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Like this wasn’t predictable.
As predictable as this opening paragraph in the Wall Street Journal.
A U.S. government that has barred the phrase “war on terror” has nonetheless acknowledged that a failed Christmas day bomb attack on an airliner was a terrorist attempt. Can we all now drop the pretense that we stopped fighting a war once Dick Cheney and George W. Bush left the White House?
The instant I heard Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano utter the words, “the system worked,” I’ve waited for the ass covering that was bound to come. Today it arrived.
When you’re talking about “context,” you’re screwed. Why don’t smart people ever learn that lesson? Easy. They think we’re stupid.
The statement Napolitano made on Sunday was not only ridiculously absurd counter-intuitive, but something any civilian, even one not usually following national security and terrorism threats, could deduce was utter crap.
Obama’s first statement, as he fumbles a bit
when talking about Abdulmutallab, but
delivers strong statement on Iran violence.
Let’s see, a young Nigerian male, whose flight originated out of Lagos airport on the continent of Africa, a notoriously iffy security proposition to begin with, reportedly buys a one-way ticket (LATE UPDATE: the reports turned out to be false, by the way), paying in cash, with his father (chairman of Nigeria’s FirstBank, the oldest bank in the country, with offices in London, Paris and Beijing), notifying the U.S. embassy in Nigeria that his son has been radicalized, warning the U.S., with the young man attempting a terrorist attack that was foiled by sheer sweet luck, but “the system worked.”
Excuse me if I’m a bit queasy over this whole incident, but folks, our government is incompetent and it doesn’t matter whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge, even as the latter circle the wagons. This many years after 9/11 and we still can’t get it down that someone on a terrorist watch list should have extra screening?
And how dare I suggest that behavioral profiling might be something we should adopt! How wingnuttery of me to be so cool headed as to ponder the notion that some of what Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab exhibited might have been a flaming red flag.
For all the blathering about national security, we’re not very serious in this country about actually providing it. Even as I support Pres. Obama’s mission in Afghanistan, even if he won’t say it’s humanitarian when it is, the people against it have a good case to make when our own national security still appears like a sieve.
It would take tens of millions of dollars to secure every airport, including surveillance on baggage handlers. However, international flights or connecting flights could possibly be a first start.
But in this juvenile nation, a place where we secure our safety in fits and starts and only in the aftermath of a threat, our eyes are continually turned beyond our borders to the world. Changing the world by policing it, something we still do well (war and weaponry actually the only thing we still produce and can sell), while we crumble at home.
As for our own soil, using the term of the day, let’s be honest, the pure luck reality that we haven’t been hit again looks like it will be the case until it runs out, which it will eventually. (God help the poor sad sod of a politician and political party that happens to be at the helm when hell comes visiting again, because the foreshadowing is already 9 years long.)
But maybe I’m not being fair. After all, you can’t expect mere humans to be able to handle this gargantuan task. There is just too much information out there.
“It’s got to be something that causes the information to sort of rise out of the noise level, because there is just so much out there,” one intelligence official said.
Isn’t this what we heard from Bush-Cheney after 9/11? You know, after tales of CIA director George Tenet’s “hair on fire” warnings during the summer of 2001, when that now famous PDB was read by George W. Bush on vacation, not spurring any action at all. Revealing that Rep. King’s outlandish pronouncements that the latest near catastrophe in midair is why we need Gitmo and interrogations, even if those never helped George W. Bush avert Richard Reid just months after 9/11 happened on Bush’s watch; even as Mary Matalin spins the fantasy that 9/11 was what Bush inherited from Clinton.
The U.S. can’t possibly stop terrorism attempts because we can’t tell what’s real and what’s not, because the flood of information is just too much. Mr. Yglesias takes a big swallow of this nonsense, questioning whether more information is really a good thing. Yeah, because stupid is the thing. Democrats sounding like a silly Republican trying to spin this one.
Bluntly, this latest terrorism attempt reveals our governmental incompetence inaction.
Then again, maybe the problem is us.
