Did Russian "Hacker Patriots" Embarrass Proponents of Global Warming at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia?

Global Temperature Record according to the Climatic Research Institute (CRU)

"When four years ago, then President Vladimir Putin was weighing his options on the Kyoto Protocol the Russian Academy of Sciences strongly advised him to reject it as having 'no scientific foundation.' He ignored the advice and sent the Kyoto pact to Parliament for purely political reasons."--The Hindu (7-10-08) [Note: the Russian Academy of Sciences is a signatory to the Joint science academies’ statement on growth and responsibility: sustainability, energy efficiency and climate protection.]

The media and the blogs are debating the significance of a scandal called "Climategate."

According to the blog Atlas Shrugs (11-20-09), an "unknown alleged Russian entity" hacked into the server of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia and briefly posted a file with embarrassing e-mails and documents on a Tomsk (Томск) server called TomCity. The file soon disappeared, but not before the information had been downloaded by climate change skeptics in the West. The Russian InfoCentre (11-24-09), citing Science and Technology (11-23-09), posted this article in English:

Russian hackers have cracked the server of the University of East Anglia, which dealt with climate change and global warming problems, and found that research resuts [ie results]were forged.

Hackers have stolen the correspondence between University staff members and made it public on the Internet. Researchers have been discussing the ways to forge data in order to correspond with the idea of global warming.

The real data surprisingly shows the decrease of Earth’s average annual temperatures. The University of East Anglia confirms the theft, but refuses to give any comments on the correspondence.

To read Russian-language media reports about this scandal use the Google translation toolbar and read these articles in the "news" on Rambler.ru Here is a search under Российские хакеры Томск (Russian hackers Tomsk). Here is a Rambler.ru "news" search for Фил Джонс (Phil Jones, the scientist at the center of the CRU controversy). Here is a Rambler.ru "news" search for ФСБ хакеры Томск [FSB (domestic state security) hackers Tomsk].

Gazeta.ru (11-23-09) has a long discussion of the scandal and reports:

Предположительно, взлом серверов университета был совершенхакерами из России, так как архив был выложен на один из ftp-серверов города Томска. Сейчас этот адрес закрыт, но материалы уже распространились по другим веб-сайтам, в основном англоязычным.

[Presumably, the hacking of the servers of the University was committed by hackers from Russia; in addition, the archive was posted on one of the ftp-servers in the city of Tomsk. Now this address is closed, but the materials have already spread to other websites, mainly English-speaking.]

The Guardian (11-27-09) also reports on the hackers and claims:

Computer hackers who broke into the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) server at the University of East Anglia had access to its systems for more than a month.

The full data – covering 1,000 emails and 3,000 documents in which the most recent document and email is dated 12 November – came to wider notice when a copy was posted on a web server in Russia on 19 November.

But a month earlier a BBC weatherman who had expressed doubts about climate change on his blog was sent a sample of the email exchanges, suggesting the hackers already had access to the private system...

The university declined to answer questions about the setup and security of the computers used by CRU scientists, but security experts say there are only three tenable explanations for how the server was hacked: a determined break-in by an external hacker; that one of the CRU or university systems was accidentally "compromised" by a computer virus or other "malware"; or it was an "inside job" by a disaffected member of university staff. The latter is viewed as the least likely.

Climate change deniers have seized on the disclosures, claiming they proved that the scientists had colluded to manipulate climate data and that they called into question the evidence for human-driven global warming.

Leading scientific bodies and governments have dismissed the charges, insisting there is clear evidence that humans are to blame for global warming.

The first leak occurred after 9 October, when one of the BBC's regional weathermen, Paul Hudson, wrote an article arguing that for the last 11 years there had not been an increase in global temperatures. On 12 October he was forwarded a "chain of emails", including some which subsequently appeared in the hacked documents. Last night the BBC confirmed Hudson had been forwarded emails written by two of the scientists, but refused to disclose the source.

"Paul spotted that these few e-mails were among thousands published on the internet following the alleged hacking of the UEA computer system," said a BBC spokesman.

After sending Hudson the sample, nothing more emerged from the hackers for a month. Then early on 17 November someone hacked into the RealClimate website, used by climate scientists to explain their work. Using a computer in Turkey, they uploaded a zip file containing all 4,000 emails and documents. But within a couple of minutes Gavin Schmidt, the website's co-founder, realised something was wrong and shut down the site. The file had been online for 25 minutes but had not been picked up.

On 19 November the hackers used a computer in Saudi Arabia to post a link on The Air Vent – a website popular with climate change sceptics – pointing to a fresh copy of the zip file, this time stored on a Russian web server. At that point it was finally picked up by blogs and news organisations around the world. [See full text.]

The purloined e-mails seem to suggest that the scientists were manipulating the data on global warming, but the scientists claim that the hackers were "cherry-picking" the e-mails.

We may know what the truth is soon because the Telegraph (11-28-09) reports:

Leading British scientists at the University of East Anglia, who were accused of manipulating climate change data - dubbed Climategate - have agreed to publish their figures in full...

The U-turn by the university follows a week of controversy after the emergence of hundreds of leaked emails, "stolen" by hackers and published online, triggered claims that the academics had massaged statistics.

