Sean Hannity speculated that "there is a chance our government knew all about" alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan "and did nothing because nobody wanted to be called an Islamophobe," and asked, "What does it say about Barack Obama and our government?" But there is no evidence that Obama was aware of the emails between Hasan and an imam with alleged ties to Al Qaeda; moreover, Hannity did not address what the incident says about President Bush, who was in office when the authorities reportedly first intercepted the emails.
HANNITY: This Fort Hood situation is really beginning to disturb me and should disturb everybody. And that is that there is a chance our government knew all about this guy Hasan and did nothing because nobody wanted to be called an Islamophobe. We're not talking about Islam, we're talking about radical Islam. You know, this guy going in there, god is great, etc., etc., and all the things he's saying. But everybody hat worked with him, Bob, knew ahead of time, our government apparently knew and did nothing. Now, this is a terrorist act, if in fact this was motivated in such a way. What does it say about Barack Obama and our government?
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.
58 comments:
Is anyone really to blame here? It is unknown whether Obama, or even Bush knew about the confrontation and the ongoing conversations between Hasan and Al-Qaeda so why is everyone attacking President Obama? Just because he's new? It doesn't make any sense. Anyway, this guy, Hannity, really needs to calm down. All he does is attack people, but I don't see him finding a solution. What could America do better? Maybe if America, as a whole, wasn't so pessimistic and so keen to look at other's faults, the world would improve...would get better...would be happier and let stressful!
Sean Hannity is an idiot. And hes always loved to stir things up. Plus he's hypocritical. He loved to point out that "Obama knew all about the e-mails" and hid the fact that the e-mails were first discovered during Bush's administration.
Personally, i doubt either of the presidents knew about the emails. The president is far too busy to hear about all the people who could possibly be a threat.
I also don't think it says anything about our government except that the FBI and Army were wrong to think that Hasan wasn't a threat.
It is strange that they allowed Hasan to keep his office when there was corresponance between him and someone who had ties to the hijackers on September 11th.
I think that they were careless not to investigate further.
However, you can't blame Obama for this one.
i dont think its the presidents fault. i think its the guy who hired him. they shouldve been more careful about him. this is especially true when they found out that he was e-mailing someone linked to al qaeda. being in the military if any red flags at all popped up i think he shouldve been fired on the spot. if they had done that probably none of this wouldve happened.
Blaming Obama for a shooting is like blaming Bush for Hurricane Katrina. There is no sense in that.
I think this whole deal with terrorism is like the twenty-first century version of the Red Scare. Any kind of shooting or murder or bomb is terrorism and that means we need more war! I mean really. Any time some nutcase decides to rob a bank or store, people get terrified, which means it's an act of terrorism. Any time someone tries to coerce a person or persons into doing something they don't want with deadly force is terrorism.
Let's think rationally. Conspiracy theories will always run wild whenever the government is under major stress (like it is now). That doesn't mean we all need to grab our torches and pitchforks and hunt down all the terrorists. That didn't work when Socialists and Communists were the antagonists. If it didn't work then, it won't work now. If people want to bash the States and threaten to attack the nearest school or fort or any kind of building, yeah, they can do that. We put that in our Constitution, so we have to follow it, whether we like it or not.
What we need to focus on is settling the legal issues of the Fort Hood incident and providing closure for the grieving families. That should come first. Stop blaming Obama and help those families, because for them, life couldn't get much worse.
I dont think its Obama's fault. Its pretty dumb i mean look i know conspirators can always throw speculations and point fingers but the fact is the only thing to blame is the war and hate going on in the Middle East. Yes our government had notifications but didnt have red flags; now look, i know NOW we would say "hey they should've known" But back then you have to understand we just DIDNT know.
This Hannity guy can believe all he wants to but all he's doing is stirring up trouble the Country doesnt need right now. It needs support not criticism about the government! Since when has government been perfect?
Fort hood was very tragic, it involved brother killing brother.
