A blog about politics.

The Case Of The Disappearing Website

TIME's Bobby Ghosh files this post:

The website of the radical imam who may have advised Maj. Nidal Hasan has been shut down. Anwar Al-Awlaki's site no longer has anti-West, pro-Al-Qaeda messages. In its place is a generic message: “What you need, when you need it,” and an offer to sell the domain name anwar-alawlaki.com.

Just yesterday, the site prominently displayed a piece by Awlaki praising Maj. Hasan as a “hero,” and exhorting other Muslims in the U.S. military to follow in his footsteps.

Counterterrorism experts say Awlaki ran a sophisticated online operation, targeting a Western audience: his essays and preachings were published in English. The imam, born in New Mexico, is based in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen. But in 2001, he was imam at a mosque in Falls Church, near Washington; Maj. Hasan may have been one of his congregants. Reports today suggest Maj. Hasan wrote several e-mails to Awlaki in late 2008, and received some replies; the details of these messages have not been made public.

The FBI has not yet responded to queries about Awlaki or his site.

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  • 1

    Hmmm, has the white washing begun? Has the Obama Administration wiped out the site for a known terrorist and his comments about the side-kick that Obama and the military should have known about before they killed 13 Americans and wounded scores of others?
    .
    How much does the White House know about all of this Michael. Have you asked them?
    .
    Clearly the military knew about Hasan, and his radical thoughts. Obama had to have known as well through his National Security bumpkins.
    .
    They have failed the American people. Not even 11 months into his Administration and we have been attacked.
    .
    Can they blame this one on Bush II? I think not.

    • 1.1

      rustyreturns is often online.
      He must have known about the online communications of those terr'rists.

      As a patriotic citizen, rustyreturns didn't exercise due diligence and hence has failed the American people.

      He can't blame this on the security people ...

    • 1.2

      LOL, I love the little liberal nay-sayers. Keep it up guys and gals. Maybe YOU will be next for the terroist bomber. Maybe you or your loved ones will be sitting in a crowded room and a gun toting terrorist blasts hundreds of bullets into the crowd.
      .
      Are you going to sit back and be complacent, yet again and agree with Obama?
      .
      No, this event happened on Obama's watch. Now you can go ask your fellow Americans the question;
      .

      "Do you feel more secure now than you did last year"

      .
      I hope and pray for the day that Obama is impeached and we rid this nation of the worst President in history.

  • 2

    Blaming President Obama for taking down the imam's website & for not knowing Hasan was going to go on a murderous rampage is just about the most far-out, radical conclusion a person could draw based on the info Scherer reported. Without knowing the facts, the best guess of course is that Al-Awlaki took down his site as a defensive move. There well may be some other reason but it won't be "It Was All an Obama Plot."

    The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com

    • 2.1

      How many attacks were carried out on Bush II's watch, constantweader.
      .
      Perhaps you would like to take a stab at that? Perhaps you would like to also relate to us all why there were no attacks in over 8 years with a Bush Administration, but no more than 11 months into an Obama Administration we see our first attack.
      .
      Would it be better to say have a whole stadium of football fans now dead because Obama did not do his job? Is that what you are saying?
      .
      Or, when that does happen. And, something like that I believe will happen, and soon. Will you then forgive Obama for all the thousands of lost lives?

    • 2.2

      Or maybe the host took it down because the post so shocked the conscience.

    • 2.3

      Rusty, I have a rock that keeps away tigers. There's nothing special about it, it's just a dumb rock. But I don't see any tigers around here, do you?

      If you get to blame Obama for this I'm gonna go ahead and blame bush for 9/11. Now, do you really want to open that can of worms?

    • 2.4

      Be my guest, truevcu. But, while you are at it please explain why during the Clinton Administration they did nothing and they had the same information before Bush took office. You know the first attack on the World Trade Center Towers?
      .
      Of course, the catastrophic attack on 9/11 was horrific. I suppose that you knew then as well that al-Qaeda was going to attack with commercial planes and you did phone in that suspicion to Bush, right?
      .
      Or, perhaps now that we have had the precedent. We know after the past 8 years and many attempts were thwarted, that the possibiity is very real. Right?
      .
      That everyday, those in the Obama Administration should be deligently looking for other potential attacks, Right?
      .
      But of course, in your little world, Obama would not be held accountable for this, he is the President of the US of course.
      .
      Cry me a friggin river. You and I both know had this happened on Bush II's watch liberals and the liberal media would be all over it. Denouncing Bush, and calling for his resignation.

    • 2.5

      @rustyreader, who asks "how many attacks were carried out on Bush II's watch?"

      Well, let's see... there were 2 on 9/11.

      And then the anthrax mailings after that.

