Passengers Shouldn’t be the First Line of Defense
What should be distressing about the foiled Christmas day plane-bombing attempt by the young Nigerian extremist is that it’s the third “terrorist” attack on the U.S. in the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency.
As a sign, it doesn’t bode well for future years, especially when Obama has gone to extraordinary lengths to apologize around the world on behalf of America, and has sought to endear himself and his country to the rest of the world.
In the Bad Old Days of George Bush’s presidency, the only identifiable terror attacks on U.S. soil were in the first year after 9/11 – notably Richard Reid, a London-born convert to Islam, who tried to blow up an American Airlines plane three days before Christmas in 2001 with an explosive device hidden in his shoe.
Individual terrorists have become bolder since Obama became president. One hopes it is coincidental, and not an indication of the future.
Back in May Abdulhakim Muhamed shot a couple of soldiers at a recruiting centre in Little Rock, Arkansas, because he didn’t like the war in Afghanistan. This fall, army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan killed 13 and wounded 30 in a shooting spree at Fort Hood for the same reason.
And now this strange young Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, caught trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane as it neared landing in Detroit from Amsterdam.
Aside from the farcical elements of his attempt to blow up the plane carrying 300 passengers, comments from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano are especially disquieting. She is an appalling choice to head this organization -- almost as bad as Janet Reno as the first female Attorney General of the U.S.
Napolitano’s reaction was that “the system worked,” because the passengers thwarted the guy’s attempt to ignite bomb materials hidden in his underwear while he covered himself with a blanket.
Sorry, ma’am, the system did not work. Alert passengers worked.
The would-be bomber’s father had warned that his son had become a Muslim extremist, but there apparently wasn’t enough evidence to keep him off a commercial airliner. We are told that Umar was one of 550,000 guys on an international security watch list.
For starters, anyone who has been to an al-Qaeda training camp, as Umar seems to have been in Yemen, should be on a no-fly list. Period.
Napolitano’s order to tighten security is a bit late. One wonders if airport security will now entail an underwear search, rather as Richard Reid is responsible for the present search of suspect shoes at airports.
There’s a lackadaisical attitude towards security by the Obama administration – witness the military promoting Nidal Hasan to major last May, despite reservation from higher command about his mediocre qualifications. It was more lowering the bar to show goodwill to Muslims.
On 60 Minutes recently, the President seemed appropriately annoyed that those two creeps, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, evaded security to attend a White House reception.
One trusts the President, who is holidaying in Hawaii, will now encourage greater communication among security agencies so that known Muslim extremists can be deterred from terrorist acts.
There are all sorts of warning signs out there, and failure to take them seriously will have consequences. The first line of defense should not have to be passengers on an airliner taking defensive action against other passengers trying to blow them up.