If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that, if it is comfort or money it values more, it will lose that too. —

William Somerset Maugham

Nadal Hasan wasn’t being recruited by al Qaeda. He was actively seeking membership in that organization himself.  This guy is the worst sort of traitor.  He should be hanged publicly.  There is no doubt that he is guilty.  He should be executed.

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

It is not known whether the intelligence agencies informed the Army that one of its officers was seeking to connect with suspected al Qaeda figures, the officials said.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said that he requested the CIA and other intelligence agencies brief the committee on what was known, if anything, about Hasan by the U.S. intelligence community, only to be refused.

In response, Hoekstra issued a document preservation request to four intelligence agencies. The letter, dated November 7th, was sent to directors Dennis Blair (DNI), Robert Mueller (FBI), Lt. Gen Keith Alexander (NSA) and Leon Panetta (CIA).

Hoekstra said he is “absolutely furious” that the house intel committee has been refused an intelligence briefing by the DNI or CIA on Hasan’s attempt to reach out to al Qaeda, as first reported by ABC News.

“This is a law enforcement investigation, in which other agencies—not the CIA—have the lead,” CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said in a response to ABC News. ” Any suggestion that the CIA refused to brief Congress is incorrect.”

 

Investigators want to know if Hasan maintained contact with a radical mosque leader from Virginia, Anwar al Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen and runs a web site that promotes jihad around the world against the U.S.

In a blog posting early Monday titled “Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing,” Awlaki calls Hasan a “hero” and a “man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.”

According to his site, Awlaki served as an imam in Denver, San Diego and Falls Church, Virginia.

The Associated Press reported Sunday that Major Hasan attended the Falls Church mosque when Awlaki was there.

The Telegraph of London reported that Awlaki had made contact with two of the 9/11 hijackers when he was in San Diego.

He denied any knowledge of the hijacking plot and was never charged with any crime. After an intensive investigation by the FBI , Awlaki moved to Yemen.

People who knew or worked with Hasan say he seemed to have gradually become more radical in his disapproval of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Sunday, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) called for an investigation into whether the Army missed signs as to whether Hasan was an Islamic extremist.

“If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have a zero tolerance,” Lieberman told Fox News Sunday.

This is the weakness of our society.  Scum like this guy will use our tolerant culture to commit murder and mayhem.

Investigators are looking into links between suspected Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan and a Virginia mosque that was visited by a radical prayer leader and two of the 9/11 hijackers.

We must realise that Islam is not our enemy.  Muslims are not evil people.  It is this virulent and violent form of Islam started by al Wahhab in the Nejd and spread like a plague across the globe by the Saudis in their oil funded madrassahs that are the enemy.  The House of Saud must fall.  Until it does, we will have these criminals amongst us and their numbers will continue to grow.

Osama bin Laden is but the latest thug to attempt to infect Islam with this disease through terror and violence.  Study the history of Islam.  Specifically, study the history of the Arabian Peninsula.  Study the history of the British Raj of the late 1800s.  Even the Ottomans fought the Wahhabis in the Nejd near the end of their Empire.  There is precedent in history for the events of today.  The Ottomans warred on the Nejd from Egypt in the 1700s and 1800s.  Their fight was against these same followers of the doctrines of the apostate al Wahhab and the ancestors of the current Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Wahhabism must die.  The sooner the better for all of the world– Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

A picture of the culprits.  The criminals of the House of Saud and proliferates of the disease contracted from their forefathers.

Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Al-Wahhab ibn Sulaiman ibn Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rashid Al-Tamimi^[1] (1703–1792) (Arabic: محمد بن عبد الوهاب التميمي‎) was an Islamic scholar born in Najd, in present-day Saudi Arabia. Despite never specifically calling for a separate school of Islamic thought, it is from ibn Abd-al Wahhab that the term Wahhabism derives.

He believed that those who practice innovation in Islam such as “taking the graves as a place of worship” which is practiced in Sufism and Shia Islam, are Kufr.^{[2][3][4][citation needed]}

For this reason, Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab destroyed many graves and was also considering destroying the grave of the Prophet Muhammad, out of fear that it might be worshiped.^[2][5]

This was due to the sayings of the prophet. Who said before his death, while on his death bed.