The publication will be carried out in collaboration with the Met Office Hadley Centre. The full data, when disclosed, is certain to be scrutinised by both sides in the fierce debate.

But what were the motives of the "Russian hackers" who posted the embarrasing kompromat (compromising information) on the Internet? According to an article in the New York Times (10-21-07) Russian hackers tend to have ties to organized crime outfits. Sometimes criminals operate Internet service providers (ISP's) in Russia.

For example, E-Week Europe (10-21-09) reports that the infamous criminal Internet service provider Russian Business Network (RBN) was hosting child pornography:

RBN's systems were used to host child pornography and at its peak, according to SOCA, the organisation hosted around one third of all the "pay-per-view" child pornography in the world. The rest of the illegal network was devoted to malware including systems to control botnets.

"What we are tallking about is a purpose-built criminal ISP - built for and used by criminals...

Russia expert Dr. Paul Goble has written an article about Russian hackers titled Window on Eurasia: FSB Encourages, Guides Russia’s ‘Hacker-Patriots’ (5-31-07).

According to Dr. Goble, the state security and Kremlin also commit cyber-crimes:

The FSB (state security) and quite possibly elements within the Kremlin itself have been encouraging Russian “hacker-patriots” to launch denial of service attacks on websites that official Moscow does not like, according to a leading Russian investigative reporter who specializes on security issues...

Such arrangements provide the Russian government with plausible deniability while achieving the ends that its officials quite publicly indicate they seek. In 2002, [Russian journalist Andrei] Soldatov notes, Tomsk students launched a denial of service attack at the “Kavkaz-Tsentr” portal, a site whose reports about Chechnya angered Russian officials. The FSB office in Tomsk put out a special press release saying that what the students had done was a legitimate “expression of their position as citizens, one worthy of respect.”

Over the next several years, Russian hackers attacked a variety of other sites...

Russia’s “hacker-patriots” have not limited themselves to attacks on websites linked to Chechnya or foreign states. They have also attacked extremist groups like the National Bolshevik Party, moderate opposition groups like “the Marc of Those Who Disagree,” and mainstream media outlets like “Kommersant” and “Ekho Moskvy.”

In all these cases, Soldatov suggests, the FSB with its Center for Information Security as well as the National Anti-Terrorist Committee did not have to use their own in-house resources to attack objectionable websites; they could simply point the growing community of “hacker-patriots” in the right direction...

[Soldatov observes] that “it is not excluded” that “certain groups of activists are being guided not by the special services but by the administration of the president”...[See full text.]

Some Russian scientists, such as the Russian geologist and member of the Academy of Sciences Andrei Kapitsa, have spoken out against the Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming.

The Hindu (7-10-2008) observes:

Russian critics of the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for cuts in CO2 emissions, say that the theory underlying the pact lacks scientific basis. Under the Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming, it is human-generated greenhouse gases, and mainly CO2, that cause climate change. “The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse,” says renowned Russian geographer Andrei Kapitsa. “It is global warming that triggers higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way round.”...

The hypothesis of anthropogenic greenhouse gases was born out of computer modelling of climate changes. Russian scientists say climate models are inaccurate since scientific understanding of many natural climate factors is still poor and cannot be properly modelled. Oleg Sorokhtin of the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Ocean Studies, and many other Russian scientists maintain that global climate depends predominantly on natural factors, such as solar activity, precession (wobbling) of the Earth’s axis, changes in ocean currents, fluctuations in saltiness of ocean surface water, and some other factors, whereas industrial emissions do not play any significant role. Moreover, greater concentrations of CO2 are good for life on Earth, Dr. Sorokhtin argues, as they make for higher crop yields and faster regeneration of forests...

When four years ago, then President Vladimir Putin was weighing his options on the Kyoto Protocol the Russian Academy of Sciences strongly advised him to reject it as having “no scientific foundation.” He ignored the advice and sent the Kyoto pact to Parliament for purely political reasons: Moscow traded its approval of the Kyoto Protocol for the European Union’s support for Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organisation. Russian endorsement was critical, as without it the Kyoto Protocol would have fallen through due to a shortage of signatories. It did not cost much for Russia to join the Kyoto Protocol since its emission target was set at the level of 1990, that is, before the Russian economy crashed following the break-up of the Soviet Union. According to some projections, Russia will not exceed its target before 2017. Notwithstanding this, the Russian scientific community is vocal in its opposition to the Kyoto process.

“The Kyoto Protocol is a huge waste of money,” says Dr. Sorokhtin. “The Earth’s atmosphere has built-in regulatory mechanisms that moderate climate changes. When temperatures rise, ocean water evaporation increases, denser clouds stop solar rays and surface temperatures decline.”

Academician Kapitsa denounced the Kyoto Protocol as “the biggest ever scientific fraud.” The pact was lobbied by European politicians and industrialists, critics say, in order to improve the competitiveness of European products and slow down economic growth in emerging economies. “The European Union pushed through the Kyoto Protocol in order to reduce the competitive edge of the U.S. and other countries where ecological standards are less stringent than in Europe,” says ecologist Sergei Golubchikov.

Russian scientists deny that the Kyoto Protocol reflects a consensus view of the world scientific community. Academician Kapitsa complains that opponents of the man-caused global warming are routinely denied the floor at international climate forums.

