The Government’s Awlaki Story Does Not Pass the Laugh Test
In the early morning hours of October 10, 2002, Anwar al-Awlaki, the notorious al Qaeda operative, was detained by U.S. Customs agents when he arrived at JFK International Airport in New York City after a flight from Saudi Arabia. At the time, he was a prime suspect in the 9/11 attacks and had been placed on terrorist watch-lists. Nevertheless, the Bush Justice Department directed Customs to release him. That decision enabled Awlaki to continue his jihadist campaign against the United States until he was finally killed in Yemen last September, in an American drone attack.
For nearly a decade since Awlaki was permitted to go free at the airport, the government has maintained that he was released because an arrest warrant for him, based on a 1993 felony passport fraud charge, had been vacated before his arrival, due to insufficient evidence. The government has suggested, moreover, that sheer coincidence explained the dismissal of the fraud charge right before Awlaki showed up at JFK: just a random assessment that a case was too weak, made by prosecutors and investigators who were unaware of Awlaki’s imminent arrival.
Now, Fox’s Catherine Herridge breaks the news that the government’s story is untrue. In House testimony this week, a top FBI official admitted that the Bureau and federal prosecutors knew Awlaki was about to return to the United States before he arrived at JFK. Furthermore, it emerged at the House hearing that the passport fraud warrant had not been vacated when Awlaki was briefly detained. The warrant remained valid and pending; it could have been used to arrest him. Instead, the Justice Department intervened to “un-arrest” him. With apologies extended by federal agents to both Awlaki and the Saudi government representative conveniently on hand to assist him, the terrorist was sprung.
I would also throw this into the hopper: The Justice Department’s rationale for dismissing the warrant is fatally flawed. Awlaki should have been arrested and prosecuted on the passport violation in 2002. That would not just have been a worthy effort in its own right; it would have had the added benefit of giving terrorism investigators more time, and more leverage, to develop a convincing terrorism case against Awlaki and other suspects. Why the case was dropped is a question that deserves much more scrutiny. After all, the release at JFK marked the second time, in a matter of months, that Awlaki wriggled free despite the heavy cloud of 9/11 suspicion that hovered over him.
To be blunt, the government’s Awlaki story does not pass the laugh test.
It was always incredible to suggest, as the Justice Department has, that Awlaki’s release was the result of a series of remarkable coincidences. Until this week, the story went something like this: After obtaining a valid arrest warrant in Denver federal court, the FBI case agent and assistant U.S. attorney assigned to the matter decided, out of the blue, to review the file. It just happened to be the day before Awlaki tried to reenter the country. There was nothing going on in the case that called for a review at that time — Awlaki was out of the country, there was no urgency to file an indictment, and an indictment on the simple charge would have been easy to obtain once the time came. One would think the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office in a major city would have more pressing matters to attend to. Yet, they undertook to scrub their evidence and concluded — to the astonishment of federal terrorism investigators then probing Awlaki in San Diego — that the passport fraud complaint they had only recently filed against Awlaki was too weak to stand.
Abruptly, they decided to dismiss it — not sleep on it, not think about what evidence might shore it up, not consider how the information they’d amassed might warrant new charges against Awlaki. No, they just dismissed the only existing charge against a pivotal 9/11 suspect — even though many other suspects had been held for weeks, without any charges at all, on “material witness” warrants.
The government has disingenuously represented that, with the warrant already purportedly “pulled” due to the latently discovered “weakness” of its passport fraud case, there was no legitimate basis to detain Awlaki when Customs agents unexpectedly encountered him at JFK in October 2002. Thus the agents simply had no choice but to release him into the waiting arms of his Saudi handler.
The “War” on “Terror” has a troubling and well documented history of things opportunities declined, press blackouts, pro-Moslem spin, outright deception, and major incidents being ignored altogether.
For me, that the FBI would promote the dude who failed to wear a wire in a meeting with Sami al Arian by instituting an Affirmative Action program to staff up with Moslems takes the cake. Lemme get this straight: the FBI gets screwed by insubordination by a Moslem special Agent, the agency responds by giving him a raise and a promotion (instead of firing him outright), and then gearing up to bring in more Moslem special agents.
