Read here.

Note, in particular, how the courts of Dubai work, and the weight they give to precedent -- none.

Listen here.

by Theodore Dalrymple (December 2009)



A difficult lesson to learn and to accept, emotionally if not intellectually, is that there is rarely gain in society entirely without loss. That is surely one of the reasons why nostalgia is so common a response to the passage of time: it is not only lost youth that is regretted, but a lost world, at least in some or other of its aspects.  more>>>

From The Times, with the first sentence deliberately omitted:

For more than 40 years Jane Austen’s death in 1817 has been attributed widely to Addison’s disease, a rare condition that only became treatable widely with drugs in the early 1950s.

However, after a trawl through the author’s papers, an expert in the disease has concluded that the author is more likely to have died from bovine tuberculosis, then common and probably contracted from drinking unpasteurised milk.

Katherine White, a scholar from the Addison’s Disease Self Help Group argues in Medical Humanities, that this would not only be a “simpler explanation for the symptoms” but that it also better fits the available evidence for Austen’s final illness.

Now, back to that first sentence. Guess how the Times piece starts. Go on, guess, no word of a google. Am I right or am I right? 

Mark Krikorian writes:

The Wall Street Journal story on the Swiss minaret vote had a great quote in it, from a Jamal-on-the-street interview in Turkey (the source of most Muslims in Switzerland):

Cavid Aksin, an Istanbul metalworker, was angered that the referendum coincided with the end of one of the most important religious feasts in the Muslim calendar. "I think Turkey should have a referendum on whether to close down its churches," he said.

You mean churches like Hagia Sophia? Or the Armenian Church of the Holy Cross? Or the Halki Seminary? After 1,400 years of closing down churches, the gall is unbelievable.

It also show how Muslims see Christianity - as a political force, like Islam.

Bill Gertz cites Muslim Mafia and interviews author Paul Sperry on the Ft. Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan's mentor, Anwar al-Awlaki, in the Washington Times:

Click on the links below to view documents on radical Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki cited in "Muslim Mafia":
• U.S. immigration records show Aulaqi, the 9/11 imam, was detained about a year after the attacks -- on October 10, 2002 -- upon reentering the U.S. from Riyadh.
• A restricted federal database reveals that the subject of a federal investigation by a Houston-based terrorism task force "sent money to Aulaqi." The imam, who listed Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Va., as his address, is a "silent hit" in connection with the case, records show.
• The same database reveals Aulaqi also has been the target of a terrorism-financing investigation led by a Customs special agent.
• The restricted database log shows that Aulaqi was released from custody at JFK International Airport after agents there got word from D.C. that an arrest warrant for him "had been pulled back" the day before he arrived.
• Page two of the database log that shows Aulaqi was "escorted to Saudi rep... to continue with flight to Wash. D.C."
 

Mr. Sperry told Inside the Ring that Mr. Awlaki's release in 2002 was "absolutely outrageous and scandalous."

"Had he been arrested at JFK based on the fraud warrant, the FBI would have had a crack at him while in custody," Mr. Sperry said. "And their terrorism case against him would have developed. Instead, he was allowed to leave the country and is now safely and freely radicalizing and recruiting terrorists to attack the U.S. -- his own country. Awlaki was born here. He's not just soliciting violent jihad, he's soliciting treason."

A second document cited in the book -- a printout from a restricted database known as the Treasury Enforcement Communications System, or TECS, from July 12, 2002 -- shows that a target of an FBI task force in Houston had sent money to Mr. Awlaki, who at the time listed his address as the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church. According to the book, the case against Mr. Awlaki is still active.

Additionally, another TECS document from Nov. 24, 2002 identified Mr. Awlaki as being the target of a terrorism financing investigation. This document states that he is "former Imam of Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia."

According to one TECS incident log, Mr. Awlaki was released from custody at JFK International Airport in New York after agents consulted with officials in Washington and were told that an arrest warrant for the imam "had been pulled back" or rescinded, on October 9, 2002, the day before he arrived.