Now have we not learned anything from this? Are we about to spark arguement against eachother and criticize our brother? Our government? Seriously what we need unity in times like these.
If we were aware of emails between Hasan and Anwar Al-Awlaki in 2008, I think our government should have been more proactive. Even though, "...There was little in the correspondence to raise serious red flags.", government should have taken the issue more seriously. And so what if America would be called an Islamophobe? If our safety is at risk, action should be taken no matter what religious groups it involves.
There are several things in this story that really bother me. First, why would Obama be to blame for this? My guess is that this Hannity guy is a Republican, so of course, don't blame Bush. Instead, the new Democrat President Obama is a perfect scapegoat. Another problem I have is that according to the report, neither Bush nor Obama "knew" about the contacts, so what is the point of this article?! Either Hannity is an idiot, or this report isn't the full story. (I'm guessing probably somewhere in the middle.) One last problem: if we did know Nidal was contacting terrorists, why would that NOT raise red flags? Even a casual chat with a terrorist group should be taken as treason.
i doubt that either obama or bush knew that these emails even occured.
Obama just stepped into office and these emails have been going on for years already so how can obama be blamedfor this? it makes no sense how it would be bush's fault either, if there was no evidence then about the conversation between Hasan and Al-Qaeda it's not possible it was his fault. I think Sean Hannity is just trying to point the finger and blame someone else by being hypocritical against our presidents.
There's not point in blaming anyone from something that's already done. This guy just wants to point fingers but doesn't want to solve any issues. This can't all be blamed on one person anyways because several people obviously knew, whether the president(Obama or Bush) knew is not clear so why argue about it? We just need to learn from this and be extra careful and be aware of everything. And let our presidents know.
I think we need actual proof against obama before we just start saying that the president had knowledge about this whole thing. If there was evidence of this then I could see the need for them to take necessary action. None of this if for sure and it's not wise to just make quick assumptions. Hannity needs to get his facts straight before he just starts blaming things on people.
I look at this whole incident that there was a lot of pint up anger that whether or not people knew,they didn't say anything. I don't know if anyone is to blame except the shooter himself and his issues. Though conversations are recorded and encounters are taped, not everything is expected. People amke rash decisions with thinking. Unfortunately, things just happen like this.
I am probably the only one that is split on this decision. I kind of want to blame everything on Obama and the Obama administration because I do not like him. However, I know that is not a valid justification for my reason. I do think, however, that if the government did know about this, then they would've tried to stop this regardless of if anyone thought they were paranoid towards muslims. It is also important to note, that the government has many secrets and does not tell its people everything... So maybe they did know.
This whole situation is ridiculous. People just find it easier to blame a single person than to blame the government itself. Hannity is just giving Americans what they want: drama.
I don't think any one person is to blame here. Many people made small mistakes that added up to one big one, a deadly one. Not seeing Hasan's contact with terrorists as a red flag was a mistake. Even the smallest skepticism should have triggered some kind of alarm. This devastation may have been prevented had the proper actions been taken.
Okay, not just from this article, but from most of the other ones that i have read about this guy, there had to have been something telling people that this is not right. I know that it might seem racist to call someone out like that blah blah blah. If someone is saying things like he values a respectable death rather than life, and he says this to a room full of colleagues and no one says anything because they don't want to be the racist. thats ridiculous. and i think that fort hood could have been prevented. If it is true that it wasn't brought to either of the presidents attention, then the heavy crown lies on the army officials. Harsh, but true. but then again, the government lies all the time. so both administrations could have known about it, and chose to have ignored it. you never know.
Oh ya...blame it on the colored guy. Like really?--because this is what it feels like. Obama cannot be to blame for this. I'm guessing that Bush knew about these e-mails and didn't do anything about it, so now Hannity is here to cover it up for him and blame it on Obama. Give Obama some credit, he DID make it to the White House. Hasan just needed to get the boot when evidence was found of him communicating to other known terrorists.