The Justice Dept has a history of non-judicious behavior, oftentimes getting caught with its pants down. People think that the word justice predicates the moral high ground. It should. But it often doesn’t. And, the true stories I can tell about this arena, but for many reasons can’t, would make the public’s head spin.
Clearly, their out of control behavior predates the Obama regime. Under Bush it stank from the head up when Saudi crap was involved. In fact, the fact that Bush ordered a planeload of Saudis to take off immediately after 9/11/01 ! (obviously smelling Saudi-rat involvement) demonstrates how politics prejudges justice.
And, in regard to the Radical-in-Chief, all manner of Islamic jihadis,Black nationalists, and others who implement Obama’s radical transformations are untouchable under the AG. How’s THAT for justice?
In other words, the ‘Justice’ Dept is hardly just. Far from it.
My blog – http://www.adinakutnicki.com is rife with commentary on the collusion between the POTUS and his racialist AG. Go down the HOME tab, and see whether or not the AG & his boss belong behind bars – or not!!
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Let me understand the following: Those who follow Muhammad, and pray towards the pagan shrine called the Kaabba are Jihadists. Who is left out? Apostates?
Islam. A death cult following a mad man, and worshiping one of 360 gods at the kaabba called the god, or Sin. Also, known as the moon god.
Also, known as the moon god.
Don’t forget that Allah did a long stint as a rock god in the Kaaba before being anointed as the only monotheistic sky god by the Holy Prophet himself. Indeed, Allah rocked out in the Kaaba, the pagan tourist trap then owned by the Holy Prophet’s uncle. Too bad the uncle was forced by the townspeople to banish the Prophet from Mecca for hate speech, thus setting him upon the world. Too bad the Jews up in Yathrib welcomed him there, for soon after they were dead, enslaved or forcibly evicted (robbed of their land and belongings), whereupon the town was renamed Medina and Islam was born. Ever since that birth, Islam has since been borne.
In order to win this war, the first thing we will need to do is get rid of the Islamic sympathizers here at home.
And, of course, that means Prez Obama
Excellent, and interesting story. One thing, though, is that by October 2002, it required no rocket science degree to learn the names of anyone flying into the United States. The US had “pushed the borders out by thousands of miles,” as the PR flaks put it. All airlines by then were required to give passenger manifests of all flights to the US. Practically any GS-5 clerk could do the job. That said, Awlaki was probably under *at least* light surveillance in Riyadh, where the US has lots and lots of US and other assets, and his flight plans could have been learned/confirmed that way as well.
The facts of Awlaki’s release are indeed unsettling.
But that raises the question – why would Obama be, at the same time
1. Anxious to placate Muslims and denigrate America,
2. Eager to set Awlaki free, and
3. H3ll-bent to kill terrorists with drones.
Not impossible, mind, but clearly incoherent
I guess Insane-Hussein Obama is more of a Sunni than a Shiite.
Dead men tell no tales.
It sounds to me like somebody (or somebodies) does not want these people in court. Probably these somebodies are the type that remain in government no matter who is elected.
The government is just too damn big and serves itself too well.
I’m not sure why you want to pin your second point on Obama. He wasn’t President yet. He wasn’t even a Senator yet. Remember, Awlaki was allowed into the country in 2002 when Bush was just halfway through his first term.
There are plenty of reasons to oppose Obama but this isn’t one of them.
However, I can’t help but wonder what Holder was doing at that point. Was he in a position in the DOJ (or wherever he worked at the time) that he could help Awlaki escape detention?
They probably had a good reason for stuff and can’t talk about it. No point worrying.
It all surpasses the bar of claimed incompetence. Maybe he was a ‘double-agent’ who was in reality a triple agent.
More likely, he was a Saudi Asset, therefore untouchable. Quite possible that he was let go precisely because of what he knew about Saudi connections to 9-11, including the wiring of money by Prince Bandar’s wife (apparently) to Bayoumi in San Diego. I don’t see mention of it in this article, but I think that’s been documented.