“May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their Prophets”.^[6]

Alliance with the House of Saud

Upon his expulsion from ‘Uyayna, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was invited to settle in neighboring Dir’iyya by its ruler Muhammad ibn Saud in 1740 (1157 AH). Two of Ibn Saud’s brothers had been students of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab in Uyayna, and are said to have played a role in convincing Ibn Saud to take him in. Ibn Saud’s wife is also reported to have been a convert to Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s cause. Upon arriving in Diriyya, a pact was made between Ibn Saud and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, by which Ibn Saud pledged to implement Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s teachings and enforce them on neighboring towns. Beginning in the last years of the 18th century Ibn Saud and his heirs would spend the next 140 years mounting various military campaigns to seize control of Arabia and its outlying regions, finally taking control of the whole of modern day Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1922. This provided the movement with a state. Vast wealth from oil discovered in the following decades, coupled with Saudi control of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, have since provided a base and funding for Salafi missionary activity.

Legacy

Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab considered his movement an effort to purify Islam by returning Muslims to what he believed were the original principles of Islam, as typified by the Salaf and rejecting what he regarded as corruptions introduced by Bid’ah and Shirk.

Although all Muslims pray to one God, ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab was keen on emphasizing that no intercession with God was possible without His permission, which He only grants to whom He wills and only to benefit those whom He wills, certainly not the ones who invoke anything or anyone except Him, as these would never be forgiven,^[31]. Specific practices, such as celebrating the birth of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, were also deemed as innovations. He is hence considered by his followers to be a great revivalist of Islam, and by his opponents as an innovator and heretic. In either case, ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab’s impact on Islam has been considerable and significant.

Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab also revived interest in the works of the Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiya.

The followers of this revival (see Salafism) are often called Wahhabis, though most reject the usage of this term on the grounds that ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab’s teachings were the teachings of The Holy Prophet Muhammad(Peace Be Up on Him), not his own. Thus, most generally refer to themselves as Salafis, while during his lifetime they often referred to themselves muwahhidin (“monotheists”).

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s descendents are known today as “Al al-Shaykh” (“House of the Shaykh”). The family of Al al-Shaykh has included several religious scholars, including the former grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad ibn Ibrahm Al al-Shaykh, who issued the fatwa calling for the abdication of King Saud in 1964. Both the current Saudi minister of justice and the current grand mufti of Saudi Arabia are also descendents of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab.

Commentary

Perceptions of ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab are varied. To many Muslims of the Salafi persuasion, ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab is a significant luminary in the proud tradition of Islamic scholarship. A great number of lay Sunni Muslims regard him as a pious scholar whose interpretations of the Qur’an and Hadith were nevertheless out of step with the mainstream of Islamic thought, and thus discredited.^[32] Some scholars regard him as a pious scholar who called people back to worship of Allah according to the Qur’an and Sunnah. Others, often Sufis, regard him as a one who stopped at nothing to gain power and manipulate others. Natana DeLong-Bas, meanwhile, has recently published a self-described “controversial” book that complicates the idea that ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab contributed to the “militant stance of contemporary jihadism.”^[33]

These are the madmen whom we empower through oil consumption.

Letter From Fort Hood
— By Kevin Drum | Fri November 6, 2009 8:19 AM PST
—Photo by flickr user brokenthoughts used under a Creative Commons license.

A former reader emails today to pass along a firsthand account of the shooting at Fort Hood on Thursday. It’s unedited except for paragraph breaks:

I was walking into the medical SRP building when he started firing (he never made it to the main SRP building….the media accounts are understandably pretty off right now). He was calmly and methodically shooting everyone. Like every non-deployed military post, no one was armed. For the first time in my life I really wish I had a weapon. I don’t know how to explain what it feels like to have someone shoot at you while you’re unarmed. He missed me but didn’t miss a lot of others. Just pure random luck. It’s a very compressed area, thus the numbers.

I saw a lot of heroism. So many more would have died if this wasn’t an Army post. We’re almost all CLS trained and it made a huge difference. Cause the EMTs didn’t get there for almost an hour (they thought there was a second shooter). I just can’t believe one of our own shot us. When I saw his ID card I couldn’t believe it. After he shot the female police officer he was fumbling his reload and I saw the other police officer around the corner and yelled at him to come shoot the shooter. He did. Then I used my belt as a tourniquet on the female officer.

I hate to tell you this but in the course of the day it became clear that it was another Akbar incident.1 (Once they convinced them the blood drenching my clothes wasn’t mine I spent the day being interviewed by the alphabet.) Akbar again. God help us. He was very planned. I counted three full mags around him (I secured his weapon for a while). Found out later that his car was filled with more ammo.

This was premeditated. This wasn’t VBC again. That guy snapped, not this one. He was so damn calm when he was shooting. Methodical. And he was moving tactically. The Army really is diverse and we really do love all our own. We signed up to be shot at but not at home. Not unarmed. No one should ever see what the inside of that medical SRP building looked like. I suppose that’s what VA Tech looked like. Except they didn’t have soldiers coming from everywhere to tourniquet and compress and talk to the wounded while rounds are still coming out.

