The Christmas Day Bomber and fallout

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I'm going to post this article written by Pat Buchanan. I'm not normally a fan of his, but this article rang true with me. I don't consider it a bash on Obama as I think Bush did things the exact same way.

For those who weren't following the story on Christmas an Islamic extremist attempted to blow up a plane as it was getting ready to land in Detroit. Pretty much everything the international community put in place to prevent this failed, it was only the good luck of the passengers that his first attempt failed, and then the action of the passengers that prevented a second attempt.

I'm sure all sorts of passengers will be subject to enhanced security for the foreseeable future until everyone gets lazy again. I don't have any solutions, I just agree that what is being done just isn't working.

Enjoy.

Spoiler

The Real War
by Patrick J. Buchanan

01/01/2010


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 Qaeda 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 Qaeda 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 Qaeda 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 Qaeda 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.



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Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, "The Death of the West,", "The Great Betrayal," "A Republic, Not an Empire" and "Where the Right Went Wrong."

 

We as a country are still confused about the entire terrorism thing. For decades terrorism was a crime and punishable through the courts of law. After 9/11 terrorism was an act of war ... but it's still a crime ... wait ... it's war ... we can't have another GITMO so it has to be a crime ... the military's involved so it can't be law enforcement ... damn, just when things were getting clear as mud we have some incompetent terrorist try to blow up a plane with a real bomb instead of a shoe.

One thing I will say is we have no idea how many attempts have been thwarted over the years by the increased security -- there will always be someone who gets through the maze of security and is in a position to cause harm. We can only hope that someone will be incompetent. As Carlos the Jackel once said: "You must be lucky every time. I need only to be lucky once."

Also, it really doesn't matter if we treat the terrorist as criminals or prisoners of war, Pat's recommendation below is never appropriate.

 

I am not sure ole Pat intended the points I am taking from the column but to some extent I agree with him. I agree that a war on terror can't be won with force or troops. You can never ever protect yourself from the lone or small group of lunatics willing to die for their cause. The only thing to be done as I see it is to remove their cause which I am sad to say is a pretty tall order but one which I hope Obama is starting to try to fill in and I must say that to my eyes he has given the impression of understanding that to get rid of terrorism you need to remove their cause. In the case of islamic fanaticism I am afraid it is a job that might take a generation or two and some intense secularization but it can be done. Except for some setbacks in the US the Christian religion is more or less banned from the public in the developed world and doing the same with islam in the middle east would go a long way of removing terrorism. First I think we the targets should make damn sure that we *are* the good guys, that most of the propaganda against the west are lies that we do not torture, that we follow due process that we simply put follow the rules we are trying to impose on them.

I read an interesting book a while back and I am now convinced that islam in itself is an integral part of islamic terrorism. That the religion inherently has major problems of being secular as there is no division between what goes to Caesar and what goes to God there is only sharia. You can't really get away from that in islam if you still want to be a faithful believer.

ps. I still think Christianity is just as crazy and detrimental to the human mind and society as Islam.

 

I don't know about the burn cream comment, but it is my understanding that if a soldier is captured, he is going to be subject to interrogation. He does not get to call a lawyer, nor is he read the rights of the country in which he was captured or detained. He DOES have rights under the Geneva Convention, and perhaps that includes having those rights re-iterated to him, but I see nothing wrong with an "intense" interrogation. As for a "hostile" interrogation, it is my understanding that most interrogations involve some form of hostility. As long as the interrogation does not devolve into torture, I see no need to be anything other than hostile to someone who planned to blow up an airplane full of innocent humans.

 

Well yes, but that is a "master of the obvious" comment. Terrorism is also an integral part of islamic terrorism. That's why it's called "islamic terrorism".

 

I can't help but disagree with you on this. It is in large part the secularization that has driven these people to do these things. If you really want to end it, you have to befriend the Islamic community as a whole and use them against their more extremist followers. That takes respect and humility, and not persecution.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. How has Christianity been banned? Christians are still allowed to pray, worship, organize in public, and proselytize, aren't we? We can hold public office and are not singled out by any laws or restrictions, right?

Good luck. Even if every secret place in the US were revealed, and every secret file uncovered, there would still be accusations that there are more, and they'd be impossible to disprove.

I think he means that Islam is somehow inherrantly prone to terrorist extremism, i.e. in a way that Christianity, Judaism, Taoism, and the like are not. There may be some truth to the claim, but I'm still uncertain on that point.

 

What is really disquieting about these terrorists is the fact that they are rather well off infividuals who have lived in the Western world. That Nigerian has studied in London and comes from a wealthy family. We're not talking about illiterate peasants dressed in rags but about persons who seemed well adapted to life in the Western world.

