Time for a Change

Nidal Hassan was just convicted of butchering 13 of his fellow soldiers and injuring 31 more in the 2009 shootings at Ft. Hood. It was "no muss, no fuss" - "I did it so shoot me, please." I hope they oblige. Leaving that aside, however, other things have come to light in this sorry episode that are just as troubling.

Apparently the FBI's San Diego Joint Terrorism Task Force had made intercepts on Hasan's e-mails to Anwar al-Awlaki in 2008, well ahead of the massacre. Who is al-Awlaki? He is the guy that a U.S. drone greased in Yemen in 2011. The late Mr. al-Awlaki had been born in the U.S. and was known as the bin-Laden of the Internet from 2006 on as an active al-Qaeda lieutenant. Hassan was "extensively" e-mailing al-Alwaki, yet when San Diego passed on its discovery to D.C. the information sat for 2 months and ultimately was ignored. 

What is very troubling is that this is exactly what happened back in 2000-2001 when FBI field agents began sending D.C. odd reports of Arabs training as pilots in the U.S. and not learning to do things like land the plane. D.C. studiously ignored these reports and 9/11 was the horrific result. The conclusion is that the FBI will never be able to do this type of counterterrorism work well. It was true in 2001 and it's true now - we need a new agency that is tasked with nothing except Islamic counterterrorism. Until then, we can expect more terrible incidents like Maj. Hassan and even worse.

www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/27/Emails-Prove-FBI-Could-Have-Prevented-Fort-Hood-Attack