No one touched him…the shooter that is…other than to treat him. Though I told the medic (and I’m not proud of this) that was giving him plasma that there better not be anyone else who needed it because he should be the last one to be treated. But I had just finished holding a soldier who was critical (I counted three entry wounds) and talking to him about his children…. If the shooter had a grievance he should have taken it out on those responsible; he wasn’t shooting people he knew (media reports to the contrary). He was just shooting anybody who happened to be present for SRP medical processing, mainly lower enlisted.

But please, no one use this politically! The Army is not “broken”, PTSD doesn’t turn people into killers, most Muslims aren’t evil, and whether we should stay or go in Afghanistan has nothing to do with this. I’m babbling…sorry.

1Hasan Akbar was an Army sergeant who killed two soldiers and wounded 14 others in a grenade attack in Kuwait in 2003. He’s currently under a sentence of death.

This letter was printed on MotherJones.com.  I felt that many persons who were not politically inclined to the Left might not see it.  So I’m throwing it up here.  Just in case.

All sides of any given event should be heard.

I do not agree with many who are attempting to downplay the influence of Islamic Extremism on this man and his actions.  He was definitely and heavily influenced by his brand of Islam.  Even the Imam of his local Mosque thought he was extreme in his views.  These actions will continue until America and the rest of the world come to the realization that not Islam but Wahhabism is a violent strain of Islam bent on forcilby converting all of Islam specifically and the population of the globe ultimately to their world view.  The only way to combat this is to rid our planet of this strain of Islam.  That means squaring off against Saudi Arabia.  Wahhabism is the official religion of the realm.

We must realise that Islam is not our enemy.  Muslims are not evil people.  It is this virulent and violent form of Islam started by al Wahhab in the Nejd and spread like a plague across the globe by the Saudis in their oil funded madrassahs that are the enemy.  The House of Saud must fall.  Until it does, we will have these criminals amongst us and their numbers will continue to grow.

Wahhabism must die.  The sooner the better for all of the world– Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Then, authorities said, he packed two handguns, drove to this bustling military base, and opened fire on a brigade of young engineers prepping to deploy to Afghanistan after Christmas. In a matter of about four minutes — before he himself was taken down in a face-to-face shootout with a female police officer

Authorities say several witnesses heard Maj. Hasan open fire with two weapons, neither of them Army-issued. One person with knowledge of the weapons said one was a revolver, the other a FN Herstal “Five-seveN”tactical pistol, which one firearms Web site describes as capable of defeating “most body armor in military service around the world today.”

The FN carries 20 rounds per magazine. One witness said he saw Maj. Hasan reload at least once. A medic who treated the major’s injuries said his camouflage cargo pant pockets were full of magazines.r — he killed 13 people and wounded 30.

soldiers at the base have told investigators Maj. Hasan, a Muslim, shouted “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” in the attack. One military official at the Pentagon who has been briefed on the investigation said officials are “close to 100%” certain Maj. Hasan authored an Internet posting defending suicide bombings.

I don’t think there is any plot in which this guy is involved. I think this guy did snap. I think he may have been pushed from various directions.

1. Inner conflict over “going to war” against fellow Muslims.

2.  Bigotry of his fellow service members caused by:

a. Ignorance/Bigotry
b. his statements

3. Contacts with extremist Wahhabi elements at:

a. Mosque (an extremist Imam)
b. on the internet
c. within the local Muslim community

4. Life/Job Stress

I think he lost it and decided that he was going to earn his 72 virgins.

I am not saying that all Muslims are a danger. Some are.  Probably a small percentage.  Those dangers are out there.  The greater danger to plunge our heads in the sand and deny the reality of Wahhabist Terrorism.

Mr Wildcat with Ramel Bradley.

Sure wish he could have been here for this season.  He would have enjoyed this one.

I’m certain he would have loved Wall and Patterson:

Kentucky Head Coach John Calipari

On the play of John Wall and Patrick Patterson tonight …

“I asked him, is that you’re A-game? Pretty good. He makes us different obviously. Let me tell you what I loved what he did. There were three or four times where he should have passed the ball but he didn’t in transition. There are times he’s moving so fast he’s not recognizing that stuff. But here is what I appreciated; he’s saying to me we have to get Patrick [Patterson] some shots here. At the end let’s get DeMarcus [Cousins] the ball. That’s a leader; he has a feel for his team, wants to keep everybody happy and wants to keep them involved. I told Patrick, shoot threes. He’s looking at me like I’m crazy. I said, you shoot the five-minute three-point shooting drill everyday and he makes as many three’s as our guards. I said, it’s you thinking you’re going to miss it, just shoot it. He’s still not in sync with what we need, and I have to figure out how we play him and really get the most out him and him get the most out of what we’re trying to do. What a great kid though, in the first half he said he’s fine. He just wants to win. They want him to be our best player.”