“A large number of critical documents submitted at the 1995 U.N. conference in Madrid vanished without a trace,” the scientist says. “As a result, the discussion was one-sided and heavily biased, and the U.N. declared global warming to be a scientific fact.”

Critics concede that the thrust of the Kyoto Protocol is towards promoting energy-saving technologies, but then, they argue, it should have been just that — a protocol on energy efficiency and energy conservation. The problem with the Kyoto process, critics say, is that it shifts the emphasis away from genuine ecological problems, such as industrial, air and water pollution, to the wasteful fight against harmless gases.

“Ecological treaties should seek to curb emissions of sulpher dioxide, nitrogen oxides, heavy metals and other highly-toxic pollutants instead of targeting carbon dioxide, which is a non-toxic gas whose impact on global warming has not been proved,” says Dr. Golubchikov...

[Russian scientists] cite U.S. global weather reports as indicating that global temperatures have stopped rising since the turn of the century. “The global warming in 1970-1998 was merely a phase in the 60-year cycles of natural warming and cooling,” Dr. Bashkirtsev says.

Russian climate researchers working in Antarctica confirm that temperatures on the sixth continent have been declining in recent years. According to geographer Nikolai Osokin, the ice cover in Antarctica, which accounts for 90 per cent of the global ice stock, has overall been growing.

This year global temperatures have been showing a distinct downward trend, and according to the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, in May “the globe was cooler than at any time since January 2000.” [See full text.]

Academician Kapitsa has longstanding disagreements with English scientists. According to the Times Higher Education (10-16-98):

Kapitsa doubts that man's activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, can greatly affect global temperature or ozone levels. "Global warming as a result of man's activities does not exist," he told a London conference earlier this year. "People who say it does have predicted temperatures would get higher for the past 20 years, but globally this has not happened."...

"I gave a lecture in Cambridge a couple of years ago on the myths of global warming and of the ozone hole, but not one of my opponents would come and discuss the issue with me," he says. "It is disappointing, but the facts are against them. I am for discussion not dictatorship in the academic world."...

Andrei Kapitsa is adamant that man's activities can have only a negligible effect on the earth's temperature, which is governed almost entirely, he believes, by solar and volcanic activity. His views differ from those of many scientists, who see an inextricable link between global warming and the carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels.

Kapitsa is not alone. After the Kyoto agreement on reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, thousands of United States scientists signed a petition saying there was "no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing I catastrophic heating of the earth's atmosphere and disruption of the earth's climate".

Kapitsa believes it is time for more open academic debate on the subject. He argues that 90 per cent of the world's carbon is dissolved in the oceans. A 0.50 C rise in global temperature would warm the water, causing it to release dissolved carbon dioxide.

The historic climatic record, Kapitsa says, does link higher temperatures with a rise in carbon dioxide. But he says that it is the rise in temperature that releases the carbon, not the other way round. Despite an 80 per cent increase in the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the past 40 years, global temperatures have been stable, he says.

In fact, Kapitsa believes that more carbon, and therefore more photosynthesis and plant growth, could be a good thing: "If you are using less carbon fuel, you will have less harvest, and people could starve in the third world.

Russia's President Medvedev has appointed Russia's chief meteorologist, Alexander Bedritsky (Александр Бедрицкий), his new adviser on climate. Bedritsky serves as the president of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Bedritsky believes that global warming is a fact but that the effect is unpredictable. Russia in the World profiled Bedritsky's views on global warming in a recent article. Use the translation feature on the Google toolbar to read about Bedritsky's views.

I am not qualified to discuss the science of global warming, but I do think it is important to be skeptical not only of the motives of the CRU scientists -- who seem to be fudging their figures, suppressing evidence, and bullying their opposition -- but of the sponsors and motives of the unknown Tomsk hackers. The Russian media seems quite proud of these Tomsk hackers. The hackers described themselves as "honest men," but we don't even know who they are. VESTI.KZ predicted that we might be hearing again from the hackers. I am going to reserve judgement until all of the data from the CRU becomes available to scientists because this scandal seems like a clasic case of kompromat.

Wikipedia's "Climategate" entry catalogues the dismissive reactions of many scientific organizations and individual scientists to this scandal. For example:

The American Meteorological Society stated that the incident did not affect the society's position on climate change. They pointed to the breadth of evidence for human influence on climate, stating "For climate change research, the body of research in the literature is very large and the dependence on any one set of research results to the comprehensive understanding of the climate system is very, very small. Even if some of the charges of improper behavior in this particular case turn out to be true — which is not yet clearly the case — the impact on the science of climate change would be very limited."

Military Law and the Case of Dr. Nidal Hasan

"[No] military execution order can be carried out without the president’s signature."

The New York Times (11-15-09) has published an interesting article about military law and the difficulties of defending the Fort Hood mass-murderer Dr. Nidal Hasan. On page 2, the article explains:

If the government does seek the death penalty, as is likely, a panel of 12 officers of equal or higher rank than the defendant must deliver a unanimous verdict, and must also be unanimous in imposing a death sentence. If even one member of the panel disagrees on a death sentence, a sentence of life in prison would result. (In addition, no military execution order can be carried out without the president’s signature.)

