Friday, January 1, 2010

Leadership is now deficient compared to thwarting of 1995 Bojinka and 2006 liquid explosive capers.

In recent years billions have been expended on aircraft security and protocols inconvenient to flyers have been introduced and yet it's clear that terrorist attacks have increased and their failures relegated more to luck and incompetence on the side of terrorists. Yet the 1995 effort by Ramzi Yusuf and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the 2006 effort were thwarted without resort to blind luck and passenger activism, as in the case of shoe bomber Richard Reid and the recent Delta 253. The prior ones were thwarted due to intelligence infiltration and efforts prior to the actual flights.
The conclusion must be that technology and inconvenience to the flying pubolic are not the solutions: profiling, behavior modeling and interrogation of non-randomly selected subjects must be employed despite the present Administration's political correct eschewal of such effective techniques. Similar problems permitted the three terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in 2009: the killing of army recruiter, the Ft Hood massacre and the Delta 253 attempt, all perpetrated by Islamist terrorists who should have been identified as Islamist jihadis before the fact. The present problem is the attitude from the top: Obama on down to Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, Attorney General Holder ( in charge of Justice and the FBI ) to Leon Panetta, head of the CIA ( where CIA agents are subject to attack by the Justice Department ) to the nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration who wants to allow unions to dictate what work rules might be for TSA employees.

From Wikipedia: "In March 2009, Napolitano told the German news site "Spiegel Online" that while she presumes there is always a threat from terrorism: "I referred to 'man-caused' disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur."[22] In April 2009 Napolitano, trying to defend her plans to thicken US-Canadian border security, claimed incorrectly that September 11 attack perpetrators entered the United States from Canada. Her comments provoked an angry response from the Canadian ambassador, media, and public.
In response to criticism, she later said, "Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it's been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there."[24]
Right-wing extremism memo controversy
Napolitano was the subject of controversy after a Department of Homeland Security threat assessment report initiated during the administration of George W. Bush, entitled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,"[25] was made public in April 2009. The report suggested several factors, including the election of the first black or mixed race President in the person of Barack Obama, perceived future gun control measures, illegal immigration, the economic downturn beginning in 2008, and disgruntled military veterans' possible vulnerability to recruitment efforts by extremist groups as potential risk factors regarding rightwing extremism recruitment.
On April 16, 2009, the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative Christian public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, filed suit against DHS on behalf of radio talk show host and political commentator Michael Savage, executive director of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform Gregg Cunningham, and Iraqi War Marine veteran Kevin Murray.[27][28] Savage stated that the document "encourages law enforcement officers throughout the nation to target and report citizens to federal officials as suspicious rightwing extremists and potential terrorists because of their political beliefs."[29]
Napolitano made multiple apologies for any offense veterans groups had taken at the reference to veterans in the assessment, and promised to meet with those groups to discuss the issue.[25] The Department of Homeland Security admitted a "breakdown in an internal process" by ignoring objections by the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to an unnamed portion of the document.[30]
While the American Legion reportedly criticized the assessment, Glen M. Gardner Jr., the national commander of the 2.2 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars, defended it generally, saying it "should have been worded differently" but served a vital purpose. "A government that does not assess internal and external security threats would be negligent of a critical public responsibility," he said in a statement.[31]
"The system worked" Controversy
Sec. Napolitano received a great deal of criticism in the media and blogosphere [32] for stating in an interview with CNN's Candy Crowley that, "the system worked" with regard to an attempted terrorist attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 approaching Detroit, Michigan on Christmas Day 2009. She later went on NBC's Today Show with host Matt Lauer and appeared to change her view to reflect that the security system had indeed failed. Politicians such as Michigan gubernatorial candidate Pete Hoekstra and former Presidential candidate Senator John McCain have called for Napolitano to resign.[33][34] By 30 Dec, Obama made admissions that systemic problems had allowed explosive chemicals to be smuggled onto the airline...

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