by Muslim fanatics. The warning signs were as blatant as a slap in the face.
 
Seems as though the FBI had the emails but failed to notify the Pentagon. The Patriot Act was supposed to help the CIA, FBI, and NSA share information. I guess they figured the Pentagon isn't important enough.

Regardless we know that the FBI blew it big time.

Presidents have nothing to do with it.
 
Sorry, guys, but this is a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacking by the media. First of all, in order to make a valid argument, you have to substitute certain words to make sure that the logic stands up to scrutiny. For example: "In the months before the deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Army Maj. William A. Schmedlapp intensified his communications with a radical Baptist minister 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." If it doesn't stand up to scrutiny under this change, then it's probably not a valid argument. My point is that while the military is a highly-disciplined society, to suggest that these emails served as valid grounds for the FBI to make a case is completely dumb and dangerously un-American. I am not saying that the FBI didn't have the grounds to initiate an inquiry. I am just saying that these emails alone were not enough to trigger the tripwire for an imminent terrorist attack. Otherwise, Soldiers and members of the other uniformed services have certain constitutionally-protected rights, and if we allow the flawed logic of this news article to influence future restrictions imposed upon the military, we will have opened a can of worms...hell, a can of maggots is more like it.
 
Sorry, guys, but this is a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacking by the media. First of all, in order to make a valid argument, you have to substitute certain words to make sure that the logic stands up to scrutiny. For example: "In the months before the deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Army Maj. William A. Schmedlapp intensified his communications with a radical Baptist minister 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." If it doesn't stand up to scrutiny under this change, then it's probably not a valid argument. My point is that while the military is a highly-disciplined society, to suggest that these emails served as valid grounds for the FBI to make a case is completely dumb and dangerously un-American. I am not saying that the FBI didn't have the grounds to initiate an inquiry. I am just saying that these emails alone were not enough to trigger the tripwire for an imminent terrorist attack. Otherwise, Soldiers and members of the other uniformed services have certain constitutionally-protected rights, and if we allow the flawed logic of this news article to influence future restrictions imposed upon the military, we will have opened a can of worms...hell, a can of maggots is more like it.


Bullshit, As an Army Officer he had a Security clearance, His emails alone should have been enough to pull that clearance and start a military investigation. If the FBI had only notified the Pentagon. Face the facts , the world changed on 9-11-01 and we have to make a few hard changes with it. One of those is to investigate when one of our own contacts the enemies contact.
 
Sorry, guys, but this is a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacking by the media. First of all, in order to make a valid argument, you have to substitute certain words to make sure that the logic stands up to scrutiny. For example: "In the months before the deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Army Maj. William A. Schmedlapp intensified his communications with a radical Baptist minister 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." If it doesn't stand up to scrutiny under this change, then it's probably not a valid argument. My point is that while the military is a highly-disciplined society, to suggest that these emails served as valid grounds for the FBI to make a case is completely dumb and dangerously un-American. I am not saying that the FBI didn't have the grounds to initiate an inquiry. I am just saying that these emails alone were not enough to trigger the tripwire for an imminent terrorist attack. Otherwise, Soldiers and members of the other uniformed services have certain constitutionally-protected rights, and if we allow the flawed logic of this news article to influence future restrictions imposed upon the military, we will have opened a can of worms...hell, a can of maggots is more like it.


Bullshit, As an Army Officer he had a Security clearance, His emails alone should have been enough to pull that clearance and start a military investigation. If the FBI had only notified the Pentagon. Face the facts , the world changed on 9-11-01 and we have to make a few hard changes with it. One of those is to investigate when one of our own contacts the enemies contact.

Yup, it seemed there were lots of red flags raised. The FBI dropped the balland the Military played dumb.
 
Sorry, guys, but this is a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacking by the media. First of all, in order to make a valid argument, you have to substitute certain words to make sure that the logic stands up to scrutiny. For example: "In the months before the deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Army Maj. William A. Schmedlapp intensified his communications with a radical Baptist minister 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." If it doesn't stand up to scrutiny under this change, then it's probably not a valid argument. My point is that while the military is a highly-disciplined society, to suggest that these emails served as valid grounds for the FBI to make a case is completely dumb and dangerously un-American. I am not saying that the FBI didn't have the grounds to initiate an inquiry. I am just saying that these emails alone were not enough to trigger the tripwire for an imminent terrorist attack. Otherwise, Soldiers and members of the other uniformed services have certain constitutionally-protected rights, and if we allow the flawed logic of this news article to influence future restrictions imposed upon the military, we will have opened a can of worms...hell, a can of maggots is more like it.


Bullshit, As an Army Officer he had a Security clearance, His emails alone should have been enough to pull that clearance and start a military investigation. If the FBI had only notified the Pentagon. Face the facts , the world changed on 9-11-01 and we have to make a few hard changes with it. One of those is to investigate when one of our own contacts the enemies contact.

Then we agree to disagree. What you need to take into account is how any potential law, policy or other procedure regarding thoughts and ideas exchanged between people is written. The same criminal procedures that apply to any crime haven't changed, and what Hasan did, like it or not, was short of any stated intent to commit a crime. You basically have an officer who was discussing only ideas. The only reason we can connect the dots today is because of what we know happened. Very difficult to make that same judgment BEFORE the act.