Rapists and Murderers in the American Indian Movement

"There was talk of the rape of young white and Indian women at the [American Indian Movement (AIM)] camp. One Lakota elder, fluent in the Lakota language, said during the occupation, 'All they do is smoke dope and make the women take their pants down.'"---Lakota journalist Tim Giago

The AIMsters John Graham and Thelma Rios have now been indicted by the state of South Dakota for the December 1975 kidnapping and murder of the Canadian Indian Anna Mae Aquash. Graham has also been charged with raping Aquash.

Richard Marshall, the former bodyguard of the buffoonish AIMster-turned-actor Russell Means, will stand trial for the Aquash murder separately in federal court. Marshall is accused of providing Graham with the gun that was used to kill Aquash. Russell Means's former bodyguard is a previously convicted killer who served time for the murder of Martin Mountileaux in the men's room of a Scenic, South Dakota, bar.

But the rape-murder of Anna Mae Aquash may not have been an isolated incident for the AIMsters. There are allegations that during the 1973 occupation of the Lakota village of Wounded Knee in South Dakota, American Indian movement "heroes" may have also raped and even murdered a number of young women.

The fake Indian, fake scholar, discredited ex-professor, and AIM apologist Ward Churchill describes the AIM's terrorist take-over of an American Indian town and their reign of terror as if it were a slumber party. Compare Ward Churchill's whitewash of the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee with Mrs. Gildersleeve's eyewitness testimony of her family's ordeal at the hands of the AIMsters.

The Lakota journalist Tim Giago explains:

The mainstream media made heroes of the occupiers of Wounded Knee. They became legends in their own minds. Even today there is still talk among the Lakota people of Pine Ridge that some terrible things took place within the AIM camp at Wounded Knee. There were rumors of other murders within the confines of the encampment. There was talk of the rape of young white and Indian women at the camp. One Lakota elder, fluent in the Lakota language, said during the occupation, "All they do is smoke dope and make the women take their pants down." There is a strong suspicion among some Pine Ridge residents that there are other bodies buried in secret graves at Wounded Knee including the body of an African American man named Perry Ray Robinson who apparently entered the camp at Wounded Knee in 1973 and has not be seen or heard from since.

Retired FBI agent Joe Trimbach and his son John, the authors of American Indian Mafia, say that the AIMster Leonard Crow Dog is worried that the remains of people "disappeared" by the American Indian Movement (AIM) during the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee might be discovered buried in the ruins of the village.

The Trimbachs observe:

In one of his more lucid moments, AIM's...spiritual advisor, Leonard Crow Dog, warned that at least seven spirits haunt the village ruins. He urged a land purchase of the area in order to prevent a gastly discovery. To illustrate, Crow Dog drew lines in the sand while explaining to this Indian, "There's a Mexican, an Italian, a black man, three white women..." Could these be the forgotten souls AIM leaders do not want people to know about? Was it feared their departure might compromise internal security, should they decide to cooperate with authorities once safely inside a hospital recovery room?...With the possible exception of [the black man Perry Ray Robinson], the deaths remain mysteries (American Indian Mafia p. 323. The book is available in hard-copy or as a searchable e-book).

Daniel Pearl's Parents Disappointed with Justice Department's Decision to Try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a Civilian Court

"I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan. For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head."---9/11 Mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

The Hill (11-14-09) reports:

The family of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl expressed disappointment with the Obama administration's decision to try the professed killer of their son, alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in a civilian court.

A statement provided to The Hill late Saturday night, signed by the foundation created by Pearl's parents, Ruth and Judea Pearl, said:

"We are sorry to learn of the Justice Department decision to try KSM in a NYC Federal Court.

We are respectful of the legal process, but believe that giving confessed terrorists a worldwide platform to publicize their ideology sends the wrong message to potential terrorists, inviting them in essence, to resort to violence and cruelty in order to gain publicity.

We believe that justice is better served if the trial of KSM, the confessed murderer of Daniel Pearl, be held in closed session."

Why Didn't the Relationship Between Dr. Nidal Hasan and Anwar al-Aulaqi Raise Flags at the FBI?

"Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism expert who has consulted with the FBI and the Defense Department...said only a 'breakdown' could explain the FBI's failure to dig deeper when it discovered late last year that Hasan was communicating by e-mail with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric in Yemen...

'Everybody at the FBI knows who Anwar al-Awlaki is,' Kohlmann said. "In the world of jihadis, this guy is Bruce Springsteen.'"---Dallas Morning News (11-13-09)

According to media accounts, the mass-murdering Fort Hood traitor Dr. Nidal Hasan was reportedly in contact with the American-born al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Aulaqi (Awlaki), pictured above. According to the 9-11 Commission Report, al-Aulaqi is also an American citizen.

Although the FBI has posted a press release about Dr. Hasan, they have not officially named al-Aulaqi as Dr. Hasan's contact. Still, the unnamed "subject" of the JTTF investigation described in the FBI press release seems to be al-Aulaqi, an American citizen. As the FBI press release notes, "[T]he government remains limited in what information can be disclosed publicly about a U.S. citizen under investigation."