John Wall:

It’s just how it is. College is just like high school. If you’re a good player you play certain teams with certain players that will go after you. That’s how it is in college, but it’s not a one-man show. I have Kentucky basketball on my chest and I’m trying to support my team and do the best I can to help them win games.”

Rest in Peace, Bill.

The Clarion team was outmatched in every category and it showed from the start when Kentucky came out and scored 12 points in just over 2 minutes. Had they kept that pace, the boys in Blue may have scored into the 300s.

The first exhibition left some scratching their heads. The team seemed to look hesitant. No hesitation tonight from all I’ve read. I won’t get to watch the game for a couple of weeks when it’s mailed to me (I’m in Afghanistan). Can’t wait to see this game.

I’m very excited to watch this UK team get the season started. I haven’t been this excited about a season since 1996. With Wall, Cousins and Patterson on the court, this should be a fun season. And a dominant one.  Kentucky Coach Calipari has been taking the team through two a day practices this week so I fully expected a big improvement over the 4 November performance.  The Cats did not disappoint.

Here’s the official box score from UKAA:

HOME TEAM: Kentucky
TOT-FG 3-PT REBOUNDS
## Player Name FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF TP A TO BLK S MIN
15 Cousins, DeMarcus… f 9-12 0-1 2-4 3 3 6 3 20 2 3 2 1 21
54 Patterson, Patrick.. f 6-12 2-2 0-0 1 5 6 4 14 0 2 3 0 26
01 Miller, Darius…… g 3-5 1-2 4-4 1 3 4 4 11 7 1 1 2 27
03 Dodson, Darnell….. g 3-11 1-5 4-4 3 6 9 2 11 4 0 0 1 22
11 Wall, John………. g 10-14 1-2 6-7 2 2 4 1 27 9 4 1 1 28
04 Hood, Jon……….. 1-3 1-1 4-4 3 1 4 0 7 1 1 0 1 15
05 Harris, Ramon……. 5-6 1-2 0-1 1 6 7 1 11 2 0 1 1 21
12 Krebs, Mark……… 2-2 1-1 0-0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 7
21 Stevenson, Perry…. 2-2 0-0 4-4 0 2 2 2 8 1 1 1 1 19
33 Orton, Daniel……. 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 4
55 Harrellson, Josh…. 1-4 0-0 1-2 2 1 3 0 3 1 0 1 0 10
TEAM……………. 1 1
Totals………….. 42-71 8-16 25-30 17 30 47 18 117 27 12 10 9 200

TOTAL FG% 1st Half: 21-36 58.3% 2nd Half: 21-35 60.0% Game: 59.2% DEADB
3-Pt. FG% 1st Half: 3-8 37.5% 2nd Half: 5-8 62.5% Game: 50.0% REBS
F Throw % 1st Half: 13-15 86.7% 2nd Half: 12-15 80.0% Game: 83.3% 2,1

The Final Score was 117 UK to 52 Clarion. I can’t remember the last time that UK scored 117 points. Perhaps ‘96 or ‘97. Tubby didn’t score in the triple digits too often and Gillispie only had one game in the 100s. He lost that one. And I don’t remember a time that UK defeated a team by 65 points.

It is possible that this UK team will produce many firsts. I’m looking forward to seeing this season unfold.

I’m glad Patterson came back for this season. I understand Meeks leaving and the reasons he gave for leaving. Still I wish that he’d have come back. He deserved a season like the one forthcoming.

From KentuckySportsRadio: Kentucky wins this not-a-game 117-52. Best practice of the year, guys. Next time it counts.

From ESPN:

LEXINGTON, Ky. — John Wall proved to be worth the wait.

The heralded Kentucky freshman scored 27 points in his collegiate debut as the fourth-ranked Wildcats rolled past Clarion 117-52 on Friday night in an exhibition game.

“I asked him, ‘Is that your ‘A’ game?” Kentucky coach John Calipari said. “He was pretty good.”

Maybe even better than advertised after Wall was forced to sit out Kentucky’s exhibition opener on Monday as part of an NCAA suspension for accepting improper benefits from his former AAU coach.

He didn’t waste any time getting comfortable against the Golden Eagles, an NCAA Division II school in western Pennsylvania.