You also have to take into account current security policies. Back in the Cold War, if he had any association with the Soviet Union, a country whose interests were known to be inimical to the United States, his clearance would have been yanked as you described. However, in this case, we don't have a country involved. It's a group of individuals scattered throughout the world. There's no smoking gun like there was in the old days. A US military member walks into any Soviet embassy anywhere in the world and you'd have the FBI, CIA and host of other alphabet agencies jumping all over that. The same cannot be said when it involves a mosque.

One last point, the FBI, not the Pentagon, has jurisdiction in these cases. Even when it involves espionage, the FBI has jurisdiction. It is by written agreement between the Department of Justice and Department of Defense that the Pentagon's counterintelligence and other agencies have any authority to pursue certain matters within the United States. The FBI did not report Hasan's activities because it did not have to.

I agree 9/11 changed things. I disagree with your implication about the "few hard changes" that are required. We always need to make sure we don't empower the government to cross that line between a republic and tyranny.
 
Sorry, guys, but this is a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacking by the media. First of all, in order to make a valid argument, you have to substitute certain words to make sure that the logic stands up to scrutiny. For example: "In the months before the deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Army Maj. William A. Schmedlapp intensified his communications with a radical Baptist minister 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." If it doesn't stand up to scrutiny under this change, then it's probably not a valid argument. My point is that while the military is a highly-disciplined society, to suggest that these emails served as valid grounds for the FBI to make a case is completely dumb and dangerously un-American. I am not saying that the FBI didn't have the grounds to initiate an inquiry. I am just saying that these emails alone were not enough to trigger the tripwire for an imminent terrorist attack. Otherwise, Soldiers and members of the other uniformed services have certain constitutionally-protected rights, and if we allow the flawed logic of this news article to influence future restrictions imposed upon the military, we will have opened a can of worms...hell, a can of maggots is more like it.


Bullshit, As an Army Officer he had a Security clearance, His emails alone should have been enough to pull that clearance and start a military investigation. If the FBI had only notified the Pentagon. Face the facts , the world changed on 9-11-01 and we have to make a few hard changes with it. One of those is to investigate when one of our own contacts the enemies contact.

Then we agree to disagree. What you need to take into account is how any potential law, policy or other procedure regarding thoughts and ideas exchanged between people is written. The same criminal procedures that apply to any crime haven't changed, and what Hasan did, like it or not, was short of any stated intent to commit a crime. You basically have an officer who was discussing only ideas. The only reason we can connect the dots today is because of what we know happened. Very difficult to make that same judgment BEFORE the act.

You also have to take into account current security policies. Back in the Cold War, if he had any association with the Soviet Union, a country whose interests were known to be inimical to the United States, his clearance would have been yanked as you described. However, in this case, we don't have a country involved. It's a group of individuals scattered throughout the world. There's no smoking gun like there was in the old days. A US military member walks into any Soviet embassy anywhere in the world and you'd have the FBI, CIA and host of other alphabet agencies jumping all over that. The same cannot be said when it involves a mosque.

One last point, the FBI, not the Pentagon, has jurisdiction in these cases. Even when it involves espionage, the FBI has jurisdiction. It is by written agreement between the Department of Justice and Department of Defense that the Pentagon's counterintelligence and other agencies have any authority to pursue certain matters within the United States. The FBI did not report Hasan's activities because it did not have to.

I agree 9/11 changed things. I disagree with your implication about the "few hard changes" that are required. We always need to make sure we don't empower the government to cross that line between a republic and tyranny.

When Maj Hasan contacted or attempted to contact Anwar Aulaqi his clearance should have been pulled, and an investigation started.
 
fbi has let OK bombing, both WTC attacks, pearl harbor etc all happen. they had knowledge of the attacks and were intimate with many of the attackers in WTC 93 and 9/11. if you think they care about you then you are an idiot. they let the mob become what it was and still is b/c they didn't want to look bad in the media. they let the WTC happen in order to foster hatred against america's enemies in order to expand their power and slowly chip away at our liberties
 
fbi has let OK bombing, both WTC attacks, pearl harbor etc all happen. they had knowledge of the attacks and were intimate with many of the attackers in WTC 93 and 9/11. if you think they care about you then you are an idiot. they let the mob become what it was and still is b/c they didn't want to look bad in the media. they let the WTC happen in order to foster hatred against america's enemies in order to expand their power and slowly chip away at our liberties

The FBI does not prevent crime. It investigates crime. It's just like the police: they don't prevent crime neither. An armed citizen who is familiar with his firearm and is willing to use it PREVENTS CRIME.

The CIA does not prevent terrorist attacks. It collects intelligence in an attempt to determine if an attack is imminent, but in the end, it's very difficult to accurately predict when, where and how the next attack will unfold.

Thank goodness there are cold-hearted men clad in black who hunt down terrorists without mercy. As far as I know, the weak-hearted commander in chief currently in office hasn't changed that.
 
The military is a world unto its own - just like any large organization they feel they can manage their own and have lots of rules and regulations that support them internally. I'm sure many recognized Hasan as a nutcase, but acting before a tragedy happens is difficult in a free society even when that society is the military.
 

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