TM.com Reader and commenter “Marie205″
27 December 2009 at 1:53 pm
I hate to say this but “You can have all the security in the world to stop terrorist like this guy, and in the end one of his terrorist friends will make it through” I know that might sound crude to some people. I was in London during the train bombings a couple years back, it was my very first trip over seas and I remember being terrified the day the bombs took place. However, when I looked around at the face coming up out of the damaged subways and on the streets I noticed a difference culturally with the English and Americans. The folks I was around that day didn’t become hysterical at all they were upset but kept there cool. There media didn’t go overboard about the London bombings and everyone around me handled it with an adult manner. Once I made it back to the State, American media was is in overdrive as if our country would be under attack soon. People around me here was walking around afraid of there own shadows, it was pathetic to witness. Here I was returning from almost losing my life in the London train bombings renewed with the strength I got from English men and Women, who refuse to be afraid or let the terrorist ruin their lives to my home country of frighten children. I really do believe Americans have a lot of growing up do we seem to think of ourselves as if bad things are never suppose to happen to us. After we suffer from the best nation on earth attitude; but were not just like other countries we will be attacked.
The “Department of Homeland Security” is a joke, a waste of money we don’t have, a redundant department of massive irrelevance, not to mention a public relations nightmare, as Mr. Tom Ridge, followed by Ms. Napolitano, have both conclusively proved, with duties that could be performed by another agency or better yet, shared.
Anyone laughing?
“The “Department of Homeland Security” is a joke, a waste of money we don’t have, a redundant department of massive irrelevance, not to mention a public relations nightmare, as Mr. Tom Ridge, followed by Ms. Napolitano, have both conclusively proved, with duties that could be performed by another agency or better yet, shared.”
A-Farkin_MEN to that! Could we POSSIBLY find LESS qualified people to head this TOTALLY irrelevant money pit then has already happened?
Could SOMEBODY tell me just what these folks actually DO?
I have NO, NADA, ZITCH experiance in any of these fields and I GUARENTEE I could do a FAR better job. I mean it wouldn’t be HARD, and I couldn’t POSSIBLY do any worse.
Shouldn’t it be fairly easy(spoken by someone with zitch computer savy)to cross referance all the info, raw and otherwise these agencies get in and spit out matches for a starter? IS THIS BRAIN SURGERY? If it was, the patiant would have assumed room temp LONG ago.
HOW much money has been wasted fattening the pockets of politicolly connected drones by now?
And that’s not even MENTIONING Bush/Cheney freely using this enormuse apparatus as a free election tool financed by the taxepayer. Every time Bush’s numbers went down, the THREAT LEVEL WENT UP!!!!!!
What a coincidence.
CLOSE this abomination down YESTERDAY! Co-ordinate the info from ALL agencies YESTERDAY!
STOP SCREWING AROUND!
I thought the same thing as I listened to Ms. Napolitano on Sunday. To me she seemed to be trying to calm everyone down by saying the system worked (after the fact) but I kept thinking “yes, but how did the guy get on board in the first place”? She didn’t seem to answer that one. So that rang false – better to admit up front in an astute way what we all know. Like Taylor said, Britain had good instincts on the man and we should have, too, espeially when his father voiced concern. I would like to know how the matter was handled by our government after that came to light.
Morning lynnette. As my hubby said, with a little flourish added by moi, it was one of those Heckava job Brownie cringe worthy moments.
What do they do? Well, secularh, whatever it is they’re getting paid too much for it.
I would like to comment on what Marie205 wrote.
It should be added that you have to take into account a historical aspect of terrorism. For the U.S. it is somewhat new (if that is the correct phrasing). As a nation we have been blessed. Just our geographical location and stable neighbors gave this country advantages that other countries did not have. And which probably gave us a certain sense of invincibility. Terrorism in Europe is not new. Think IRA in England (I freaked out when we had to evacuate the tubes – suspect bomb – and that was a long time ago), The Basques in Spain, or the RAF in Germany (West). So perhaps there is a certain mindset that has developed in Europe.
