by Conn Carroll: Refusing to interrupt his Hawaiian golf vacation for almost three full days after the Flight 253 attack, President Barack Obama finally emerged on December 28th to assure the American people that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was “an isolated extremist” and that he had already “been charged with attempting to destroy an aircraft.” Continuing to treat the incident like a common law-enforcement problem Obama referred to Abdulmutallab as the “suspect” five times and promised he would “not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable.”
Perhaps Obama should have stayed on the links for another 24 hours, because by yesterday it had become exceedingly clear that Abdulmutallab was in no conceivable way “isolated” and was instead very much part of al Qaeda’s larger war on the United States. Here’s what we know so far:
- According to CBS News, as early as August of 2009 the Central Intelligence Agency was picking up information on a person of interest dubbed “The Nigerian,” suspected of meeting with “terrorist elements” in Yemen.
- According to the Wall Street Journal, the father of Mr. Abdulmutallab warned the CIA of his son’s likely radicalization at the U.S. embassy in Abuja, Nigeria. That led to a broader gathering of agencies the next day, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State Department, in which the information was shared.
- According to CNN, information on Abdulmutallab, including his passport number and possible connection to extremists, had been sent to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, but it sat there for five weeks and was not disseminated.
- Also according to the Wall Street Journal, the National Security Agency who had been monitoring former Guantanamo detainees in Yemen had communications intercepts suggesting a Nigerian was being prepped for a terror strike by al Qaeda operatives in that country.
- And the Washington Post reports that not only did the British government reject an Abdulmutallab visa application this May, but that British Home Secretary Alan Johnson said that U.S. officials should have been told about the rejection and that he believes they were.
Also belatedly welcome is the acknowledgment that al Qaeda is a major force in Yemen that must be dealt with carefully. The Washington Post describes al Qaeda in Yemen as a ;”major new threat to the United States,” but there is nothing new about it. In fact, al-Qaeda’s first terrorist attack against Americans came in Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden’s father, who had migrated to neighboring Saudi Arabia before the birth of the al-Qaeda leader. In December 1992, bin Laden’s followers bombed a hotel in Yemen that was used by U.S. military personnel involved in supporting the humanitarian food relief flights to Somalia. And in October 2000, seventeen American sailors on board the USS Cole, were killed in an al-Qaeda bombing in the harbor of Aden, Yemen’s main port.
The Obama administration must stop thinking of al Qaeda and Abdulmutallab as mere criminals. Obama’s blindness to Abdulmutallab’s al Qaeda connections and his insistence on calling him a “suspect” in the “alleged” bombing is the same mindset dictating Obama’s decision to send Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other terrorists to New York for a civilian trial in federal court. Hopefully this incident will prod Obama into revisiting that historically bad decision.
There were some great comments on this article which clearly identify that people are not pleased with President Obama's performance:
Jim, Wisconsin writes: Don’t be stupid.What are your comments?
Of COURSE Obama realizes we’re at war.
The clueless ones are the people in this country who don’t realize that Obama is on the other side.
Ron Bell Springfield, IL writes: Hey, Give this Guy a break, He has to first be told what to say,then he has to poll what he has to say,and then it has to be put on his official teleprompter, and then he has to read it to his focus group for content, this takes time, he makes decisions based on what his handlers let him say,and look Presidential all at the same time.
Toledofan writes: I don’t think that Obama or his administration will ever say that we are at war nor will they acknowledge that terrorism exists. To do so would mean that their whole premise of being able to talk and reason with the terrorists to leave us alone or to go bother someone else, would collapse or be failed logic on their part. I suspect this administration will continue to blame Bush, make life a little tougher with body scans, and continue to treat these as isolated incidents.
Jayne Frank, Lake Ann, FL writes: Obama does not think we are a super power, dislikes this Country immensely, and wants to play nice with the terrorists that want Americans to die. Terrorists don’t discriminate or profile; they don’t care whether you are black, Muslim, white, a woman or child. Because they hate our capitalist society (which Obama’s wealth distribution administration is also against), they just want to create as much destabilization and unrest as possible. 9 plots in the last 6 months have been foiled but he still wants to call them “suspects.” That is what happens when you have a boychild as your Commander in Chief.
Jonathan Seid, Williamsburg VA writes: President Obama is intellectually afraid of his friends who are liberal. He has painted himself into a corner with no exit because he is surrounding himself with people who tell him how righteous, how right and how special he is. He can deny that the baby is ugly all day long. When others see how ugly the baby really is, they will decide for themselves how foolish and wrong he is. So it goes with this war. The President doesn’t have the perspective, the maturity and the common-man’s sense, to admit that the baby is ugly. He is a shallow man who holds the highest elected office in the land. Our enemy knows this and will exploit this weakness.
Don Harper, Lubbock, TX writes: "According to CNN, information on Abdulmutallab, including his passport number and possible connection to extremists, had been sent to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, but it sat there for five weeks and was not disseminated." This failure by the CIA is inexcusable, but perhaps to be expected. Being told that their efforts over the past 7 years to keep us safe were illegal, it should not surprise us to find out that morale and work ethic have suffered. After all, if national security is less important than terrorists’ rights, just how important is national security? Not very, it seems.
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