      Then all the IED attacks against our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the attacks in Madrid and the London bombings.

      I guess the answer is... too many. Too many indeed.

    • 2.6

      I'll add to destor's list:

      10 killed by John Mohammed and Lee Malvo in the DC area in 2002.
      5 killed by Charles Roberts at the Old Order Amish School in Lancaster in 2006.
      32 killed by Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech in 2007.
      6 killed by Steven Kazmierczak at Northern Illinois University in 2008.

      These all happened on Bush II's watch, had much more in common with the Ft Hood attrocity than anything Rsty's pushing, and to the best of my recollection there was no large-scale liberal call for Bush's resignation (there were many cries from the right that if only more people were walking around packing heat there would somehow be less deaths from gun violence, but that's a different case of divorce from reality).
      But some how Rusty goes back to the 'if it had been Bush' well to try and spin ths into an Obama shortcoming, in spite of all the warning signs having come to light during Bush's tenure. This is startlingly idiotic, even by your standards, Rusty.
      Here's my speculation- if it had happened during Bush's term it still would have been a tragedy, and there still would have been useful idiots in the press trying to make hay out of the fact that the shooter was Muslim.

  • 3

    You gotta love wingnuts. The CIA tells Bush point-blank that bin Laden, then the leader of the largest anti-U.S. terrorist organization in the World is “Determined to Strike in U.S.” and Bush's continuation of his month-long vacation is not worthy of criticism. But Obama is required to personally ferret out every lunatic officer in the U.S. military before the breaking point.

    • 3.1

      You got to love left wing lugnuts. Clinton was handed Bin Laden and he decided to go play hide the cigar with a barely of age intern.

      The left will condemn someone who kills an abortion doctor but will fall all over itself making excuses for someone that it is slowly being revealed was a threat. The inaction toward this guy was no doubt led by the feared backlash of being labeled insensitive or racist. I am sure that is a comfort to the families of the victims.

      Or we can hear genius from the like of the left dingbats, Chris Tingles." when did it become a crime to talk with Al Queda"? The essence of the the left in this country.

  • 4

    MS-
    .
    You and the members of your sister organizations really need to read this piece by James Fallows
    .
    All shootings are meaningless.

    • 4.1

      Good link.

      One may read an ulterior motive in this media frenzy: After the shootings - and especially after the bombing in Oklahoma - the religion of the culprit(s) and known ties to radicals and extremist/supremacist groups in USA are not breathlessly hyped .. unless the word "Islam" crops up.

    • 4.2

      It's pretty disgusting. This is all about ratings. The same feeding frenzy takes place whenever any of these things happen. Adding the Muslim part is just a little frisson to the suits and the producers, because they can reach out to teh crazee as well.

  • 5

    Oh, Lord, rusty, why not go whole hog and become a birther, a truther, and buy the theory that the telephone company killed JFK.

  • 6

    Can we just dial it back a bit with blaming the Obama administration for everythiing?

    Hasan communications with imam with alleged ties to Al Qaeda reportedly intercepted in "late 2008"
    Reports: Army and FBI aware of emails during Bush administration. Several news outlets, including the Chicago Tribune and Associated Press, have reported that the FBI and Army became aware of emails between Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki in late 2008, during the Bush administration. These reports contain no evidence that Obama (or Bush) were made aware of the emails. From a November 9 Chicago Tribune article:

    The FBI and the Army looked into contacts between the Army psychiatrist accused of last week's deadly shooting rampage at Fort Hood and a Yemen-based militant Islamist prayer leader but concluded that he didn't pose a terrorist threat, senior law enforcement and military officials said Monday.

    The disclosure that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan had ongoing communications with an imam who had ties to Sept. 11 hijackers was sure to raise the question of whether U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies had information that, if properly shared and investigated, might have helped to prevent the attack.

    [...]

    Several U.S. officials said U.S. intelligence agencies first intercepted communications between Hasan and Awlaki starting in late 2008 as a result of another investigation, and that the information was given to one U.S.-based multi-agency Joint Terrorism Task Force and then to another one based at the Washington Field Office because of Hasan's assignment at the Walter Reed medical center.

    The Washington task force, which included FBI agents and Army criminal investigative personnel, launched a probe and determined that Hasan was contacting the radical cleric -- who has ties to other Al Qaeda-affiliated individuals -- "within the context of the doctor's position and what he was doing at the time, conducting research on the issues of Muslims in the military and the effects of war in Muslim countries.''

    The official said Hasan had ''reached out to Awlaki several times before he got a response,'' and that there was little in the correspondence to raise serious red flags.

    http://mediamatters.org/research/200911090055

    And before you fuss that it is from Media Matters, note the articles referenced are Chicago Tribune and AP.

  • 7

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