The Knickerbomber

How did the system fail? Emphasis added. [Link]

When Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was placed on the British government's watch list in May 2009 and banned from entering the country, the U.S. embassy in London (and by extension the U.S. State Department), as well as U.S. intelligence agencies, were notified of this move as part of information-sharing agreements entered into by a number of Western governments after the September 11, 2001 attacks, says a U.S. State Department employee on the condition of anonymity because of concern that by speaking about the situation, their job could be endangered.

"We have agreements with a number of different countries that work with us cooperatively on intelligence matters," says the State Department employee. "A number of the treaties work through our justice departments or foreign offices or intelligence and interior or homeland security agencies. Several departments here in Washington got the information from London and it didn't trigger anything within our own system.

This employee says that despite statements from the Obama Administration, such information was flagged and given higher priority during the Bush Administration, but that since the changeover "we are encouraged to not create the appearance that we are profiling or targeting Muslims. I think career employees were uncomfortable with the Bush procedures and policies and were relieved to not have to live under them any longer."

The Obama Administration is attempting to shift blame for Abdulmutallab, pointing reporters to information that the Nigerian was given a visa by the U.S. embassy in London to travel to the U.S. in 2008, around the same time that he graduated from University College London, a well-respected university. But the State Department source says at that time Abdulmutallab was not on a watch list and traveled to Houston on that visa without incident. A year later, in May 2009, his application for a student visa to return to Britain was rejected because the college Abdulmutallab claimed he would attend was "bogus," and that red flag was shared with U.S. State Department, Homeland Security Department, U.S. Justice Department, and almost certainly U.S. intelligence agencies.

I hope they feel uncomfortable with the result.

Dick Cheney speaks. Emphasis added. [Link]

"As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.

“He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war."

It's Star Trek diplomacy: Every actor can be reasoned with and common ground can always be found.

Maureen Dowd. Emphasis added. [Link]

Even before a Nigerian with Al Qaeda links tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet headed to Detroit, travelers could see we had made no progress toward a technologically wondrous Philip K. Dick universe.
We seemed to still be behind the curve and reactive, patting down grannies and 5-year-olds, confiscating snow globes and lip glosses.
Instead of modernity, we have airports where security is so retro that taking away pillows and blankies and bathroom breaks counts as a great leap forward.
If we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?
We are headed toward the moment when screeners will watch watch-listers sashay through while we have to come to the airport in hospital gowns, flapping open in the back.