It is not yet clear why investigators did not consider Dr. Hasan a security risk since they were aware of his contacts. It is not clear why they decided Dr. Hasan's communications with these unnamed people were nothing but "research being conducted by Major Hasan in his position as a psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Medical Center." It is also not clear why the FBI describes his communications as "research" while other media reports claim Dr. Hasan was looking for "spiritual and religious guidance."

Fox News (11-11-09) reports:

Though officials discovered Hasan's e-mails to the imam, one government counterterrorism investigator said the messages suggested he was seeking "spiritual and religious guidance."

The Dallas Morning News (9-13-09) has published an interesting article about Dr. Nidal Hasan's financial support of Islamist terrorists. The article notes:

Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism expert who has consulted with the FBI and the Defense Department, noted that Hasan is a U.S. citizen of Palestinian descent, with no known family ties to Pakistan. Kohlmann said that leaves only two reasons for the psychiatrist to wire money to the South Asian country: to support charity or to support jihad.

Westerners who want to give to a legitimate Pakistani charity typically would do so by putting money in a U.S. or British bank account, he added.

"It raises huge alarm bells," Kohlmann said of Hasan's reported wire transfers...

Dennis Lormel, a former FBI special agent who directed the agency's efforts to identify sources of terrorist financing, said investigators would take note of the large amount of disposable income Hasan apparently had. He made more than $90,000 a year, had no wife or dependents, and paid about $300 a month for a tiny apartment.

"It seems like there is a lifestyle that was beneath his means," said Lormel, now a managing director for IPSA International, a consultant to banks on combating money laundering. "Where is the money going?"

Lormel said Hasan could have used several channels to wire money abroad, including remittance services that cater to immigrant workers who send money to their native countries. If that were the case, there may be documentation of the transaction, Lormel and others said.

Banks and other money transmitters must tell the Treasury Department if an individual sends more than $10,000 outside the country.

Kohlmann said only a "breakdown" could explain the FBI's failure to dig deeper when it discovered late last year that Hasan was communicating by e-mail with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric in Yemen.

The U.S.-born imam exhorted Western Muslims in January to practice jihad – often translated as "holy war" – by donating money.

Al-Awlaki worked several years ago at a northern Virginia mosque that Hasan and some of the 9/11 hijackers attended. Federal authorities have investigated the cleric's ties to terrorists since the 1990s but never brought charges against him.

"Everybody at the FBI knows who Anwar al-Awlaki is," Kohlmann said. "In the world of jihadis, this guy is Bruce Springsteen."

After the Fort Hood massacre, the cleric said on his blog that Hasan was "a hero."

Walter Reed officials "worried they might be 'discriminating' against Hasan because of his seemingly extremist Islamic beliefs"

"Put it this way," says one official familiar with the conversations that took place. "Everybody felt that if you were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, you would not want Nidal Hasan in your foxhole."---NPR (11-11-09) citing a doctor at Walter Reed Army Hospital

As I have noted in my two previous posts, both security and military officials seem to have dropped the ball in the case of the mass-murdering Islamist terrorist and traitor Dr. Nidal Hasan. Even though the Army knew Dr. Hasan was an unstable, anti-American Islamist and the FBI knew he was communicating with our enemies, they didn't do anything. Because the Army and FBI didn't act, thirteen soldiers were needlessly slaughtered, and more than 30 were injured.

National Public Radio (11-11-09) has published an amazing article about the mass-murdering Islamist terrorist Dr. Nidal Hasan. The article claims that officials at Walter Reed Army Hospital saw that Dr. Hasan was dangerous but didn't do anything. They just passed him along to Fort Hood. The Walter Reed officials "worried they might be 'discriminating' against Hasan because of his seemingly extremist Islamic beliefs." Actually, they are supposed to discrimate against people with extremist Islamic beliefs because those are our enemies.

National Public Radio (11-11-09) reports:

Starting in the spring of 2008, key officials from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences held a series of meetings and conversations, in part about Maj. Nidal Hasan, the man accused of killing 13 people and wounding dozens of others last week during a shooting spree at Fort Hood. One of the questions they pondered: Was Hasan psychotic?

"Put it this way," says one official familiar with the conversations that took place. "Everybody felt that if you were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, you would not want Nidal Hasan in your foxhole"...

Both fellow students and faculty were deeply troubled by Hasan's behavior — which they variously called disconnected, aloof, paranoid, belligerent, and schizoid. The officials say he antagonized some students and faculty by espousing what they perceived to be extremist Islamic views. His supervisors at Walter Reed had even reprimanded him for telling at least one patient that "Islam can save your soul"...

One official involved in the conversations had reportedly told colleagues that he worried that if Hasan deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, he might leak secret military information to Islamic extremists. Another official reportedly wondered aloud to colleagues whether Hasan might be capable of committing fratricide, like the Muslim U.S. Army sergeant who, in 2003, killed two fellow soldiers and injured 14 others by setting off grenades at a base in Kuwait.

...[S]ome of Hasan's supervisors and instructors had told colleagues that they repeatedly bent over backward to support and encourage him, because they didn't have clear evidence that he was unstable, and they worried they might be "discriminating" against Hasan because of his seemingly extremist Islamic beliefs.

