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.