On Christmas Day a flight bound from Amsterdam to Detroit was nearly destroyed by a 23-year-old man from Nigeria named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who had plastic explosives sewn into his underwear. The more we learn about this attempted terrorist act the more incredible the whole affair becomes.
He was on a terrorist watch list and barred from re-entry into England which got him onto a watch list by our own crack National Security team. His own father took the extraordinary step of going to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria to alert the United States directly that his son had become radicalized and was a threat to our country. Yet this young man was granted a tourist visa to the United States this past summer. He was allowed to board the plane with a one- way ticket, paid for with cash. He had no luggage with him. No one thought any of this was important enough to follow up on and he was allowed to board the plane.
Our chief of homeland security, Janet Napalitano, went on all the Sunday morning talk shows to assure us “the system worked!” She actually said that on Sunday, although on Monday she began to backtrack. Perhaps the system might have worked a tad better if this young man had pinned a sign on his jacket that said “I AM A TERRORIST AND I HAVE A BOMB IN MY UNDERPANTS!” I”m guessing that there”s a 50/50 chance he might have been stopped had he done so. Despite a loud pop described by passengers, then smoke and flames, it was fellow passengers who jumped the terrorist and put out the flames, no flight attendants showed up with either a fire extinguisher or club to beat this guy senseless. The system worked?
Test after test has proven that despite the metal detectors, X-ray machines and removal of our shoes (thank you Shoe Bomber!) that airport “security” is able to stop only about 10 percent of the undercover attempts to bring bombs or bomb-making materials onto planes in the United States. While it”s a good show, the drones standing by the machines seem to have been trained by Sgt. Schultz of Hogan”s Heroes fame (“I see nothing!”).
We need to have accountability if we are to trust our government or feel safe from the threat of attacks like these. Not only in matters of National Security but in all aspects of government. The citizens have every right to feel that we are not getting good value for our investment. The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) has the responsibility to protect our banking system and investors from being bilked by Ayn Rand”s John Galt types, who we now know as Madoff, Stanford, Bernie Evers, Kenny boy Lay, etc., yet they failed in every case and as far as I know, not one employee in that department has lost his job, let alone been prosecuted. Astounding.
Status quo is not acceptable and simply destroying the government, as the right wing would like, is not feasible in this complicated world. Nature abhors a vacuum and in the absence of a functioning government we would have chaos, not a viable option. So next time you”re forced to not only take off your shoes but your underwear too, dial your congressman, senator and president as soon as you get your phone back to express your feelings. Tell them it”s hard to connect the dots while going commando and you expect more from your employees.
Lowell Grant is a weekly Record-Bee columnist.