...[T]he officials involved in deliberations this year reportedly were not aware, as some top Walter Reed officials were, that intelligence analysts had been tracking Hasan's e-mails with at least one suspected Islamic extremist since December 2008.
And finally, Hasan was about to leave Walter Reed and USUHS for good and transfer to Fort Hood, in Texas. Fort Hood has more psychiatrists and other mental specialists than some other Army bases, so officials figured there would be plenty of co-workers who would support Hasan — and monitor him.

Dr. Nadil Hasan's Treason

"A senior government official tells ABC News that investigators have found that alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan had 'more unexplained connections to people being tracked by the FBI' than just radical cleric Anwar al Awlaki. The official declined to name the individuals but Congressional sources said their names and countries of origin were likely to emerge soon.

Questions already surround Major Hasan's contact with Awlaki, a radical cleric based in Yemen whom authorities consider a recruiter for al Qaeda. U.S. officials now confirm Hasan sent as many as 20 e-mails to Awlaki. Authorities intercepted the e-mails but later deemed them innocent or protected by the first amendment.

The FBI said it turned over the information to the Army, but Defense Department officials today denied that. One military investigator on a joint terror task force with the FBI was shown the e-mails, but they were never forwarded in a formal way to more senior officials at the Pentagon, and the Army did not learn of the contacts until after the shootings."---ABC News (11-11-09)

According to media reports, the evil, traitorous, mass-murdering, Islamist fanatic Dr. Nidal Hasan was communicating with a known al-Qaeda operative named Anwar al-Aulaqi (Awlaki). According to the 9-11 Commission Report, al-Aulaqi is also an American citizen. See my previous article about Dr. Hasan and al-Aulaqi.

Today, Fox News (11-11-09) reports that an unnamed government investigator claimed that they couldn't do anything about Dr. Hasan's communications because he appeared to be seeking "spiritual and religious guidance" from al-Aulaqi. Of course, al-Aulaqi reportedly advocates suicide bombing as a religious duty.

Fox News (11-11-09) reports:

Investigators would have been "crucified" over First Amendment rights if they had launched a full-scale probe into e-mails Fort Hood massacre suspect Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly sent to a radical imam, a government investigator told Fox News.

Today I read a now-deleted FBI press release (11-9-09) [see updated FBI press release (11-11-09)] about Dr. Hasan. According to the 11-9 press release, the FBI and the JTTF (Joint Terrorist Task Force) didn't seem to think Dr. Hassan's communications were anything to worry about because they appeared related to his medical "research."

The FBI press release didn't mention the name Anwar al-Aulaqi, and it didn't claim that Dr. Hasan was communicating with their target for "spiritual and religious guidance." Perhaps this is because al-Aulaqi has rights as an American citizen, or perhaps the target of the JTTF was not al-Aulaqi at all.

I think that anyone in the Army who is deliberately communicating with a known al-Qaeda operative is extremely dangerous. I don't understand why communicating with an al-Qaeda operative isn't a crime for an Army doctor, and I don't understand how this communication is medical "research."

Some media reports suggest that Dr. Hasan was "small potatoes" compared to other targets and that there will soon be a "blizzard" of arrests. I certainly hope so, but this "blizzard" will be cold comfort for the families of the soldiers shot and killed or wounded at Fort Hood.

The now-deleted FBI press release (11-9-09) [see the updated FBI press release (11-11-09)] states:

Major Hasan came to the attention of the FBI in December 2008 as part of an unrelated investigation being conducted by one of our Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs). JTTFs are FBI-led, multi-agency teams made up of FBI agents, other federal investigators—including those from the Department of Defense—and state and local law enforcement officers.

Investigators on the JTTF reviewed certain communications between Major Hasan and the subject of that investigation and assessed that the content of those communications was consistent with research being conducted by Major Hasan in his position as a psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Medical Center. Because the content of the communications was explainable by his research and nothing else derogatory was found, the JTTF concluded that Major Hasan was not involved in terrorist activities or terrorist planning. Other communications of which the FBI was aware were similar to the ones reviewed by the JTTF.

Well, I think that Dr. Hasan is a traitor, not a researcher. According to the U.S. Code:

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

Article III Section 3 of the Constitution defines treason as follows:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

Of course, Dr. Hasan is not only a traitor but an Islamist terrorist and a mass-murderer. I am sure there are many of considerations that I am unaware of; but from where I sit, it seems that lots of people really blew it.

Dr. Nidal Hasan Attended a Conference with Homeland Security Experts at George Washington University

"US authorities are investigating reports that Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood attacker, attended a mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, that was also frequented by two of the Islamic terrorists involved in the September 11 attacks in 2001...The Virginia mosque’s imam at the time was Anwar al-Aulaqi, a Muslim radical who saw Islam and America as enemies. Hasan is thought to have attended at least one of Aulaqi’s lectures before the imam left for his native Yemen."---London Times (11-7-09)

UPDATE (11-11-09): Articles on Nidal Hasan by The Washington Post, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC (scroll down), CBS, ABC, Brian Ross at The Blotter (ABC), Department of Defense, and the FBI.

According to press accounts, Army psychiatrist Dr. Nidal Hasan, who allegedly massacred soldiers at Fort Hood on Thursday, November 5, may have written on a website that being an Islamist suicide bomber is akin to an American soldier falling on a grenade to save fellow soldiers. According to news reports, Dr. Hasan may have written on the Internet that people should strap on bombs and go to Times Square.