Other than that, give some respect to the families who just lost someone very special to them and stop pointing fingers.
Hannity is dumb. I'm sorry, but really he is. How is President Obama at fault for what happened at Fort Hood?? That makes absolutely no sense! First off, he conveniently chose not to mention the fact that emails between Hasan and terroristic groups were first intercepted during the Bush administration, not Obama's. Secondly, it is clear that there is no true evidence stating that either president was made aware of this. And third, no one can be put at fault for the tragedy that happened but Hasan. No matter the suspicions or signs, no one can truly foresee a horrible event like this one occurring. It is downright proposterous to assume that the government would purposefully neglect duties to their country in order to preserve an image. This assumption alone is seems pretty treasonous to me. Although one may not agree with all the views of the current president, to infer that the government is turning a blind eye to crime is ignorant and un-American.
The article said that Bush knew too. I don't think that its right to point the finger at any one person here. I mean sure, something could have been done now that we look back, but isn't that always the case. If you look at other national tragedies something could always have been done. And I don't think that "fear of Islamaphobia" can be to blame either. I think that it was a mistake not to consider attempted contact with an alleged member of Al-Qaeda more of a threat than it was, but you have to think; these guys aren't nimrods, so if the signs were as obvious as they seem, measures would have been taken. Seriously, if we were to act like this article is saying we should have in order to prevent this shooting, it would have entailed completely ridiculous behavior on out part. All we really know is that its a Tragedy that nobody wishes had happened.
If there is no real evidence that Obama or Bush knew about this then we should not assume that they did. I think this sounds like high school drama witha bunch of tumors spreading and no one actually knows the truth. Hanity is just trying to start something and that is just ridiculous. No one is to blame in the situation unless there is valid evidnce that the government knew about the situation.
This is ridiculous. You would think that our government has our best interests in mind- therefore, Americas safety should be a priority. No one should blame President Obama for what has happened; however people will point fingers at him anyway. This Hannity guy sounds like an annoying teenage girl that likes to start up drama. I agree with Abigail- the families that are grieving need to be taken care of..
What happened was a tragedy. Is blaming the president going to bring those people back? Well, no, it's not. So why do people generally jump to conclusions and feel it necessary to place the blame on their least favorite people of the moment. It is highly inappropriate and, essentially, imature on the part of this Hannity fellow. The person to blame is the person with the gun. Jumping to other conclusions is just like trying to turn the deaths of innocent people into a means of degrading someone who is innocent.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Everybody is so critical of the president. There isn't any evidence that Obama even knew about the conversations, and yet he is blamed for being neglectful. I think it is shameful to assume or even imply that the president of our country would risk the lives of fellow Americans in order to not be seen as Islamaphobe. That is a terrible thing to say. The life of every American is precious to our leaders and neither Bush nor Obama would risk those lives. In addition a terrorist attack isn't something that law enforcement officials take lightly, especially after 9/11. I don't believe or want to beleive that government officials would simply ignore a situation like that.
Of course Hannity is going to blame Obama. This is nothing new. But I don't think this is in any way Obama's fault. If anything, I think Bush's administration is KIND OF at fault. These emails should have had a bigger reaction when they were first uncovered. But regardless, tragedies like this are usually unpreventable and I don't think this event is an exception. And that's that.
Really? did inocent people have to die protecting our nation because the government was trying to be politicaly correct? Yes Somone is at blame, i dont know if its obama or not, but whoever said 'no we are not going to do anything about it' should recive punishment for those who died there... are you really going to trade life for.. votes?
No one wants to be the guy who points fingers and racially profiles individuals who may or may not be a threat. This being said, if there is proof of correspondence with a known terrorist group, the government should at least look into who this guy is and detain him if need be.