As a result, Mr. Awlaki and his family were ordered released and he later left the United States on a Saudi jet.

"Both Congress and the 9/11 Commission have criticized law enforcement for not thoroughly investigating Awlaki's ties to the 9/11 hijackers and other terrorists," Mr. Sperry said. "The FBI is now trying to locate Awlaki overseas. The independent 9/11 panel and joint congressional inquiry apparently were not aware of the sensitive incident at JFK."

Mr. Sperry wrote that Mr. Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico, is "al-Qaida's go-to imam for preparing suicide cells in the West, including the 9/11 hijackers, for 'martyrdom operations.'"

Mr. Awlaki is believed to be a key facilitator and adviser, and possibly a field commander, for the 9/11 cell that hit the Pentagon, Mr. Sperry wrote. "In short, he's an unindicted 9/11 co-conspirator, and he remains at large."

"The 9/11 Commission concluded Awlaki, who aided and privately counseled the hijackers, was 'suspicious' and should be brought in for questioning. The commission was not told, however, that he was taken into custody a year after 9/11 on a warrant but then released after the warrant was mysteriously rescinded. Awlaki was allowed to turn around and leave the country on a Saudi Arabian airline without any further investigation, even though he remained on the terrorist lookout as the subject of multiple investigations involving al Qaida financing," the book says.

Mr. Sperry wrote that law enforcement officials involved with the warrant against Mr. Awlaki are still upset about the missed opportunity to capture the imam and try to obtain information regarding the 9/11 operations, and possible future plots and sleeper cells still secreted inside America.

He also wrote that for some reason, federal prosecutors got cold feet: "It was odd."

Janet Levy writes:. 

Mysteriously, recent Obama appointee for U.S. Attorney for Colorado, David Gaouette, rescinded the 2002 felony arrest warrant for Awlaki signed by a federal judge in Denver.  According to investigators, Gaouette had been fully briefed on Awlaki's alleged terrorist ties.  

I ran across the following sentence in a piece by Cathy Young on Major Nidal Malik Hasan: 

"For some, his actions will no doubt boost the claim—long advanced by critics of Islam such as JihadWatch.com blogger Hugh Fitzgerald—that virtually any Muslim American, no matter how seemingly well-integrated into our society, should be regarded as a potential violent extremist."

If I wrote or otherwise suggested that "virtually any Muslim American, no matter how seemingly well-integrated into our society," should "be regarded as a potential violent extremist" I would like the evidence adduced.

And if, indeed, I were suggesting that "virtually any M.A. [can be].. an extremist" then the word "extremist" would be the wrong word, if anyone can be that “extremist” then the person described as an “extremist” is not extreme, but mainstream. What Cathy Young is attempting to express by the word “extremist” is this:  a Muslim who is willing to participate directly, rather than indirectly, in Jihad conducted by means of violence, including both regular combat, qitaal, and terrorism.

But I have never written this. She may be confusing me with someone else, or she may simply be confused, or attempting to confuse others. What I have said, that I suspect she has misinterpreted, is that it is difficult, probably impossible, to complacently rely on the notion of the “moderate Muslim” for three reasons.

The first is that it is difficult to determine who, in expressing his “moderation,” may be feigning and who may be telling the truth, given that the doctrine of taqiyya (religiously-sanctioned dissimulation to protect Islam and the Believers) has gone far beyond its origins in Shi’a Islam, and has Qur’anic textual support and the practice of Muhammad – “war is deception” – to back it up) so that it it comes just as readily to Sunnis.

The second is that it is impossible to predict who, a “moderate” today (and meaning it) will tomorrow suffer some personal defeat or setback, some emotional or mental desarroi, and as a consequence find solace in a renewed, possibly fanatical faith, in Islam, and viewing the universe through the prism (skvoz’ prismu) of Islam, taking his Islam straight up and not on the rocks, unmediated by time and custom and nuance and even self-interest as we think of it in the non-Muslim West, will see his Old Enemy, the Infidel, and think – and possibly act on the thoughts he’d be thinking – accordingly.   

