Chris Matthews: 'Not a Crime to Call al Qaeda'

I wonder if Chris Matthews remembers 9/11.

If he's foggy on that, I'm sure he doesn't recall the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the bombing of the USS Cole.

Al Qaeda is responsible for those acts of terror.

Matthews seems clueless.

From the Heritage Foundation, more on al Qaeda's Declarations and Acts of War.

Listening to Chris Matthews interview Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, on Hardball, November 9, it's as if Matthews is trying to brush off the significance of Fort Hood attacker Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's efforts to contact al Qaeda. AL QAEDA!

Matthews questions whether all those glaring warning signs in regard to Hasan, like the al Qaeda connection, were enough to warrant intervention.

TRANSCRIPT

CHRIS MATTHEWS: You know, I have a hard time with this because people like Sirhan Sirhan, who is still serving time for killing Bobby Kennedy, didn't like what Bobby Kennedy had said on television. Bobby Kennedy had made political statements saying we're going to sell arms, fighter planes directly to Israel, not under the table. We're going to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Those are the things that triggered his killing spree. He killed one person - Bobby Kennedy, horrifically. But did he become a different religious person because he committed the crime? And when did this happen?

See - we have a problem. How do we know when someone like Hasan is going to make his move and do we know he's an Islamist until he's made his move? He makes a phone call or whatever, according to Reuters right now. Apparently he tried to contact al Qaeda. Is that the point at which you say, 'This guy is dangerous?' That's not a crime to call up al Qaeda, is it? Is it? I mean, where do you stop the guy?

What is he babbling about?

I think you stop the guy when he's calling up al Qaeda!

How could anyone not consider that to be a giant red flag?

ZUDHDI JASSER: I mean, you can't... you have to. We're not even out of the box in this contest. I mean, we are completely asleep, let alone following him and saying that we were going to stop him. We didn't have any of the signs that we were following.

...

MATTHEWS: Well, this guy, according to all the testament, admittedly it has not been admitted into court. We cannot call him the shooter until we have a trial. That's the way we work here, you know, that's how it works in America, certainly not in the news business. You can't call somebody a murderer until you get a conviction in court. And the question here is when can you identify a problem? That's what we have to deal with. And you say it's an ideological point - you can find the problem. But then we get into the business of checking out on people's thinking. And that's the problem.

When does a person become a danger, when they have a certain thought system? Or when they go out and buying semi-automatic pistols, or when they start phoning up al Qaeda, saying how can I join the gang? I mean, where do you stop a person? This is criminology, maybe not ideology, but or even religion. But how do we weed out a guy - it seems to me, all of the warning signs, I mean, we have seen them all now. It's like looking at pictures of Muhammad Ata hanging around convenience stores and going to ATM machines. We got all kinds of information about this guy after it's too late.

But this guy was running around shooting his mouth off saying how he hated this country's wars with - look, you can listen to me on television and hear me saying I didn't like the war with Iraq. You know, I don't agree with the war on Iraq and a lot of Americans didn't like the war with Iraq. They didn't start shooting people about it.

Matthews is so confused.

When does one become a danger?

I'd say contacting the enemy is crossing the line. That can't be compared to someone merely expressing dissent.

Apparently, the government had information on Hasan's activities but nothing was done about it.

That's an inexcusable lapse.

I think Matthews is just trying to blunt criticism of the Obama government for failing to do something about Hasan before it was too late.

He can't seriously be unable to grasp the gravity of a U.S. Army major getting in touch with al Qaeda.

I don't see how Matthews can defend such behavior or consider it a gray area.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Video.