Obama cannot be blamed for this fiasco alone. It is obvious that he was not the person that initiated this. Like Abigail said, this is the modern century version of the Red Scare. Things are not as bad as this report made it seem. This is not a matter of Americans afraid of being called Islamophobes, but a hyped media version of the drama. Just as Joe McCarthy was brought down, this will dwindle into the backlights. It is only a matter of time before Americans stops caring and move on to the next new media drama scare.
i believe it's not President Obama's fault for the terror attack. I believe however, that stricter and more carefully reviewed background checks should be made in order to prevent any Al-queda connection, or any other terrorist group. so blaming the President, isn't the solution.
President Obama is not to blame for what occurred at Fort Hood. If Obama was unaware of the contact between the two men, then he should not be held solely accountable; however, if the government, collectively, was aware of these conversations between Hasan and the radical imam, then they should, collectively, be held responsible. After all "...one nation, under God, one and indivisible." Another thing, if the U.S. "INTELLIGENCE" agencies did have information that should have raised red flags but somehow managed not to, then what else could he slipping through their fingers as "not a threat to the American public?" If these are supposedly the best of the best and these communications somehow seemed to tap dance right past them, then we as a nation have something seriously wrong. I don't believe in discrimination or prejudice, but when signs appear, even if they're so vague that they're hardly noticeable, then they should be pursued. I understand that not all leads get somewhere, but when they appear, they should be followed. (thats why they have that name, leads)
Okay, so there are so many things in this article that bother me. First, i don't see why Hannity would just go out there and say its Obama's fault. He has no proof at all. Its stupid. He probably didnt like Obama in the first place. Second, I don't know HOW nobody wanted to be called an Islamophobe because first of all...they didnt even know for sure if the guy was Muslim! They were questioning his religion the last time i heard. It seems to me that whenever ANY type of terrorist act is done or any attack at all, most people jump to say that the person was a Muslim! It just makes me so angry. So yeah, Blaming Obama is freakin DUMB. UGH!!!!
Hannity is dumb! end of story. First of all the emails were first intercepted during bush's presidency. So why not blame him?! its probably because hannity is a republican and wants to bash on the newly elected democratic president. Im pretty sure neither of the presidents were told about the emails, and so why does he keep blaming it on Obama? its because he is an idiot! Also the government should have looked into this more extensively. Any kind of connection to a terrorist group should raise red flags..
If there was no evidence of Obama not being aware of the emails Hasan and Al Qaeda then Hannity should have not started attacking Obama. There really isn't anyone to blame here. Bush was in office when the authorities intercepted the emails, but the blame is put on Obama. That is a completely unfair judgement on Hannity's part. Obama is certainly not at fault for the attacks.
This seems like the people have no one else to blame and are going for someone that is an easy target. Obama is not the root of all of our problems, however he is only trying to solve them. Those who feel the need to blame someone for their problems, turn your heads to Al-Qaeda and the people actually trying to bring Americans harm.
I strongly believe that this is not the time to be pointing fingers. What should be occurring at this point is the development of plans to prevent things of this nature from ever happening again. Lets put our efforts into making a solution, not blaming each other. The past is the past. It is unchangeable.
Hannity's wack. I can see him some how knowing about the emails and passing it off as Obama's fault cause he's Democratic. Makes no sense, why would they let 13 people die at Fort Hood in the first place, especialy soldiers. This is a pointless article just the throw in some humor in a screwed up political system.
I don't understand how it makes even the least bit of sense to blame Obama for the Fort Hood shooting. Hannity's just looking for somebody to pin this on, & that's NOT what needs to be happening, especially when he's not including all the facts. He never mentioned the Bush administration, when the emails were actually found, & instead, went straight to hating on Obama.
The fact that Hasan was conversing with that imam was definitely something to worry about, & I don't understand why that wasn't under further investigation, but you can't blame the president.
I think that its too early to be putting blame on anyone especially since theres no evidence. Theres really no point blaming anyone. This event already happened and theres nothing anyone can do about it now. Whoever the guilty party is just needs to learn from mistakes.
I wouldnt say that this is Obama's fault but the people that should be monitoring what its military officials are doing. they need to keep a close look on people that are of suspicious nature. its really just a sad situation.
