F.B.I. monitored Hasan's emails to terrorist cleric one year before the Fort Hood massacre

Nearly a year before the Fort Hood massacre, the F.B.I. intercepted emails between Nidal Hasan and radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki that officials called "fairly benign." They are anything but. Hasan asked al-Awlaki if killing fellow soldiers would make him a martyr. That's "fairly benign?" Ace of Spades writes,

Let me point out the obvious: This man is a commissioned officer in the United States army, with a security clearance, asking a terrorist leader if it's okay to murder civilians, seeking his wisdom on slaughter.

And the FBI, and the Pentagon, say Meh.

They're ignoring this type of thing.

And yet we need the NSA spying on everyday citizens?

There is more. There is so much more. At every turn, the FBI cleared him, almost always after a very perfunctory (hours long) review. They gave him such a short inspection that people began wondering if he was a Confidential Informant -- how could an obvious terrorist threat be ignored by the FBI, if he were not a CI undercover?

But he wasn't.

The FBI kept giving him clean reviews for no reason.

Except, maybe, for the obvious reason.

See no evil. Don't rock the boat. The real rule coming down from the brass is not "find terrorists," but "don't insult Muslim sensibilities," and sometimes that means clearing a man who is asking a terrorist cleric if he can go to Heaven if he murders his fellow soldiers.

Thanks to Rachel Lucas for linking to Ace.