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Monday, December 28, 2009

The Foiled Terrorist Plot on Christmas Day

A terrorist plot to explode a jet this past Friday failed due to the detonator not working properly on an airplane. On Christmas day a 23-year old Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up a Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. He had an explosive device hidden underneath his pants. It was a chemical explosive that had a history of terrorist use--according to government officials and explosive experts. He also had a syringe filled with liquid as well. The liquid appears to be a glycol-based liquid explosive. The explosive is called PETN. It is small and powerful. The Saudi government stated it was used in an assassination attempt on Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the country's counterrorism operations chief in August. According to an article in USA Today, it was a component of the explosive that Richard Reid, the convicted "shoe bomber" used in his attempt to down an airliner in 2001. The Justice Department said Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (the Nigerian man), had a device containing a high explosive on his body when he traveled from Amsterdam to Detroit. PETN is the primary ingredient in detonating cords used for industrial explosions and can be collected by scraping the insides of the wires. It's used in military devices and found in blasting caps. It's the high explosive of choice because it's stable and safe to handle, but it requires a primary explosive to detonate it.

Federal presecutors say his plot to blow up the plane was foiled because the detonator failed to explode. Instead, it started a fire and passengers and crew extinguished the flames and subdued him. It was the grace of God the detonator failed. After being treated for burns at a Detroit hospital, Abdulmutallab is in federal prison on charges of trying to destroy the airliner. Department of Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano said, "The System worked," on CNN. "Everybody responded quickly, effectively, without panicking and shutting the airline systems on air travel." As a result, the latest security breach could speed the installation of body-scanning machines. Janet Napolitano was dead wrong when she said the system worked. If it had worked, Abdulmutallab wouldn't have been allowed to board Northwest Airles Flight 253. Twenty-four hours later Napolitano recanted her statement. The question that must be asked is why was Admutallab allowed to board a flight to the USA?

The London-educated mechanical engineer was estranged from his wealthy Nigerian family and has claimed ties to Al-Qaeda. A month ago, his father, Alhaji Umar Mutallab warned U.S. Embassy officials of concerns about his son's religious beliefs. Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top-ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee said he wants to know why authorities didn't act on the father's warning. "This is a well-respected government and business officials," he said. Abdulmutallab's name "was on a general list" of more than 500,000 people the federal government was tracking--not the much more limited no-fly list," Napolitano told CNN. And Janet Napolitano claims the system worked. With his name being on the general list, he shouldn't have been allowed to board the airliner. It's foolish! Instead of dealing with the root of the problem, the TSA is using all kinds of silly methods to detect explosives. Some of the methods and restrictions they're using are running a wand across your whole body, body-scanning machines which can detect non-metallic objects, such as plastic or liquid explosives. These machines can scan under your clothes and be able to see the private parts of a person's body. It's ridiculous! Some of the restrictions they're placing on passengers are bathroom breaks being eliminated for the last hour of international flights. Passengers are also being prohibited from holding items such as blankets or coats on their laps before landing.

The Department of Homeland Security wants to treat the symptoms instead of zeroeing in at the root of the problem. The answer is not foolish passenger restrictions which will ensure in further flight delays. The answer is profiling. The ACLU and the leftists think it's racist to profile. However, when you're dealing with issues of crime or terrorism, one of the methods that should be used to detect those that are guilty of these acts is their race, religion, and ethnicity(profiling). What type of people are the most likely to blow up airliners? Is is a 90-year old white granny walking with a walker? Of course not. It's those Islamists that are of Arabian descent. The Islamists believe in jihad. They preach in killing those that don't subscribe to the religion of Islam. The Islamic world is at war with the United States and the West. What are we doing? We're turning our head the other way. We don't want to offend Muslims or be insensitive to them. That's asinine! We're speaking of national security! Why won't the United States zero in on those that are responsible? I believe it's partially due to the ties America's elected officials have with the Middle East. President Obama is very sympathetic to the Muslim World. The Bush family even has ties with Saudi Arabia. We import a percentage of our oil from the Middle East.

The problem is that political correctness is run amok in the United States. What needs to be done is Janet Napolitano needs to be terminated from her position. We need to vote out our politicians from Congress this November. Also Abdulmutallab needs to be turned over to the military and subjected to coerced interrogation. It's ridiculous to hand him over to a lawyer and place him under a civilian trial. This should be treated as an act of war. We also need to be profiling questionable suspects. We need to implement a closed borders policy to prevent illegal aliens from crossing our borders. We also don't need to be allowing Muslims to come to America given the fact we're in a war with the Muslim world, even though President Obama and our elected elite seem nonchalant about it. Anybody suspect that's on a no-fly list has no business setting their foot on American soil. There's an old adage that holds true--THOSE THAT FAIL TO LEARN FROM HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT!

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