This is definitely NOT Obama's fault. If government officials did know, they definitely wouldve done something about it. They wouldnt risk the lives of innocent soldiers just so they wont be called an Islamophobe. If Hannity knew, maybe he should've done something about it. there's no way to know for certain whether or whether not any government official knew of the emails. What makes Hannity think that our government knew about it? He has no reason to believe that. Hannity is insane.
Okay, this is just ridiculous. If the government knew about it beforehand, I'm 99.9% sure that they would have tried to stop the shooting from occuring. I mean, we ARE in the middle of a war against terrorism, if something was going to happen in one of our military forts, they would'nt have let it proceed. Also, it would be stupid of the government to not stop an act of terrorism just because they didn't want to be called "Islamophobes". I think Hannity just wanted some media attention, and that's what he got.
I think that they were all just caught off guard by this & nobody is really to blame especially the president. If they really want to point fingers then they should be pointed at the people who knew about the emails & did nothing about them.
Hannity is being hypocritical. If he is going to blame Obama for not intercepting before the incident occurred, saying that Obama knew about the emails, then he has to also blame Bush for this too. The fact is, Hannity is upset that Obama is president and is happy to blame him for anything that doesn't go right. I agree that Hasan should have been stopped or put into an mental facility the minute people suspected something was wrong, but blaming Obama for this just makes Hannity look stupid.
How can you possibly pin this whole situation on one person? You have to consider how groups generally make decisions about topics like this. Blame Obama. Blame Bush. Blame the Army and the FBI. Let's just play the blame game and NOT worry about what we should do to make sure this doesn't happen again. I think Hannity should focus a bit more on productivity, not things like blaming the President for something that is obviously out of his control.
I think that people just wanna blame Obama for everything. Hannity just wants feel like he's important in something and is willing to bring other people down in doing that. President Obama has enough on his plate right now, and he doesn't need to be accused of anything else. Especially this, which he didn't have anything to do about. Shouldn't we be stepping up our military efforts against terrorism if people think its a terrorist attack. We need to deal with this issue immediately. Its worse enough with our men dying in Iraq but when they began to kill innocent people in our country, something needs to be done immediately.
It should be expected that Hannity would find a way to blame President Obama for this catastrophic incident. And people shouldn't be too surprised that the same Sean Hannity would overlook that the emails that could have provided a foresahdowing of the shooting were noticed during the Bush administration. Hannity is a Republican who is attempting to find flaws in another Democrat leader.
I believe the real threat here is Mr. Hannity. I am sure there are countless "threats" that go unnoticed by top officials such as the President because even the thought of it is impractical. Censorship on idiots like Hannity would make America stronger and stop fueling anarchist ideas.
Undesired events are always going to occur and Hannity just wants someone to criticize which in turn, makes him look naive. There are too many threats for everyone to be informed and would just cause more harm and hysteria which is exactly what America needs. The military and other branches could always make improvements but for the moment, I believe they are doing a great job given the various issues they face. I don't anyone is at fault this time and there is nothing we can do but use these unfortunate events to make those in the future better and safer.
Okay, in this particular situation, I think that it is everyone's fault. As soon as Hassan's Al Qaeda connection was found someone should have done an investigation no matter who it was. Launch a private investigation if you have to. At this time, our country needs to do everything in their power to keep our citizens safe no matter if your Obama or Bush or Mr. Perry or me.
Accusing Obama is wiggity wack. This heinous act is truly tragic, and playing the blame game is completely pointless. Our government looks to have made a critical error in not further investigating the e-mails between Hasan and Al-Qaeda, but pointing fingers is not going to change the fact that thousands of people are suffering right now. Instead of focusing his energy on what could have happened, Hannity should harness it towards helping those families who lost their loved ones.
