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Jewish World Review Nov. 11, 2009 / 24 Mar-Cheshvan 5770 Unconnected Dots By Jonah Goldberg
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Does anyone remember the days when "connecting the dots" was considered vital to national security? After the No more You don't remember poor her? She was the hapless When Bryant told Atta he couldn't have the loan, Atta responded by asking, in the words of the Bryant didn't think much of the comment and continued to chat with the eager loan applicant, perhaps in part to assure him that he wasn't being discriminated against, as he claimed. Again the Times: "Later in their meeting … (Atta) told her he wanted to buy an aerial picture of Atta then went on to praise "the world's greatest leader," "Should I have picked up the telephone and called someone? …" Bryant mused to the Times. "I don't know how I could possibly expect myself to have recognized what the man was. And yet sometimes I haven't forgiven myself." But Bryant gets a pass. This all happened before 9/11. Before everything changed. Flash forward to Army Maj. "As a senior-year psychiatric resident at Hasan went a different way. He opted to give a bizarre PowerPoint presentation in which he defended suicide bombing and explained that nonbelievers should be beheaded, burned alive and have boiling oil poured down their throats (presumably not in that order). He argued that all Muslims should be discharged from the military. One slide concluded: "We love death more then (sic) you love life!" According to the Post, the medical staff in attendance was deeply disturbed by the incident. But there's apparently no record of anyone reporting it to authorities. That would have been insensitive and discriminatory. The following year, intelligence officials discovered that Hasan had been sending e-mail to The FBI concluded it was no big deal and dropped the matter. "Investigators," reports the Post, "said Hasan's e-mails were consistent with the topic of his academic research and involved some social chatter and religious discourse." Ah yes, his "academic research," which was laid out so rigorously in his PowerPoint presentation. Hasan also reportedly expressed joy over the murder of an Maybe the e-mails seemed innocuous enough. Maybe. But you know, I've been interviewed by the FBI a few times as part of routine background checks for friends and colleagues seeking government jobs. The G-Men ask all sorts of probing questions. If a friend of mine supported suicide bombings and attacks on American soil, I think it would have come up. When my wife was up for a job at the Apparently, the FBI's investigation of Hasan was not even that thorough. When the FBI "investigated," it seems they went looking for a reason not to investigate -- and they found it. No dots there.
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Mitch Albom | |||||||||||||