Note to homeland security…..going forward….if someone is on the terrorist watch list and their father calls you and says they could be bat shit crazy….its probably not a bad idea to add them to the no fly list…..I’m just sayin…maybe Janet might want to put that on a postit note
In point of fact we have most certainly NOT been spared the death, destruction and horror of Terrorism.
Oklahoma City. Bombngs, many, many bombings of Women’s Healthcare facilities,MURDER of workers and Abortion providers, Gay Nightclubs, many gaynightclubs, the Olympics.
The one BIG differance is these were DOMESTIC acts of terrorisim committed by overwhelmingly white Christian Males.
Why is it none of the Uberwingnuts ever called for profiling of White Male Christians but don’t HESITATE to call for the profiling of Muslims? And the reality is they mean BROWN skinned Muslims. They are to racist to even acknowledge that White Muslims exist.
any new government agency is a ship of fools. the FBI or CIA should be handling national security and not some new startup agency that is mostly full of redtape and career politicians.
we need to accept profiling and apply it to the security situation.
goes against all out freedoms but there is no other way to reduce the chances of these types of terror attacks.
the signs were all there yet because we endorse equality and political correctness they can just walk through our security anytime they want to.
did anyone see the binary bomb video on you tube? it uses an ordinary cannon fuse for a primer and fits inside a pen.
I am amazed they the underwear bomber wasnt successful.
Happy New Year everyone see you on the other side.
All I know is — I have two sons flying back to their respective colleges within the next 10 days, and I am going to be shitting myself with worry from the time I drop them at the airport until I get the call saying they’ve arrived safely.
You can try to “calm our fears” all you like, Ms. Nepolitano, but we are not complete idiots. Clearly it is possible for a person bent on mass murder, to get on a commercial airliner while in possession of a deadly amount of explosive material. Where is your sense of urgency in fixing this appalling security loophole? Why did that not become your immediate #1 priority?
the FBI or CIA should be handling national security and not some new startup agency that is mostly full of redtape and career politicians.
Bingo.
Happy New Year, MarkD.
Our drones slaughter Muslim men, women and children as if they were no better than ants. We call it collateral damage. We keep invading and occupying their countries based on specious reasoning; our contractors manhandle their women and massacre their families with impunity. At the same time, most of us go about our business without even giving them and their suffering a second thought. Is it any wonder then that a few extremists in their frustration, are inspired to blow up our planes as opposed to Russian planes or Canadian planes?
Here again, before he became President, BO led me to feel he instinctively understood this. He spoke eloquently of the root causes of terror. This was a part of the change we could believe in. Instead, now that he’s Prez, he’s Bush with a smile, and he follows the same failed policies of the past expecting a different result.
Taylor Marsh says:
28 December 2009 at 2:28 pm
EXACTLY!!!!! Hasn’t Janet “Incompatano” proven that she should have a perminent spokes person for interviews…..should should be the last person in front of a camera……personally—-everytime I see her it reminds me that…hmmmmm….what is it that the deparment of Homeland Security does?
Obama’s first public statement is below.
Hmmmm….the system worked, whoops….the system didn’t work.
3 days later….we’re doing everything to keep the homeland secure. I’ve ordered a review of the watch and do not fly lists.
I feel so much better now, think I’ll go hop a flight.
“Instead, now that he’s Prez, he’s Bush with a smile, and he follows the same failed policies of the past expecting a different result.”
Well actually we are going after the ones who really DID 9/11 instead of invading say, ElSalvador.
Look, I’m not happy we are STILL in Iraq. Pull EVERYBODY out of Iraq YESTERDAY. But as far as Afghanistan et al when it comes to AlQaeda, every time they stick up their heads shoot them off.
I unserstand a degree of buyers remorse with this President, I really, really do, BELIEVE me. But to say he’s Bush lite etc. etc. etc. in the one note symphony drone of the uberleft is just plan old delussional.
Not only is the illnamed department incompetent but it susumed a very competent FEMA and ruined it.
kris says:
28 December 2009 at 3:41 pm
Be sure to allow enough time for the inhanced security procedures:)
Seems like I remember this being a HRC theme when she was Senator from New York.She kept warning that we had not done enough.