First of all Sean Hannity is basing all of his opinions and thougths off of his personal speculations rather than mere facts which gets him no where. He shouldn't go around and look for a scapegoat, because he is uncertain if Bush and Obama, just Obama or neither knew about the emails. It was a tragic and major event in our country and one can't help but to blame another, but thats not what we need right now. What we need is to fix this and so it won't happen again. Yes, the president is a busy man but now he'll look or find someone to look more closely into emails im sure, because they already have people who invite themselves into our conversations on a daily basis and look for that red flag.
Islmaphobe? Well i hope we would be scared of people who are involved with Al-Qaeda. So yes, Obama should have dealt with this case... But then one would argue that we should be aware of every suspicious islamic person. So yeah! lets be aware!! if they don't have anything to hide then they wont get mad if we inspect them. It's both presidents fault. That's what they get for being president.
This realy does show that the media puts way too much focus on blame anytime breaking news is made public. No presedent(not just Obama) can possibly be informed about every email or bit of intellegence that falls under question. Also if the militrary knew about the emails and did not act on it than that goes to show how they did not have enughf evedence to bring charges, meaning they were not being careless but were acting inacordence with the law. In a killing the blame falls on the killer, and not an elected official disconected from the event.
Personally I don't think this is solely Obama's fault. Several people are to blame here. There were many who could have looked in to the matter further and might have been able to prevent it, but no one did and i think it was because they were afraid of being accused of racial profileing, but I think that during times like these worries like that should be put aside. If we are in a war against the Islamics then we should pay closer attention to Islamics. I just think that it's better if several people were to get offended by the government because of their close inspection of certain groups that could pose a threat, than one person get killed because the government was afraid to offend said group. I know that there are many Islamics that do not agree with what the terrorists are doing, and they do not like being racialy profiled, but for everyone's safty including their own I think they should bear with it.
The fact is, even if either of the presidents had known about the e-mails, there is no way they could possibly have foreseen this massacre. For starters, the guy's a Major in the US Army. A terrorist doesn't make it that far by being stupid. He obviously had taken meticulous effort to be passed over without suspicion; as the article says, there was "little in the correspondence to raise serious red flags". He and he alone knew what he was doing. Had either of our presidents even suspected him of plotting a terrorist act, he would have ended up in Guantanamo or worse, particularly on Bush's watch. Neither president is to blame.
Seriously, our politics has come to this these days? How can you predict something like that, and if he did he would take action.
This is so dumb lol. He was the psychiatrist so who would have ever thought? No one could have predicted that and if he knew he would have told Obama
You clearly cannot blame Obama because no one actually knew if he was aware of the emails going on. I know that if our government knew that this guy was contacting some terrorist or somebody connected to them, then they would have taken some kind of action of looking into it but i'm guessing since they didn't they didn't really know what was going on.
I dont think it is necessary to blame any particular person for what happened unless they were directly involved. People only blame others to cause controversy and it is a bit ridiculous when they probably dont know all of the facts about what happened.
Hannity seems to be just another one of those conspiracy theorists. A relatively influential one, but one full of bullocks nonetheless. Even if the government had incriminating evidence against Hasan, it would be wasteful to conduct full scale information gathering and the such; I think that most people in the US have some sort of incriminating evidence possibly linking them to terrorist attacks. Of course, the government HAD evidence that Hasan was in contact with Al Qaeda, and it was obviously a bad choice not to investigate this specific lead. All of this aside, there's no reason whatsoever for Hannity to blame Obama. I think it's just his Republican Rage kicking in.
The blame for this should not fall on Obama when it was the Bush administration that first picked it up but didn't do anything. This guy emailed some bad stuff about america. So what? If the government arrested everyone that did this our economy would be non existent because we would have spent all our money on that.. and bailout with no restrictions but that's a topic for another day. The point is the government took a gamble that this guy was all talk and they were wrong. Government's are all about being wrong. The blame should not fall solely on Obama as Hannity says. People just want someone to blame. Here's an idea let's blame Hasan. He did commit the crime. Just a thought.
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