Third, I have maintained, in many articles and postings (of which one may be linked to here: “Ten Things To Think”), that the term "moderate Muslim,” while verbally comforting, is unhelpful otherwise, except insofar as the constant use of the phrase unwittingly reveals that the user must find something worrisome about Islam, if he suggests that we find it tolerable only as long as it is practiced, or believed in, in “moderation,” by those “moderate Muslims” who don’t take the doctrine too much to heart.

Cathy Young need only practice what she appears to preach: a little reason, a little calm. That is, she should calmly study, at her personal pace, the texts of Islam, and the writings of the great Western scholars (fl. 1870-1970) on Islam and on the history of Islamic conquest, in order to see if there might be a connection between the texts, and tenets, of Islam, on the one hand, and the observable behavior of Muslims toward the non-Muslims they waged war on, over the past 1350 years, on the other. And if she were to read with care the works of such articulate apostates now safely in the West, defectors from the Army of Islam, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan, Ibn Warraq, Magdi Allam, Ali Sina, in order to find out what they, who grew up within Islam, have to say about what Islam inculcates, and how Muslims are taught to hide their real attitudes, when necessary, from inquiring Infidels, then she will at least have done the minimum necessary, will have prepared herself so that she will have earned the right to have an opinion on the nature, and conceivable menace, of Islam and those who take its texts and tenets seriously, who are influenced by the attitudes and atmospherics of societies suffused with Islam.

I don’t have the feeling that Cathy Young has yet recognized this responsibility, and done much, if any, of this. Her words suggest that she is still dealing in the world of what she would like Islam to be, because if it turns out that she is wrong (and I, for example, am grimly right) then all kinds of unpleasantnesses cannot be avoided, even if dealt with sensibly and with perfect justification. A contributor to Reason.com, Cathy Young is not always as rational in her worldview as she fondly believes.

Is it false, or irrational, to maintain that we cannot distinguish those who are true “moderates” from those who are not, or who will not always remain so? Is it false, is it irrational, to argue that the word “moderate” in the phrase “moderate Muslims” is vague, a vessel into which different people pour very different meanings, for few agree on what that word “moderate” means and fewer still have suggested what that word would have to mean were it to be a real, and not a cold, comfort.

Young also takes attention away from one of the main points I repeatedly make, when discussing “moderate Muslims” and Jihad (defined as the struggle to remove all obstacles to the spread, and then the dominance, of Islam), is that the main instrument of Jihad in the West at present is not terrorism, but other instruments. In Western Europe those instruments include deployment of the Money Weapon, carefully-targetted campaigns of Da’wa, and inexorable demographic conquest. I never suggested that any Muslim might become a “violent extremist.” I suggested that we have no way of knowing who is, or who might remain, a “moderate” Muslim, and what that phrase “moderate Muslim” means or would have to mean. Indeed, I rarely talk about terrorism and terrorists, for that is already such an obvious  threat, and I prefer to deal with the less or non-obvious. Most of my comments are about those who, enaged in Jihad without becoming “violent extremists,” pursue the same goal as do Muslim terrorists, but without that kind of violence, and  far more effectively, through other means.

Cathy Young has failed to see that. She has, however, imagined other things.

It would be helpful if she could find a few passages that she thinks supports her attribution to me of the preposterous claim that "virtually any Muslim American, no matter how seemingly well-integrated into our society, should be regarded as a potential violent extremist."

If she cannot adduce this evidence, and does not withdraw what she attributed to me, then perhaps it would be fitting for me to recall the brief but telling remark made by Chatsky to Repetilov in Griboyedov's "Woe From Wit" (Gore Ot Uma). That is the most famous play in Russian literature, one with which Cathy Young, who was born in the Soviet Union and raised in this country by Russian parents, is surely familiar. And among the winged words that flew from the pen of the playwright Griboyedov (a victim, by the way, of a murderous Muslim mob, enraged that he was sheltering Christian women at the Russian Legation in Tehran), she must remember this famous phrase, a phrase that even now is flying straight in her direction:

Vri, da znaj zhe meru.