Wall nearly outscored Clarion in the first half and showcased a little bit of everything, from a dunk to a 3-pointer to a nifty behind-the-back dribble for a layup.

“He’s the real deal,” Clarion coach Ron Righter said. “I hope (Kentucky) can keep him because he’s in another league.”

GO BIG BLUE!!!

What is any political campaign save a concerted effort to turn out a set of politicians who are admittedly bad and put in a set who are thought to be better. The former assumption, I believe is always sound; the latter is just as certainly false. For if experience teaches us anything at all it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right… The United States has never developed an aristocracy really disinterested or an intelligentsia really intelligent. Its history is simply a record of vacillations between two gangs of frauds.

We live in a land of abounding quackeries, and if we do not learn how to laugh we succumb to the melancholy disease which afflicts the race of viewers-with-alarm… In no other country known to me is life as safe and agreeable, taking one day with another, as it is in These States. Even in a great Depression few if any starve, and even in a great war the number who suffer by it is vastly surpassed by the number who fatten on it and enjoy it. Thus my view of my country is predominantly tolerant and amiable. I do not believe in democracy, but I am perfectly willing to admit that it provides the only really amusing form of government ever endured by mankind.

I believe in only one thing and that thing is human liberty. If ever a man is to achieve anything like dignity, it can happen only if superior men are given absolute freedom to think what they want to think and say what they want to say. I am against any man and any organization which seeks to limit or deny that freedom. . . [and] the superior man can be sure of freedom only if it is given to all men.

The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

The fact is that the average man’s love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth. He is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty — and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies.

I very well may have posted these before. They bear repeating.

Kabul, Afghanistan
This one-meter resolution satellite image of Kabul, Afghanistan was collected on Sept. 7, 1999 by Space Imaging’s IKONOS satellite. IKONOS travels 423 miles above the Earth’s surface at a speed of 17,500 miles per hour. (Mandatory photo credit: spaceimaging.com)

2 years and three days from the date of this photo, the life of this city would be altered forever. The Twin Towers in New York would fall and the US Army would invade Afghanistan. Bombing Kabul and deposing the taliban and their medieval reign. The city and it’s people will recover and nothing will ever be the same. Some will be thankful. Others will fight.

Having driven around Kabul a fair amount, I know the city fairly well. It’s odd to look at this map and see how it used to be. Major landmarks of today are missing from the view. The American Embassy Compound. Massoud Circle Monument. Of course, Massoud was still alive in 1999. It would be two years later that the cowardly al Qaeda assassins murder Massoud with a bomb hidden in a video camera. Not until 2002 or 2003 that the American Embassy compound begins construction. The old airport facilities have begun to be torn down and today there is a new facility built by the coalition and run by a British company.

The safe houses in which we stay when I move through Kabul are not there nor are the Indian and Iranian Embassies. Camp Eggers is still a group of houses. I’m guessing they are vacated as when the US first inhabited that compound there were years old animal carcasses found laying about.

Kabul has changed quite a bit since this picture was taken.

In 1999, the taliban were running around beating men for not having 3 inches of beard. They were shooting women for adultery. The men, of course, were given 20 lashes or so for having been bewitched by those women. Women were not allowed to walk the streets of Kabul without a relative male escort. All manner of medieval lunacy ruled the streets of Kabul under the reign of terror imposed by the Taliban and their Pakistan and al Qaeda sponsors.

Today, though Kabul still convulses in violence on the odd occasion, it is a city much like any other in Central Asia. No Westerner coming for the first time would think it civilized. Comparatively speaking, though, Kabul is normalized. The bazaars are open. Shop keepers go about their daily business. The citizens of Kabul are free to come and go as they please. Women can be seen walking the streets alone and in pairs. No male escort required. Unless, of course, they are family of one of the backward thinking members of the Muslim community. Kids walk the streets. Students going to and from Kabul University and a plethora of schools from primary to High School. There are snooker halls and gyms open all over the city. Restaurants are everywhere. Poorly maintained cell towers. Even shopping malls have sprung up here and there.

Taken as a whole, Kabul is not a bad city. The corruption of the Karzai government is ubiquitous. Seen everywhere. From the police who patrol the streets and man the central stations to the government officials who earn 10 to 20 thousand dollars a year, yet, own million dollar homes dotted across the city land scape and surrounding neighborhoods.

It’s interesting to see this bit of history. An apparition from the near past. So much has changed. So much altered. Both progress and regression.

I wonder what it will look like in another decade. Will chaos rule again or will the Afghan people move ahead and persevere despite the leaders that look to profit from the violence and chaos?

If you’re out looking for a book and can’t find your title, you may have stumbled into this book store by accident.