It seems to me that Dr. Hasan didn't have a bomb, so he used the guns he illegally brought onto the post instead. Still, Dr. Hasan was basically a suicide bomber. His relatives are claiming that he was harassed in the Army because he was Muslim; however, a person who knew Dr. Hasan said the psychiatrist drew negative attention to himself with his pro-terrorist ideology. Dr. Hasan was given every opportunity by the Army. He was given a free medical education in exchange for serving in the Army. Even if some soldiers were harassing him, he could have reported this. After all, Dr. Hasan was a physican and an American Army officer, not a schoolboy.

A T.V. report claimed that Dr. Hasan's imam told the media that the psychiatrist wanted the imam to find him a Muslim wife who would wear a hijab, a garment that totally covers up a woman's body and face. Dr. Hasan was 39 and unmarried.

The London Telegraph (11-7-09) reports:

Adnan Haider, a retired professor of statistics, recalled how at their first meeting last year, a casual introduction after Friday prayers, Hasan immediately asked the academic if he knew "a nice Muslim girl" he could marry.

"It was a strange thing to ask someone you have met two seconds before. It was clear to me he was under pressure, you could just see it in his face," said Prof Haider, 74, who used to work at Georgetown University in Washington. "You could see he was lonely and didn't have friends.

"He is working with psychiatric people and I ask why the people around him didn't spot that something was wrong? When I heard what had happened I actually wasn't that surprised."

Indeed, many of the characteristics attributed to Hasan by acquaintances – withdrawn, unassuming, brooding, socially awkward and never known to have had a girlfriend – have also applied to other mass murderers.

According to the London Times (11-7-09):

US authorities are investigating reports that Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood attacker, attended a mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, that was also frequented by two of the Islamic terrorists involved in the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Funeral services for Hasan’s mother, Hanan, were held at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church in 2001. In April of that year Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, later identified as being among the 9/11 hijackers, paid several visits to the mosque, the largest in the vicinity of Washington DC. The two Saudi Arabians were on the American Airlines flight that crashed into the Pentagon.

The Virginia mosque’s imam at the time was Anwar al-Aulaqi, a Muslim radical who saw Islam and America as enemies. Hasan is thought to have attended at least one of Aulaqi’s lectures before the imam left for his native Yemen.

In London, the Telegraph (11-7-09) is reporting:

Hasan's eyes "lit up" when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki's teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday's horrific shooting spree.

I vaguely recall reading that al-Aulaqi pretended to be a moderate Muslim after 9-11. I vaguely remember advice he gave Americans in National Geographic right after 9-11. I vaguely recall that he advised that we not attack Bin Laden in Afghanistan because this would only inflame Muslims against America. I can't remember if he was quoted in this article or if he actually wrote the article.

I remember reading that al-Aulaqi falsely claimed to be an American citizen, but the 9-11 Commission Report (p. 221) says that al-Aulaqi was born in New Mexico and is thus an American citizen. The 9-11 Commission Report mentions Aulaqi 30 times. In 2002, he ran off to Yemen.

Here is an old U.S. News and World Report (6-13-04) article about al-Aulaqi and his possible links to al-Qaeda. U.S. News (6-13-04) notes that Aulaqi blamed the 9-11 attacks on Israel in his National Geographic article:

Al-Awlaki and his followers blamed Israel for the 9/11 attacks. "There is an expectation that Muslims should apologize for something that they never did," al-Awlaki told National Geographic magazine in September 2001.

The probe of the 9/11 attacks soon led Washington FBI agents back to San Diego, where they found that al-Awlaki had twice been busted for soliciting prostitutes in 1996 and 1997 but had avoided jail time. Al-Awlaki has previously described these charges as "bogus." But FBI agents hoped al-Awlaki might cooperate with the 9/11 probe if they could nab him on similar charges in Virginia. FBI sources say agents observed the imam allegedly taking Washington-area prostitutes into Virginia and contemplated using a federal statute usually reserved for nabbing pimps who transport prostitutes across state lines. But in March 2002, al-Awlaki abruptly left the country for Yemen. "When he left town, it was as if the air went out of the balloon," says one FBI source. Al-Awlaki briefly returned to the United States in October 2002, but federal authorities did not have sufficient cause to detain him, even though his name popped up on a terrorist "lookout" database.

In the U.S. News article, his name is spelled al-Awlaki. Here is a Wikipedia entry about Anwar al- Awlaki/al-Aulaqi. I guess I will have to see if I still have that old issue of National Geographic so I can see what al-Aulaqi actually said.

Years ago an author named Paul Sperry also posted an article about al-Aulaqi. According to Sperry, al-Aulaqi lived at various addresses in Colorado, California, and Virginia.

The Washington Post (2-27-08) has a very informative 2008 article detailing al-Aulaqi's connections to al-Qaeda titled "Imam From Va. Mosque Now Thought to Have Aided Al-Qaeda."

The Washington Post (2-27-08) article states:

U.S. officials are saying for the first time that they believe that Aulaqi worked with al-Qaeda networks in the Persian Gulf after leaving Northern Virginia [in 2002]. In mid-2006, Aulaqi was detained in Yemen at the request of the United States. To the dismay of U.S. authorities, Aulaqi was released in December.