The first article of our December issue that I read this morning was that by David Hamilton on Contemporary Art.
I agree with him completely on the always uplifting effect entering the National Gallery has. We were in there only two weekends ago. I submit that the work of the National Portrait Gallery in nearby St Martin's Place would demonstrate that all is not lost among contemporary artists. The portrait that I remember from my visit in September, because of the subject matter of the article I was planning at the time was that of Lcp Johnson Beharry VC by Emma Wesley.
The first news website I turn to each morning is The Times and mindful of what I had just read the first article I opened was this, about Arabella Dorman the Official War Artist recently returned from Afghanistan.

Arabella Dorman, who spent a month as an official war artist this autumn embedded with the 2 Rifles Battle Group in the town of Sangin, north Helmand, returned with sketchbooks of images that capture the end of the bloodiest six months suffered by any British unit in Afghanistan.
The first picture she completed on her return a month ago was of Rifleman Daniel Wilde, 19, who died on August 13. He was helping to carry a comrade wounded in an initial bomb blast when both were killed by a second bomb planted in anticipation of such a rescue attempt.
The portrait in charcoal and chalk was commissioned by his fellow soldiers and presented to his family. They wept when they saw it.
She contrasts the work of war artists with that of war photographers and reporters. “Understandably, journalists and photographers tend to focus on the drama and the action that they witness rather than the quieter moments in between,” she says.
“As a portrait painter I am drawn to the human drama, the psychology and bravery. In the theatre of war, experience is condensed, there is an intensification of life.”
The biggest painting that she plans will depict the vastness of the Afghan landscape and a line of British soldiers tranversing it. “I want to try to get across the vulnerability of these foot patrols. They have no protection except their body armour and the man with the Valon mine detector at the front.
“The soldiers fight for each other much more than they fight for Queen and country. They fight for Rifleman Wilde,”
Forbidden by the Ministry of Defence from accompanying the soldiers on patrol, Dorman sketched their leaving — weighed down with up to 9st of equipment in 45C (113F) heat — and their return.
“Before an operation you would see the tension in their body language. The swearing goes up incrementally, the laughter becomes more and more high pitched,” she says. “They’d all come to me and say how fast can you do a portrait? And you’d know why they wanted it done".

 I don't know if the drawing left is the one of Rifleman Wilde or another serviceman but her capture of his eyes suggests to me that there are artists working today who are capable of the same virtues as their ancestors. 

The slideshow of her work is here.   

From The Telegraph. This was reported in the local paper last night but I didn't have time to put it up then. This report gives Baroness Warsi's response.
Conservative Muslim Peer Baroness Warsi of Dewsbury has criticised a group of Islamic extremists who pelted her with eggs and shouted abuse at her during a visit in Luton.
The shadow minister for community cohesion and social action had been meeting local businesses with Tory candidates when she was attacked just before 5pm on Monday.
Up to 10 local British male protesters, believed to be members of the controversial Al Muhajiroun group, started shouting abuse at the Peer, accusing her of not being a proper Muslim and supporting the deaths of Muslims in Afghanistan.
Members of the group then threw several eggs at her, with one hitting her on the side of the head and another soiling her jacket.
Baroness Warsi, the country's most powerful female Mulsims, was not injured during the attack in the city's Bury Park area.
Amid concerns for her safety, witnesses said Baroness Warsi refused to run from the group, but instead started remonstrating with them, later branding them "extremists" who did not represent the views of British Muslims.
She later retreated into a sari shop.
Despite police being called, no one was arrested for the attack which was universally condemned by locals. No one was arrested last time and that was far more serious.
Brushing off the incident last night, the Tory Peer later addressed a local meeting, where she branded the group "idiots and vile" who did not represent Muslim views and were "clearly repulsed with me".
It is believed the protesters were from the same group of Mulims who earlier this year marred the homecoming of the 2nd Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment through Luton.
Baroness Warsi, who appeared on the BBC's Question Time alongside Mr Griffin last month, said she decided to stand up to the group because she wanted a proper debate with them.
Instead, she said, the group failed to articulate any arguments and only "brought Muslims into disrepute".
Saiful Islam, a member of the group which wants Sharia law to be implemented in Britain, denied his group were behind the attacks but added: "Baroness Warsi purports to be a Muslim but really she's just pushing a government agenda. She should be received with condemnation. She is clearly in opposition to Sharia."