To be fair to Napolitano, I think she was saying what she had been told to say. Obviously the President does not want to get hysterical about this. I agree with that approach if it is followed up with action after a review of what went wrong.By now the DHS is probably entrenched but it would be good if it was dismantled.I won’t hold my breath.
Two Leaders Allegedly Behind Christmas Airline Plot Released From Gitmo by Bush Administration In 2007
According to US officials and Department of Defense documents, two of the four al Qaeda members behind the plot to blow up Northwest 253 were released from the Guantanamo prison in November 2007.
American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an “art therapy rehabilitation program” and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.
Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody. Al-Harbi has since changed his name to Muhamad al-Awfi.
Ah yes. It’s Bush’s fault, I should have known.
Wonder what the Gitmo prisoners just released to Yemen will do?
I am sure the Admin is scrambling to come up with a response, if they have one, to Al Qaeda’s comments about US involvement in the bombing of Yemen. In particular I have in mind the accusation of using cruise missiles. New twist.
The above info once again begs the question :
The Taliban helped al Qaeda – We attacked Afghanistan
We were TOLD Iraq helped al Qaeda – We attacked Iraq
Yemen is now supposedly helping the terrorists – Lieberman now wants to attack Yemen.
So (as with Michael Moore’s question) – why does Saudi Arabia continue to get a free pass ?? The 9/11 guys weren’t “helped” by Saudi Arabia – They were *from* there.
pmichael says:
28 December 2009 at 5:58 pm
$
As I understand it pmichael the deep “unrest” in Yemen is spilling into Saudi Arabia causing concern of Al Qaeda’s spread throughout the region. You know, oil fields and all that stuff we don’t care about.
Lieberman is coming up on the Ed Show (regarding his “future war” with Yemen)
Apparently MSNBCs corner blurb was referring to Matthews show
“The 9/11 guys weren’t “helped” by Saudi Arabia – They were *from* there.”
Comon pmichael, there isn’t any, NOT ANY question that BenLaddin and AlQaeda was based in and being protected by and supported by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
That Bush/Cheney created new Terrorists with their torture as standard operating procedure is another crime they should be held accountable for. As far as these two, if they weren’t before, they sure as hell ARE now and I feel about them the same way I would about a mad dog. Hey, I’m sorry for you, I understand why your standing there with a mouth full of foam. but BANG.
Frankly when you are asked by the recognized government of a country to help them kill terrorists who have attacked YOU already it isn’t attacking Yemen. It sucks that people die. It REALLY sucks that innocent bystanders die in war. Usually at a much higher rate then combatants. But I ask again, have we had much problem with Hitler and his henchmen lately? No you say? Well that’s because they are and have been since the end of WW2 DEAD. Dead people don’t launch attacks against anyone.
And I especially want dead the folks responsible for 9/11 and all their buddies and compatriots we can find.
And as far as Alqaeda claiming the attempt was because of US strikes in Yemen, didn’t this guy buy his ticket BEFORE the US strikes in yemen?
Afghanistan is irrelevant to the “war on terror.” As Zionist, neocon and clear thinker Joe Lieberman said on Sunday “we must preemptively go to war in Yemen now so that we won’t have to go to war in Yemen later.” Does anybody else see the flaw in Joe’s logic? How about we go to war in Somalia and Nigeria and Indonesia and Mali and the Philippines and the other hundred odd countries that have an al Qaeda presence? Like Lieberman said, if we don’t do it now, preemptively, we’ll have to do it at some point in the future. Afghanistan is irrelevant to this struggle. And so are those 100,000 troops that Obama will have stationed there. Let’s attack everybody, all at once, and right now to be done with this ridiculous charade. Peace
The biggest problem here seems obvious. It is apparently only a small number of radical extremists (using ‘additions’ to the Quran to substantiate themselves, as the ‘original’ Quran has less radical extremism than the Old Testament) causing the ‘Muslim problem’. As Obama has pointed out, the large majority of Muslims are peaceful people. So the problem, to me, is those ‘peaceful’ Muslims need to stand up to their extremist segment – debate them – fight them – prosecute them – *condemn* them – whatever. They do not seem to be doing so.
