By Patrick J. Buchanan
Had he not proven incompetent to detonate his lap bomb, Umar Farouk Abdulmullatab would have carried off an air massacre to rival Lockerbie. We would all have ended Christmas day watching TV footage of 300 mangled bodies being picked up around Detroit.
The system breakdown was total. His father had reported to the U.S. embassy that Umar had gone extremist, disowned his family and vanished in Yemen. Though the 23-year-old Nigerian had been put on a U.S. terrorist watch list and denied a visa to enter Britain, his U.S. visa was not revoked.
Though he had been in Yemen for months, bought his plane ticket in cash and boarded without luggage, he was neither red-flagged nor screened or body-searched.
We were spared the horrible consequences of our incompetence, only because of his incompetence. The episode raises questions not only about airline security, but about how we are fighting the real war we are in.
Defeating al-Qaida calls for ways and means different from dealing with domestic crime families like the Gottis or Gambinos.
Organized crime is the province of police and prosecutors.
Crime bosses are read their rights and granted access to a lawyer. They come into court in suits to undergo a fair and equal contest to ascertain guilt or innocence. If acquitted, they walk free.
This 23-year-old Nigerian is an enemy combatant whose way of war is mass murder. Under the rules of war, he may be shot. The immediate imperative was not to read him his Miranda rights or to phone Ron Kuby. It was to subject Abdulmullatab to intense and hostile interrogation so that U.S. forces can quickly find, fix, attack and kill his comrades and camp followers.
Unlike the war on crime, or the war on drugs, this is not a metaphorical war. There is no presumption of innocence, rather a presumption that Umar is a terrorist and did not act alone.
The questions he should have been asked as soon as he was pulled off the plane and hauled to a prison hospital are these:
Who taught you to detonate a bomb? Who sewed the underwear in which you concealed the components? Who was with you in Yemen? What are the names of those you trained with? Who helped you get on that plane? Who did you stay with on your visits to the U.S.? Who gave you cash? Who paid your bills? Where is your computer? And if you want pain medicine for those burns, you will tell us.
A question arises after the lackadaisical way the administration first dealt with this potential horror. Are we governed by serious people? A second question is raised by the ideological journey of this 23-year-old from devout Muslim to extremist to terrorist, and by his sojourn from Nigeria to London to Yemen to America.
In Omar Bradley’s comment on Korea, are we fighting the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong enemy?
Obama just ordered 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan. Yet, even if Gens. David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal pull it off and pacify Kandahar, how does that protect the American homeland from suicide bombers hell-bent on blowing up airliners?
How does turning the tide in Afghanistan stop radical Muslim youth in Africa or Arabia from being trained to board planes with bombs and blow them up over the Atlantic? How do 130,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq make us more safe from an al-Qaida that has moved into Waziristan, Baluchistan, Yemen, Somalia and North Africa?
The Sept. 11 massacre may have been decided upon in Afghanistan. But the perpetrators were Saudis and Egyptians who plotted, planned and trained in Germany, Boston, Delray Beach and Northern Virginia.
How has occupying two nations at a cost of 5,000 dead, 35,000 wounded and a trillion dollars made us safer from an enemy that more resembles the Apache of Geronimo than the panzers of Rommel?
If protection of the homeland against another Sept. 11 is the goal of this war, how relevant to that goal is the building of clinics and schools in Kabul and keeping the Taliban at bay in Helmand?
Are we fighting other people’s wars, rather than our own war?
We Americans are today widely hated in the Arab and Islamic world by scores of millions, out of whom al-Qaida need but recruit a few hundred suicide bombers to wreak havoc on our country.
Does having 200,000 U.S. troops in their part of the world, fighting and killing Muslims, make our country more secure than defending our borders, keeping radicals out, running al-Qaida down, and tracking and killing them where they are?
To win the war we are in, we have to fight the war we are in, not the war we prefer to fight because no one else is so good at it.
Related posts:
- White House Investigating Rogue US Intel Group in Domestic Terror AttackBy Webster G. Tarpley – Veterans Today WASHINGTON, DC — Officials in the Obama White...