From Adncronos International. HT Islamonline. (That site is good for something after all!)
A conservative Italian minister from the anti-immigrant Northern League has lauded the decision by Swiss voters to ban minarets and called for the Christian cross to be included on the Italian flag.
"I hope that the party to which I am honoured to belong puts forth my proposal," said Roberto Castelli, deputy minister of infrastructure and transport.
"Europe has the right to safeguard its own identity, respecting other people's roots, but it is necessary to return to our roots," said Castelli. "Once again, the Swiss teach us a lesson in civilisation," concluded Castelli.
Meanwhile, the leader of Italy's Federation of the Greens party Angelo Bonelli, responded ironically to Castelli's demand.
"Deputy minister Castelli wants to put the cross in the flag? So when do we begin a crusade to liberate the holy land?" said Bonelli. The Holy Land is safe with the Israelis so long as Israel is kept safe.
Islamonline has a further comment from Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.
The proposal by the right-wing minister drew support from Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.
"Nine European countries already have the crucifix on their flag, it is an extremely common proposition," he said.

by Mary Jackson (December 2009)

From the Swedish edition of The Local
A Muslim woman from Kista north of Stockholm who was denied a job as a dentist after refusing to wear short-sleeved work clothes for religious reasons has lost her discrimination case against the Swedish Public Dental Service Following the completion of her dental studies in January 2008, the now 29-year-old woman applied for a position with the public dental service in Stockholm.
During the hiring process, she was informed that the dental agency requires personnel to wear short-sleeved gowns when treating patients. Sounds very like the 'bare below the elbow' policy of British hospitals.
But the rules, put in place for hygiene reasons, came into conflict with her Muslim faith, which requires that she show as little skin as possible in public.
Looking for a solution, she said she would be willing to wear disposable arm sleeves over a long-sleeved gown.
After Folktandvården rejected the compromise, she sued the dental service for 150,000 kronor ($21,500) in damages alleging the organization's refusal to accommodate her request to avoid short-sleeved work clothes amounted to discrimination.
But the Stockholm court sided with the dental service, finding that the decision not to hire the woman did not amount to discrimination.
In its ruling, the court cited health board regulations which recommend healthcare personnel use short-sleeved gowns when examining patients.
“Even it if means a disadvantaging of Muslims [...], Folktandvården is required to follow the current guidelines for basic hygiene for the healthcare system,” the court wrote in its judgment.
The court also ordered the woman to pay 250,000 kronor to cover the dental service’s court costs, something which she said is not going to be easy.
“It’s pretty unacceptable. I’m not working right now and have no income,” she said, adding that she is currently supported by her father. She will have to get a job, any job, in a different field.

From IPT (with thanks to Dorrie O'Brien):

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) appears to be the subject of a federal criminal investigation. Although no formal statement to that effect has been made by law enforcement, FBI agents reportedly issued a grand jury subpoena last week seeking internal CAIR documents that are the subject of an ongoing civil lawsuit.

CAIR sued P. David Gaubatz and his son Chris Gaubatz in federal court last month, claiming it was the victim of theft and trespassing. In the book, Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America, the Gaubatzes acknowledge that Chris adopted a pseudonym and posed as a Muslim convert to secure an internship at CAIR in 2008.

He used his access to take thousands of pages of internal CAIR documents and to make surreptitious recordings of CAIR officials. Citing those records, the book claims that CAIR is part of a conspiracy among groups affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood "to support violent jihad and undermine law enforcement."

