Posted on 12/27/2009 8:51:06 PM PST by Saije
THE THWARTED Christmas Day airplane bombing raises three causes for alarm. First, it illustrates a screening system that remains porous enough to let a suspect board with the same explosive shoe-bomber Richard Reid attempted to use in 2001. Second, it exposes a terrorism bureaucracy too clumsy to catapult the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, at least to a higher level of preflight scrutiny after his father came forward with warnings that he might pose a danger. Third, if it is true that the suspect received explosives training from al-Qaeda in Yemen, the incident underscores the emergence of that troubled nation as a training ground for terrorists. To that initial list, we would add a fourth: the disturbingly defensive reaction of the Obama administration.
No screening system can be foolproof, and every system must balance security against the need to allow an acceptably free flow of travel. But the system apparently failed in the case of Mr. Abdulmutallab in significant part because available technologies were not employed...
More disturbing is the apparent failure of U.S. authorities to respond swiftly and seriously to warnings by Mr. Abdulmutallab's father about his son's "radicalization and associations" with Islamist extremists. As the recently retired chairman of a major Nigerian bank, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab was a credible source...The notion that there was "insufficient derogatory information available" to do more than add Mr. Abdulmutallab's name to a broad terror watch list, as the administration suggested, is infuriating. This was not an American citizen entitled to due-process protections and the right to enter the country at will. How much more derogatory does information have to be than a father's warning that his son is dabbling in radical Islam?
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
That is an all too appropriate image, and describes what we're seeing with the excuses given for yesterday's incident, what we've seen time after time ... it happens before our eyes.
number one threat facing our nation? Our mainstream media.
Exactly:
1) The terrorist's dad must have connections with US officials monitoring terrorism.
2) The terrorist's dad knows what he's talking about.
3) The terrorist's dad knows his own son - it's not like a bank flagging a random cash transfer of more than $10,000 (in the USA, this must be reported to authorities).
#1: His father, former CEO of a bank in Nigeria (where more then a few terrorists reside), would have had to deal with Homeland Security directly in cooperation with President Bush's global war on terror.
#2: Banks are on the front line of the "war on man made disasters". They are the eyes and ears of security officials, legally mandated to continuously look for suspicious activities or patterns and report them immediately. Due to the sensitive nature of the information, only the top-level executives and front line staff who are directly involved in the issue have authorization to discuss evidence with the US security agency in charge.
#3: A father is not going to report his son unless he is absolutely certain that his son has the desire, ability, and opportunity to kill himself and others. I believe his father reported his son to US authorities because he knew there was an operation in progress that would most likely result in the death of his son - not because his son was planning to kill innocent US citizens (just a hunch on the 2nd part).
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