#7. Indeed, when incompetence isn’t enough to explain, look for an asset (often unreliable by definition – but hoped-against-hope to be of some value) – of KSA, ISI or Jordan, or even the U.S. – though the U.S. had largely outsourced to liaison in Clinton’s time – leaving the dirty work to others – while retaining culpability (and moral responsibility) irrespective of appearances. At least GWB was man enough to take direct responsibility and do the work himself (interrogation, detention, etc.)
Right, and if that doesn’t work spread stories on the Internet how the Mossad was the actual agent of 9-11. Deflect..
Obama is anti-Sunni; he overthrew Qaddafi and killed bin Laden. He is pro-Shiite; he supports Iran and won’t do anything to get rid of Assad. The Bush family is pro-Sunni. They did everything in their power to protect Saudis. They made sure all Saudis safely left the US on 9/11.
The Bush family never heard of Shiites. They are not well educated.
Pensions should have been lost over this.
Well, with Bush2 being such good buddies with the Saudi Arabian King… with other good friends like Islamist Grover Norquist sitting and influencing the highest levels of Right. wing politicos… with Brotherhood Jihad operatives working right up there next to Leftsist like Hillary Clinton at State… with countless terror imams consulting with American police departments, the FBI and Homeland Security… with other agencies taking their lead from myriad other Muslim terrorist consultants and explainers-away of Jihad…
It’s really no surprise that the epicenter of Islam, Saudi Arabia, has never been held to task for the terrorism their Islam is unleashing on the world. A growing, powerful, financially robust $1+ trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund buys a lot of interest in high places. Just how much influence? You can run a Muslim terror/Jihad attack which kills 3,000 innocent civilian Americans, and then completely buy your way out of it… But it gets better…!:
After attacking America, you can then direct America to take solid aim at your two largest enemies in the ME: Iran and Iraq… We have not yet begun to fight back. We are being prevented by a long list of traitors from both sides of he aisle….
We got ourselves bogged down in an endless and pointless war in Afghanistan where so many fine American’s have lost and continue to lose their lives and limbs based on what amounts to a sickening and false bumper sticker slogan. We have to go into Afghanistan so that terrorists can’t use it as a “safe haven.” This “safe haven” hokum makes me want to throw up.
While it is true that OBL had his HQ there, as Andrew McCarthy and the official 9/11 report point out, his operatives were not based there. They were freely moving around in various first world countries. Their real safe haven was right here in the U.S. where they had a readymade support network. It’s so much easier to work out of a condo in San Diego or Virginia than from a mountain hideout in Afghanistan. That’s the way it will be the next time as well.
This country is in great jeopardy. Our defense and security establishments have been compromised and are in disarray. There is no recognition or understanding of who and what the enemy is. Those who do understand have been intimidated into silence. Here is my sincere hope, wish and prayer. Mitt Romney wins the election and makes Andrew McCarthy the Director of Homeland Security. That one appointment would quickly and decisively put an end to the Islamic treachery that has compromised so many of our key institutions and promote a sane, informed and unapologetic understanding of what we are up against.
Michele Bachmann’s suspicions would seem to be justified. Muslim Brotherhood and other jihadist sympathizers are active within our government.
Mitt knows diddly about Islam, having said that”Jihad is not Islam”. He had
best name someone in the know as Secretary of Defense such as Bolton to keep
from making the mistakes of the last two administrations. Sucking up to the Saudi’s,and tolerating CAIR and it’s Muslim Brotherhood affiliates is
traitorous to this country. Our FBI has become a fifth column, as in aiding and abetting terrorism in their ignorance. All muslims, need to be deported
as soon as possible back to the century where Allah resides, and the homes of their birth. The next terror attack, may not sit as well as the last with the people. We have had enough capitulation, and accommodation.
You are a racist. Have you ever met a muslim?
Published on Aug 2, 2012 by Ben Swann Reality Check looks at a new report that the U.S. Government is funding the opposition in Syria including al Qaeda fighters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxqYnxrxHX8&feature=plcp
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