Anwar Al-Awlaki who is on the CIA's kill or capture list for his involvement in the Fort Hood Shootings, the Attempted Christmas Day Bombing, and the Times Square plot was invited to have lunch and give a presentation at the Pentagon just months after 9/11. FOX News reports the infuriating details:
According to the documents, obtained as part of an ongoing investigation by the specials unit "Fox News Reporting," there was a push within the Defense Department to reach out to the Muslim community.
"At that period in time, the secretary of the Army (redacted) was eager to have a presentation from a moderate Muslim."
In addition, Awlaki "was considered to be an 'up and coming' member of the Islamic community. After her vetting, Aulaqi (Awlaki) was invited to and attended a luncheon at the Pentagon in the secretary of the Army's Office of Government Counsel."Awlaki, a Yemeni-American who was born in Las Cruces, N.M., was interviewed at least four times by the FBI in the first week after the attacks because of his ties to the three hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Hani Hanjour. The three hijackers were all onboard Flight 77 that slammed into the Pentagon.
Awlaki is now believed to be hiding in Yemen after he was linked to the alleged Ft. Hood shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who e-mailed Awlaki prior to the attack.
Sources told Fox News that Awlaki, who is a former Muslim chaplain at George Washington University, met with the Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in Yemen and was the middle-man between the young Nigerian and the bombmaker. Awlaki was also said to inspire would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad.
The story is infuriating not only because it highlights the incompetence of the folks we entrust the security of our nation to, but because unlike Claire, the people running the Pentagon apparently have not the slightest clue how to differentiate a moderate Muslim from an Islamic terrorist.
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Comments :
Aug '10
Re: "Moderate Muslim" Who Helped Orchestrate Terrorist Attacks Was Invited to Pentagon for Lunch
Who drove him there ? Nidal Hassan ?
State Department has been islamist since they decided it was chic to be British.
Jul '10
Re: "Moderate Muslim" Who Helped Orchestrate Terrorist Attacks Was Invited to Pentagon for Lunch
Was the luncheon before or after Imam Bush pronounced Islam a religion of peace, and a religion that respects others? You can see why the Pentagon would be confused.
Jul '10
Re: "Moderate Muslim" Who Helped Orchestrate Terrorist Attacks Was Invited to Pentagon for Lunch
A good thing they redacted the name of the secretary of the army at the time. There is no way he can be traced now.
Re: "Moderate Muslim" Who Helped Orchestrate Terrorist Attacks Was Invited to Pentagon for Lunch
I'd like to use this information to help removed the scales from the eyes of my liberal friends about moderate Islam, but the minute they see "Fox News Reporting" I'm dead in the water.
Aug '10
Re: "Moderate Muslim" Who Helped Orchestrate Terrorist Attacks Was Invited to Pentagon for Lunch
Search for a source other than Fox News who's reporting the same story?
Sometimes news takes a while to work its way out to acceptably liberal channels, but I've found that searching for sources that my liberal friends find more comfortable is often worth the effort.
Aug '10
Re: "Moderate Muslim" Who Helped Orchestrate Terrorist Attacks Was Invited to Pentagon for Lunch
I think every story with "Muslim" and a named or clearly cited person in its title should have that title replaced with either of the following: "This One's Bravo" or "This One's Manso."
Isn't that what this is all about? No other group on Earth has its - my rodent nails scrape for oh the right phrase - predicted ongoing metastability implicit in every single story about it.
Aug '10
Re: "Moderate Muslim" Who Helped Orchestrate Terrorist Attacks Was Invited to Pentagon for Lunch
John H.: I think every story with "Muslim" and a named or clearly cited person in its title should have that title replaced with either of the following: "This One's Bravo" or "This One's Manso."
Isn't that what this is all about? No other group on Earth has its - my rodent nails scrape for oh the right phrase - predicted ongoing metastability implicit in every single story about it. · Oct 20 at 5:38pm
Please elucidate . These corners feel confining, but our words must expand.
Aug '10
Re: "Moderate Muslim" Who Helped Orchestrate Terrorist Attacks Was Invited to Pentagon for Lunch
How do we deal with the Alinskyite treatment of Fox ? Bully pulpits are hard to rent. Or ,as they say in New York, the rent's too high !!
Fox is one target. The new talking point is Ignorance.
Probably a bad idea for a conservative journolist. Maybe because it only takes five minutes to poll everybody. Except Claire, who lives in a ten second ( and five century ) delay.
Aug '10
Re: "Moderate Muslim" Who Helped Orchestrate Terrorist Attacks Was Invited to Pentagon for Lunch
flownover
Please elucidate . These corners feel confining, but our words must expand. · Oct 20 at 6:32pm
I think I got it already at http://ricochet.com/conversations/Moderate-Muslim-Watch-Ali-Bardakoglu/(comment)/37076#comment-37076. As much as I dislike the Middle East, I do not wish to dehumanize the people luckless enough to be living there. They've got enough problems. I've been on a lot of Indian reservations, they're all awful, and I can't help but think that when even the most well-meaning onlooker says I've found a moderate, the next thing he's going to say is Let's put him somewhere.
Sep '10
Re: "Moderate Muslim" Who Helped Orchestrate Terrorist Attacks Was Invited to Pentagon for Lunch
At the time, all the MSM were reporting this guy as completely moderate. Of course, these are the same people now reporting the founders/backers of the GZM as completely moderate.
Aug '10
Re: "Moderate Muslim" Who Helped Orchestrate Terrorist Attacks Was Invited to Pentagon for Lunch
John H the res is one thing I've seen smiling faces in Baghdad we all can't live in Carmel real estate is one thing civility another kindness can only be regulated by an atmosphere of ingratitude selfishness only exists where there is no need everything else is existence there's no pretense
May '10
Re: "Moderate Muslim" Who Helped Orchestrate Terrorist Attacks Was Invited to Pentagon for Lunch
I'm sorry, but this statement is grossly unfair. First of all, the Secretary of the Army doesn't "run the Pentagon." He does not run the operational side of the Army. He may not have even been at the lunch. There's little reason for the FBI to have let him know about a local imam who had contact with the 9/11 hijackers. I think it might serve your argument better if you made yourself more familiar with DoD organization and function. You are making very broad and inaccurate generalizations. Any American citizen can walk into the Pentagon for a tour, if they are not on a list. In the months following 9/11, and we are talking about nearly 10 years ago, we did not have the real-time capabilities we have at present. Must we devolve into such polemic arguments?