Among the book's specific allegations, CAIR officials grossly exaggerate their membership rolls and the depth of their domestic financial support. In addition, they actively thwart law enforcement counter-terror investigations. Following the release of the book, four congressional Republicans sought an investigation into the book's claims that CAIR seeks to place interns on committees dealing with the judiciary and homeland security.

Thus far, CAIR has minimized and ridiculed the book's findings, but has not alleged any of it is false.

CAIR won a temporary restraining order requiring that the Gaubatzes return 12,000 pages of documents. WorldNetDaily, publisher of Muslim Mafia, posted a story Nov. 24 claiming that FBI agents served a grand jury subpoena on the Gaubatzes' attorney. The move came as the attorneys were about to comply with the judge's order and give the documents back to CAIR. WND publisher Joseph Farah is quoted saying they weren't sure "Which takes precedence - a federal court order or an FBI warrant?"

Farah declined to comment Tuesday on what has happened since then. Josh Gerstein at Politico notes that the government filed a sealed motion in the case Friday.

According to the docket in the Gaubatz/CAIR suit, Lynn Haaland, an attorney in the Department of Justice's National Security Division, is listed as an "interested party" in the lawsuit. It's possible the grand jury's target is more narrow – on a CAIR official or officials, but the presence of a national security prosecutor indicates the grand jury's interest is not on the Gaubatzes behavior.

Last year, the FBI cut off communication with CAIR on outreach and other general informational contacts. That move was based on evidence from the successful Hamas-support prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) linking the organization and its founders to Hamas. CAIR co-founders Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmad (a.k.a. Omar Yehya) were included in a telephone list of a U.S.-based Hamas-support network and the two participated in a secret 1993 gathering of Hamas-members and supporters aimed at undermining the U.S.-brokered Oslo Accords which created the secular Palestinian Authority.

Awad and Ahmad were then leaders of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), a Hamas-front that exhibits in the HLF case show was an original component in the Muslim Brotherhood's "Palestine Committee" which was created to support Hamas in the United States.

In that weekend-long gathering, FBI recordings show the group discussed creating a new Islamist lobbying arm. CAIR was created the following summer and immediately was added to the Palestine Committee's agenda.

In explaining why it cut off CAIR's access, an FBI official expressed in writing the bureau's concern "whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS."

The consequences of that question may have risen to a new level.

Newspapers in the Middle East are critical after the Swiss voted in a referendum to ban the building of minarets.

Some see it as an extremist or even racist step which highlights apparent double standards in Europe's respect for human rights.

Although some papers say Swiss-Muslim relations might be adversely affected by the ban, a Lebanese daily says it is unlikely to lead to protests like the ones sparked by Danish cartoons.

Editorial in pan-Arab AL-QUDS AL-ARABI

The Swiss decision to ban the construction of minarets confirms that Europe is heading towards a far-right extremism and persists in its enmity towards Islam and Muslims.

Editorial in Iran's AL-VEFAGH

The vote to ban the building of minarets in Switzerland is, first, a shock for democracy and human rights and, second, a violation of the rights of many Swiss citizens who belong to the Islamic religion. It is therefore a racist step that is not appropriate for human civilisation.

Walid Nuwayhid in Bahrain's AL-WASAT

Regardless of the final results of the referendum, the fact that the issue was put to a popular vote in the first place indicates that there is an undeclared crisis in human relations with the other, the different and the immigrants.

Ibrahim Si'dah in Egypt's AL-AKHBAR

The people will decide and the government will only have to implement [the decision]. This is actually the motto that has been adopted in Switzerland for centuries. But how do the Swiss people decide? It is through a democratic system that nobody can disagree with.

Editorial in Qatar's THE PENINSULA

Freedom of expression is considered sacrosanct and inviolable in Europe, but at the same time, the continent has of late practised double standards when it comes to granting the same right to Muslims, whether it's in the form of the Swiss ban or the ban on burqas in France.

Sati Nur-al-Din in Lebanon's AL-SAFIR

The new Swiss decision will probably not lead to protests like the ones sparked by the Danish cartoons a few years ago. It also will not lead to an Islamic fatwa against the Swiss People's Party or its leaders. But it puts Switzerland in an unjustifiable and incomprehensible confrontation with the Muslim world.

