The unsuccessful bombing on Christmas day Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was not any surprise, he was no dark horse. Investors Business Daily reported that “Abdulmutallab’s father walked into the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria earlier this year to warn America about this fanatic.” President Obama said, “There were bits of information available within the intelligence community that could have and should have been pieced together”. Apparently there was sufficient information, but nobody took the hint.
How hard is this? Information was practically dropped in their lap, and they ignored it. Of course, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is calm, cool, and nonchalant when she says “the travelling public is safe” and that “the system worked”. How can a terrorist who slips through our fingers, despite clear signs, means that the system worked? She later admitted on NBC “Today” that the system “failed miserably”.
Abdulmutallab is reported to have 80 grams of PETN (or pentaerythritol tetranitrate) sewn into his briefs. To his discredit the explosion was “brief”, if any. The problem was that PETN cannot commonly be detonated by lighting it on fire, or dropping it. I suppose you could say that we’re lucky that Abdulmutallab didn’t do his homework.
So what steps have or will be taken to try to hinder educated jihadists and terrorists from their goal of blowing up Americans by the planeload? Mark Steyn with National Review said:
The bureaucrats at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) swung into action with a whole new range of restrictions. Against radical Yemen-trained Muslims wearing weaponized briefs? Of course not. That would be too obvious. So instead they imposed a slew of constraints against you. At Heathrow last week, they were permitting only one item of carry-on on U.S. flights. In Toronto, no large purses.
Um, the Pantybomber didn’t have a purse… But no matter. If in doubt, blame the victim. The TSA announced that for the last hour of the flight no passenger can use the toilets or have anything on his lap — not a laptop, not a blanket, not a stewardess, not even a paperback book. I can’t wait for the first lawsuit after an infidel flight attendant confiscates a litigious imam’s Koran as they’re coming into LAX.”
Other restriction are being considered. But you have to wonder if any of this will actually prevent a terrorist from harming the American people, try connecting the dots. How about taking warnings seriously. We had a perfect chance to do our best, and we failed.
The Wall Street Journal reported that possible links have been made between the recent undergarment guerilla and two Guantanamo detainees released in 2007. A Yemeni group that those two are now thought to be leaders of claimed responsibility (or what they might like to think as credit) for the recent bombings.
And some say that it’s better for our national security to release these detainees? It is quite the opposite. It is according to the detainees religion to kill the infidels in order to go to heaven. And somehow they think that these detainees will just decide it’s not worth it? Ridiculous. They will not stop until they are a martyr.
No, the system didn’t work. It will in the future if we follow the signs, connect the dots, and pay attention.
-Ben