- Of Christmas, War and PeaceBy Patrick J. Buchanan “And this shall be a sign unto you: You shall find...
- The Generals’ WarBy Patrick J. Buchanan The Pentagon’s pre-emptive strike came with the leak of Gen. Stanley...
- Welcome, Americans, to Mysterious Yemenby Eric Margolis – EricMargolis.com Yemen, the likely source of the failed Christmas Day airliner...
- Obama and the Great GameBy Patrick J. Buchanan The day before Richard Holbrooke arrived in Kabul, eight suicide bombers...
- The Strange Case of Umar Farouk AbdulmutallabBy Tom Burghardt – The Intelligence Daily Despite some $40 billion dollars spent by the...
- Afghanistan: A War of Liesby Eric Margolis — LewRockwell.com President Barack Obama and Congress are wrestling with widening the...
Vote Average: 4.92 Stars!
Loading ...
Mr. Pat Buchanan,
Thanks for this. So right on!
I’m so glad you’re there to put it all together for us readers.
I sincerely hope Washington is reading your posts!
I wish we’d get out of both countries and quit pretending the loss of American lives is helping.
Yes, we would lose some face, but we did that in leaving Viet Nam, didn’t we? And we seem to have survived that mess.
Pat, yet again you are right. If only the morons who “lead” our country would consider what you have to say. I for one believe that we can defeat Islam easily. First consider that those of Islam who have declared war upon us are the orthodox members of Islam. And they are goaded into their action by their own Islamic leaders of the ‘religion’. Islam’s Imams are the one driving their people more than those like Bin Ladeen. Bin Ladeen is a result of the fiery rhetoric of the Imams. Thereefore, the religion of Islam is at war with us. Indeed, Islam is attacking on all fronts against the entire world. Its most orthodox ashearents openly state that goal of Islam is to spread that cult everywhere. Therefore, the world should unite in an effort to contain Islam to whare it has already conquored. Islam is not spread by love. It is spread by war against its neighbors. This war of world conquest has been going on since Islams founding. To contain Islam, we should immediately stop buying its oil and stop selling it western technology. We should also publicly and loudly notify all the adhearants of Islam that we are intend to leave them in the uncontested hands and at the mercy of the Imams. That we intend to let the Imams take them back to the sixth century. That we intend to let the Imams go back to an economy based on Bedohwin caravans. If the subjects of Islam don’t rise up against Islam’s orthodox leaders that we intend to leave them to those leaders’s ways. If we let the leaders of Islam win, then we win. Islam’s leaders will gladly take all its adhearants right back to the sixth century where they belong. The Imams can render Islamic countries harmless better than we ever could. And, at NO cost to our treasury. The French say, the enemy of my enemy is my freind.
So many questions, Pat. The answers are quite easy if were to snap out of the enchantment that has robbed you of your sense. The kid was escorted on the plane by his “sharp-dressed” handler. He was whisked through security without a passport, without luggage, despite being listed on every watch list there is. He was even filmed while during the flight. Here is another false flag patsie (no pun intended, Pat). The operation was to support the saber-rattling against Yemen started weeks before, to justify a new war there. The collectist Agenda and economy is faltering so the power brokers are doing what they always do when faced with resisstance — whip up some new wars. Of course, there is also the agenda of blocking the oil pipeline from the middle east to China. U.S. bombings of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen are designed to block this.
The terrorists (Senators, Congressmen, President), who I am most terrified of, are the lunatics who have escaped the asylum, hijacked our country, and are flying our country into the ground. They reside in the Congress, Senate, and the Oval Office. It is like the invasion of the body snatchers when I witness our “leaders” actions and words. These people can’t honestly believe that their decisions are intelligent and good for our country. They are insane. I keep thinking that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, and the likes of Janet Napolitano, are going to unzip their costumes, and clowns are going to come out of them, honking their funny horns and dawning their funny makeup, and then say, “It’s a joke!” Thank you, Mr. Buchanan, for slapping us in the face and reminding us once again that this is not a joke, but a nightmare that is real.
