Tough questions need to be asked of not just the US security agencies - such as the CIA and the FBI - but also of Britain's MI6, MI5 and the Metropolitan Police's counter-terrorist unit.
How can a Muslim student, whose name appears on a US law enforcement database, be granted a visa to travel to America, allegedly acquire an explosive device from Yemen, a country awash with al-Qaeda terrorists, and avoid detection from the world's most sophisticated spy agencies?
Every intelligence agency across the world is fully aware that the targets of choice for al-Qaeda and its numerous affiliates and sympathisers are airliners - preferably those flying to the US. Yet Abdulmutallab seems to have avoided detection in both Nigeria and Holland when he passed through the various security checks at Lagos and Schiphol airports respectively.
Embarrassingly for the Washington, Lagos airport had recently been given the "all clear" by the US's Transportation Security Administration, an agency established in the wake of the 9/11 attacks which was supposed to improve the security on American airliners.
I might argue that the security and intelligence agencies didn't fail... they were hand-cuffed by politicians who wouldn't let them do their jobs and hampered by those within these agencies who go along to get along.
Lives will be lost because politicians and their illogical notions of tolerance and dhimmitude are getting in the way of people doing what they're trained to do.
Political correctness kills.
Crossposted(*).
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Asshats, War On Terror
Comments (7)
Worst administration ever. ... (Below threshold)1. Posted by UncleZeb | December 28, 2009 7:48 AM | Score: 5 (5 votes cast)
Worst administration ever. They are not protecting us, only covering their own ass.
1. Posted by UncleZeb | December 28, 2009 7:48 AM |
Score: 5 (5 votes cast)
Posted on December 28, 2009 07:48
2. Posted by Bruce | December 28, 2009 8:41 AM | Score: 5 (5 votes cast)
It's as if the system is set up to specifically exclude Muslims from scrutiny, lest it be accused of being a racist system.
This guy walks on a plane with friggin' explosive underpants and my 7-year-old girls have to have their Crocs x-rayed on our way to Disneyland.
2. Posted by Bruce | December 28, 2009 8:41 AM |
Score: 5 (5 votes cast)
Posted on December 28, 2009 08:41
3. Posted by epador | December 28, 2009 8:47 AM | Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
Anyone remember how our enemies encouraged us to lose the SE Asia war? This is a refinement of that process.
3. Posted by epador | December 28, 2009 8:47 AM |
Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
Posted on December 28, 2009 08:47
4. Posted by Hermie | December 28, 2009 9:02 AM | Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
Hey, the system worked! Janet said so!
Besides the only ones who would've lost their lives are those racist, gun and God-clinging peons in flyover country.
4. Posted by Hermie | December 28, 2009 9:02 AM |
Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
Posted on December 28, 2009 09:02
5. Posted by 914 | December 28, 2009 9:19 AM | Score: 1 (3 votes cast)
"Political correctness" is a politically correct way to state "stuck on stupid." The sooner all these idiots in Washington are thrown out the better off for all of us safety wise and economically.
5. Posted by 914 | December 28, 2009 9:19 AM |
Score: 1 (3 votes cast)
Posted on December 28, 2009 09:19
6. Posted by GarandFan | December 28, 2009 11:48 AM | Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Yep. People will DIE, but hey! We're 'politically correct and didn't hurt anyone's feelings'. Now won't that leave you feeling warm and fuzzy at 25,000 feet?
6. Posted by GarandFan | December 28, 2009 11:48 AM |
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Posted on December 28, 2009 11:48
7. Posted by jim m | December 28, 2009 5:03 PM | Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
I disagree wholeheartedly that this was an intelligence failure. We knew who he was and that he shouldn't be getting on an airplane to the US without special scrutiny. The TSA failed to act.
So we have a failure to take action, which is perfectly in line with the Ditherer-in-Chief's track record.
If here was a failure in intelligence it was in the idiots who elected this tragic administration.
7. Posted by jim m | December 28, 2009 5:03 PM |
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
Posted on December 28, 2009 17:03