"There is good reason to believe Anwar Aulaqi has been involved in very serious terrorist activities since leaving the United States, including plotting attacks against America and our allies," said a U.S. counterterrorism official who spoke on the condition of anonymity...

After 9/11, Aulaqi publicly condemned the attacks. But in comments published in English on Sept. 17, 2001, on IslamOnline, Aulaqi suggested that Israelis may have been responsible for the 9/11 attacks and that the FBI "went into the roster of the airplanes and whoever has a Muslim or Arab name became the hijacker by default."

Weeks after leaving the United States in the spring of 2002, he posted an essay in Arabic titled "Why Muslims Love Death" on the Islam Today Web site, lauding the fervor of Palestinian suicide bombers. Months later he praised them in English at a lecture in a London mosque that was recorded on videotape.

Perhaps we will hear more about the alleged relationship between al-Aulaqi, who praised suicide bombers, and the evil Dr. Hasan as the investigation of this mass murder goes forward.

If Dr. Hasan was working for the enemy and taking care of American soldiers with war-related psychiatric problems, he would even have been in an excellent position to collect intelligence from the young soldiers in his care. If he did this, I think that's pretty clearly treason. Certainly murdering American soldiers who were going to the Middle East might also be considered aid and comfort to the enemy.

Dr. Nidal Hasan also seems to have attended a conference at George Washington University in Washington D.C. sponsored by a think tank called the "Homeland Security Policy Institute."

The conference was titled:

Thinking Anew—Security Priorities for the Next Administration

PROCEEDINGS REPORT OF THE HSPI PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION TASK FORCE

April 2008-January 2009

On page 29 the report notes that one of the people who attended the conference was Nidal Hasan. His affiliated organization is the Uniformed Services University School of Medicine.

I wonder if Dr. Hasan was spying on these scholars, security experts, and medical people who give advice on Homeland Security. Dr. Hasan obviously was not sympathetic to the cause of Homeland Security. He seems like a traitor to me.

One of the people at the conference was Dr. Paul Joyal. He is a famous expert on the KGB who was shot in the groin as he got out of his car in the driveway of his home on March 1, 2007. You can search Joyal (scroll down) on this blog to read about him. Dr. Joyal was shot not long after he accused the KGB of poisoning the defector Alexander Litvinenko with polonium.

Speaking on Dateline on February 25, 2007, Mr. Joyal said of Litvinenko's murder:

"A message has been communicated to anyone who wants to speak out against the Kremlin: 'If you do, no matter who you are, where you are, we will find you and we will silence you — in the most horrible way possible."

I don't think that Dr. Hasan "snapped" because of anti-Muslim prejudice. Dr. Hasan was an officer who had received his medical education at the expense of the military. He was a person who was failing in his career and didn't want to be sent to the war in order to care for young, brave soldiers. He was a loser, a coward, a terrorist, and a traitor.

"Tam O'Shanter" by Robert Burns

"Weel-mounted on his grey mare, Meg,
A better never lifted leg,
Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire,
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;
Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet,
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet,
Whiles glow'rin round wi' prudent cares,
Lest bogles catch him unawares;
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Where ghaists and houlets nightly cry."---"Tam O'Shanter" by Robert Burns

Americans might be reminded of the chase scene in Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" when they see the picture above, but actually the illustration depicts Robert Burns's magnificent narrative poem "Tam O'Shanter."

Robert Burns, Scotland's national bard, published "Tam O'Shanter" in 1790; but it very probably was the inspiration for Washington Irving's Halloween favorite, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1818).

Read "Tam O'Shanter" while you listen to the late Professor David Daiches of Edinburgh University read this magnificent poem aloud (#4) on the site of the Norton Anthology of English Literature.

Professor Daiches was of Lithuanian Jewish descent, but he loved Scotland and basically "rewrote Scottish literary history." His father, a rabbi, was Judiaism's chief representative in Scotland, according to his obituary in The Times (7-25-05).

The Times obituary notes:

[T]he war stranded [Daiches] in Chicago, and it was a relief when, in 1943, he got war work with British Information Services in New York. From there, after a year, he was transferred to the embassy in Washington

...[Daiches] was recruited to the team of eight that edited The Norton Anthology of English Literature (1962). He went on contributing to revised editions of this mighty compendium for a couple of decades, and as it became a standard textbook in countless US colleges it became a healthy source of income.

Lithuanian Jewery was totally destroyed by the Holocaust, but luckily a priceless remnant was spared when the Daiches family immigrated. The gifted Jewish scholar Professor David Daiches made invaluable wartime contributions to democracy and to our appreciation of Scottish, English, and American literature.

WARDO!

Once there was a plagiarist who wouldn’t say his prayers,

And ghostwrote under “hats” at night away up stairs,

‘Till the MIM all heard him holler and the Black Bloc heard him bawl,

But when they turned the ‘puter on, he wasn’t there at all!

They searched him in the chat rooms, on-line, and in the press,

(And even down in Gitmo, the Drudge Report suggests).

But all they ever found of him was just his pants and round-abouts...

COINTELPRO will get ya if ya don’t watch out!!