I wonder if the historical southern-state KKK was spoken out against by the peaceful Christians in their neighborhood. That would be interesting to research.
Because of the violent retaliatory nature of the extremist – I doubt it.
“Imhotep says:
28 December 2009 at 8:06 pm”
YOU’RE RIGHT!!! I have been WRONG all these years!! If we just ask them please, pretty please with a cherry on top they will leave us alone. You have CUT the gordion knote!!!!!
Always refreshing to hear from the UBERleft America is always wrong crowd.
By the way, Karl and the gang over at the RNC want to thank you for providing the copy for the soft on defense commericals they’re going to run in 2010 and 2012.
But that dosen’t make any differance to you though does it? After all, according to you there’s NO differance between the repugs and the Dems anyway.
By the way, WHO were those politicions who you support? What is their foriegn policy?
Oh, that’s right, you don’t have anything in the way of constructive input, just we suck, the Dems are as bad as the Repugs and it’s ALL the Zionists fault.
I’m just guessing, Secular, but maybe Imhotep would like to see a Dennis Kucinich/Ron Paul ticket.
How does the Obama administration get all the blame when this terrorist originated from the Netherlands?
Doesn’t the Netherlands share a big part of this failure?
Oh and Taylor, how’s the Nixon employee Diane Sawyer as anchor woman of ABC Evening News working out for you? No I will not watch her.
I would say that Nigeria and the neatherlands don’t just “share” the blame. I’d say they have the lions portion by FAR.
He got on in Nigeria and passed through Amsterdamn. HE DIDN’T HAVE A PASSPORT and they LET HIM BOARD A PLANE!!!!!?
Don’t they have bomb sniffing DOGS in Amsterdamn?!!!!!
pmichael, more like a Gus Hall/Ron Paul ticket.
Sec, that would be difficult since good ol’ Gustav died a few years ago.
Surprizing his name hasn’t come up lately. *L* ““Socialism in America will come through the ballot box.”
A little thing like death should be no problem. Apparently the goals of whatever ticket they would put forward are just as grounded in reality as a Gus hall candidacy would be.
“the FBI or CIA should be handling national security and not some new startup agency that is mostly full of redtape and career politicians.”
Two words why they don’t handle national security in an effective way “turf wars”
And as the CIA has been totally subsumed by military intelligence (what a oxymoron that is) and utterly politicized since Bush-Cheney (with the rot beginning since at least at Ray-Gun if not the Bay of Pigs) good luck on them providing any help on the national security front.
pmichael
The issue is much more systemic than a few modern Visigoths hiding behind Islam. It has everything to do with how modernity is shredding traditional cultures throughout the world. Transnational Capitalism is the acid eating away at peoples most basic cultural foundations. And it is not just the unhappy Islamists that are pissed off. The Palin crowd is equally unhappy with the insecurity that modern Corporate Capitalism has unleashed.
Imhotep
Oh bother, here we go again. As to the PI, dude, once again, you have not a clue. Would you like to buy a freaking vowel?
The history of the U.S. and the PI is long and complex affair. One would be wiser to untangle a large pit of poisonous snakes than to try to sort out the tangle of relationships between us and our Pinoy brethren. It goes all the way back to 1898 and Manifest Destiny and is neither easy nor pretty. Your ignorance of this complex web is manifest. It takes a very special person to get me and Secular singing harmony but congratulations, you have succeeded. Please read up a little more before you spout on about something you have no earthly idea about.
spincitysd says:
29 December 2009 at 2:53 am “Your ignorance of this complex web is manifest. It takes a very special person to get me and Secular singing harmony but congratulations, you have succeeded.”
BWAHAHAHA! THANKS for the coffee all over the puter screen!!!!!
spincitysd, I know that secularhuman has not the slightest idea what satire is, but shouldn’t you know better? Peace
imhopless, are you actually as dense as you come across here?