Hafith al-Barghuthi in Palestinian AL-HAYAT AL-JADIDAH

I am not frightened when Switzerland or any other country forbids the construction of minarets. However, I become afraid when I see Islamist groups destroying minarets and mosques over the heads of worshipers in Arab and Islamic countries.

Hilmi al-Asmar in Jordan's AL-DUSTUR

In the West, right wing forces, as they are called by the media, are allowed to act, rule and draw policies… but in our countries these are called dark, Talibanic, retarded forces.

Mzin Hammad in Qatar's AL-WATAN

The result of the referendum represents a victory for all right-wing parties on the European continent and gives them the justification and precedent to follow the Switzerland route.

The translation of the title doesn't do justice to the crispness of the instrumental case but, I note by way of excuse, the  version of the song  in English -- the famous "Those Were The Days, My Friend" -- veers even wider off the long path of the original. The song was originally made famous by Vertinsky, and his version is the preferred one.

Listen here.

by Hugh Fitzgerald (December 2009)

Dorrie O'Brien called the phone number at the bottom of this email and said it was confimed to her. Here is the original news article and what follows is an eyewitness account.

Fort Hood mass shooter Major Nidal Hasan, has been widely reported to have had  email contact with American-born radical Yemeni Anwar al-Awlaki. Awalaki, you may recall,  had been a preacher at the radical Dar al Hijrah Mosque in Falls Church, Virginia frequented by Hasan and his family.

The Homeland Security Department's intelligence division became concerned about Awlaki late last year when he published a new group of violent lectures targeting U.S. audiences, according to a Jan. 22, 2009 intelligence note.

On Dec. 23, 2008, Awlaki, on his Web site, encouraged Muslims across the world to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. Awlaki also used these postings to declare his support for the Somali terrorist group, al-Shabaab, according to the Homeland Security intelligence note, obtained by The Associated Press.

In December of last year, Customs officials intercepted a flash drive of Awlaki's lectures that his wife sent from Yemen to an Islamic publishing house in Denver, the intelligence note said.

Awlaki was arrested in 2006 with a small group of suspected al-Qaida militants in the capital San'a. He was released more than a year later after signing a pledge he would not break the law or leave the country.

Awlaki first appeared on the FBI's radar in 1999 when he was indirectly in contact with the jailed blind sheik, Omar Abdel Rahman, who is currently serving a life sentence for his role in planning the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.  In 2000, Awlaki met with Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, 9-11 terrorists who participated in the attack on the Pentagon.  In 2002, federal authorities intercepted Awlaki at JFK airport and were forced to release him, although he was on a terror watch list.  Immediately following his release, Awlaki was escorted to a flight to Washington, D.C. by a representative of Saudi Arabia and remained briefly in Northern Virginia.  In Virginia, Awlaki met with radical cleric Ali al-Timimi about recruiting Muslims for jihad. (In 2005, Al-Timimi was convicted in the Virginia Paintball Jihad Network case).  Soon after, Awlaki, a suspected Al Qaeda recruiter and spiritual inspiration for multiple terror plots, relocated to the U.K and later to Yemen.  

Gaouette, an assistant U.S. attorney since 1989, was appointed this August by President Obama as the U.S. Attorney for Colorado. When asked why Awlaki's arrest warrant had been rescinded, a public affairs officer said Gaouette was unfamiliar with the particulars of the Awlaki case, and would have to research it before he could comment. Gaouette's office did not reply to a request for a copy of the Awlaki arrest warrant. The clerk's office for the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado was also unable to provide a copy of the warrant, citing the age of the case and the fact that the warrant was rescinded."

"The agent says the supervisory assistant U.S. Attorney on the case, David Gaouette, had been fully briefed on Awlaki's suspected terrorism ties. At the time, Gaouette oversaw all terror cases in the Denver-based District of Colorado, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office.

Listen here.