Why is America hated by millions in the Arab worlds? And please don’t say they hate us because of our freedom. That is just silly. Yes building a couple of clinics and schools in Afghanistan will not fix the problem…neither will killing more of them.
An important note is that his father tried to turned him in, so they can’t all be bad.
It seems to me that the mindset at the Pentagon has to change. Since the last 2 or 3 presidents virtually have no military experience, it is important that the top leadership at the Pentagon be able to advise the president regarding the military and world affairs. We cannot continue to fight as we did during the WWII era. We only an all voluteer military and that seems to be all that America can stomach. In that case, we should choose our battles very carefully. This ‘war’ with radical extremists is a covert war, it should be fought that way. We are long overdue for bringing home our soldiers from all of the foreign bases we have occupied for more than a half century.
Its time to regroup, reaccess and use our resources, mainly our soldiers, much more thoughtfully.
Very interesting. I think mafia heroin importers have done more harm than Al Qaida–so far–just through heroin addiction alone. Add to that the role heroin plays in the AIDS epidemic, and the mafia are de facto bioterrorists. But we still give due process to mafia dope-pushing vermin because we don’t want our domestic police developing a KGB-Gestapo mentality. Which is all the more reason to put this Nigerian under military jurisdiction. The military has to do some extreme things we don’t want domestic law enforcement getting involved in. Soon enough, these nuts will be stuffing nuclear weapons in their underpants. I say Posse Comitatus, and let the military do ‘whatever it takes’ to enemy combatants.
I don’t know if we’re dealing with a war, a crime, or personal madness. Maybe all three. Why? There is the element of war waged by radical Islam against the pro-Zionist West. But, there’s also an element of crime as many terrorists take some sick pleasure in the THRILL of the act. Also, as terrorists volunteer to blow others or themselves up, there is an element of madness. Hitler may have been mad, but most German soldiers were normal civilians drafted into war. And, criminals are in it for the money, not some higher ideal or vision. And, most madmen live in their private hells.
But, there is a strange blend of all three qualities in the Al Qaeda movement.
As Al Qaeda is stateless, those who join up are volunteers–most likely half-crazy to begin with–who REALLY believe in all that crazy stuff about Allah and seek some kind of thrill ride in the transgressive aspect of their endeavor. So, was this recent terrorist merely an ‘enemy combatant’? No, NOT JUST an enemy combatant but also a rebellious youth criminal punk and a madman. There is a certain rock n roll romanticism involved in all this–despite the puritanism at the core of Islam. We are not fighting just a war but dealing with a many-headed movement. It’s like policemen can fight inner city criminals all day and night but cannot extinguish the core faith among hoodlums centered around gangsta rap culture which is a kind of ideology and movement in its own right.
Al Qaeda is a fiction. Most of the terrorist acts in the last 10 years — probably 75% or three of the four cases — were false flag operations using Arabs as patsies (whoops, sorry Pat). Of course when the CIA or the army blows things up in one of their countries, it’s called something else, or at least it is in about 9,000 out of 9,500 cases.
There is practically no danger from Arab terrorists; as in England, the danger is from the black op terrorists. They have been used to redirect our entire society toward a Marxist-like gulag state in order to “keep us safe from terrorists.” Use your brain, people. It’s a scam to take away your freedoms and your country. If you’re stupid enough to let them, you deserve neither.
“Global warming”, on the other hand, is a financial and scientific fraud.
The real war is not with Iran or Pakistan, or Iraq, or Yemen, Cuba, or men in caves. The real war is with the criminal government, with the bureaucrat class, which includes the politicians, and the banker-military syndicate running them all, and us by proxy and law.
All laws, executive orders and act passed within the last 30 years should be reviewed, and probably the majority of them repealed. The bureaucrats should be fired, the political whores imprisoned, the slave-state conspirators executed for high treason. Freedoms could then be restored, the borders secured, our industries rebuilt, our money made our own (the nation’s), our schools made to teach, not indoctrinate, our constitution and economy restored, our water and air detoxified. When the government is made to fear the people, rather than the other way around, there wil;l be liberty