I could understand freedom fighters attacking military targets to liberate their country but what those Al Qaeda terrorists do is completely irrational. It's pure hatred directed towards the Western world. When you think about all the refugees and undocumented immigrants who'd give anything to be able to live in Europe or the States, you've got to wonder what is wrong with these guys who had it easy and were able to live and even study in Europe or the States.

Do the terrorist masterminds exploit or create some sense of guilt in these privileged recruits? Why would a millionaire's son become a terrorist? Religion is only an excuse to justify the mayhem they cause.

Taken literally it's rather self explanatory but the implications are deep. Equating Islam to terrorism is a dangerous interpretation that can only serve the terrorists themselves since it would allow them to recruit even more misguided youths.

 

LDK, make no mistake -- to the military "intense and hostile" means torture. This is not a "good cop/bad cop" routine, 'intense and hostile' is beating the living hell out of the man.

 

Very good points NOG. I agree with your assesment. If religion is less important in some parts of Europe it's still important in many countries in the Western world.

Secularization can't be forced, if it is it can only provoke some major backlash. I've travelled to the Middle East in the past and I've seen Christian missionaries there. I really found this approach to be misguided to say the least. The message that is sent is really stupid as it can only cause resentment or mild annoyance depending on the individual.

People tend to forget that the Holy Land and the Middle East is a mosaic of cultures and religions. They tend to assume that Arabs are necessarily Muslims which is an error. Another oversight is to ignore that the Middle East is the cradle of Christianity and that there are many Christians there.

Making this assumption is a mistake because Islam defines itself as an Abrahamic religion and as such it has more things in common with Christianity and Judaism than any other religion like Taoism.

If you equate Islam and terrorism you're helping the terrorists who dream that the West would reject Muslims and declare some sort of modern day crusade. That would give them the leverage they've been lacking to get more recruits and justify their fight against the Western world. Most Muslims don't support terrorism. Saying that Islam leads to terrorism and that Muslims are prone to be terrorists can only infuriate them and make things worse for everyone.

One should be wary of generalizations as they're at best misleading.

 

Islamic terrorism is simply a racially (or religiously) charged buzz word used for its emotional impact in the west. It is counterproductive in that it distances the very people who could help. Islam in and of itself is not violent and has no violent tenets (at least no more so than Christianity).

By continually using the term Islamic terrorism the west isolates those of the Islam faith who would aid in the fight against terrorism. What is commonly refered to as Islamic terrorism is simply either criminal or political terrorism (depending on the faction involved) -- they are either in it for personal gain or to change the political scope of the world around them.

I think a reasonable comparison to many modern terrorist would be an inquisitor.

 

No. Ye started it. It's up to ye to finish it.

I was broadly supportive of the wars at the time, as I was presuming Bush had planned for the aftermath. If he had gone over there with plans beyond topple the current regime (which was always going to be the easy part) then it may not have turned out so bad afterwards. But this is definitely America's war. If the best that can be done at this stage is just to head home fair enough but I do think America has a moral imperative to do the best it can.

Buchanan's insights are good but I wouldn't agree with his conclusions. He comes awfully close to endorsing torture which I don't agree to morally. I believe (with a nod to T2's posts in other topics) that the military doesn't agree with it very much practically either. And of course it feeds directly into the whole roots and causes of terrorism thing that Buchanan was saying we should work on.

I'm sceptical about Islam's links to terrorism. In the North of Ireland religion was a major factor in the terrorist factions up there. But I'm sure trying to explain the minor differences in belief between two near identical sects of Christianity to a Muslim would take a while. It's a combination of a number of factors, cultural, economic, political, demographic, and so on. I think nutcases generally have a tendency to focus on religion, or at least their warped aspect of it. Not that I'm suggesting for a minute every devout person is a terrorist.

On the security fallout why on earth has the US placed Cubans on its list of high risk passengers ? I know how bad the regime is etc. but surely it's not remotely near being a major terror threat?

 

What I meant with Islam being an integral part of islamic terrorism was not the obvious but rather that it is neigh on impossible to merge devout islam with liberal democracy. Islam was from the very beginning closely tied to the state, in a way islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Thus our attempts at spreading "enlightened liberal democracy", equal rights and other goodies are not only seen as but actually are undermining Islam. Sure there are lots of secular muslims but they are really secular more akin to christians who maybe baptize their children and marry in church but otherwise ignore religion any muslim who really believes will have a really hard time accepting many of the things we bring from the west. Our way of life is a threat to islam and this is a large part of the fuel for the anger.

 

What about Mosaic law? Wasn't it some sort of system? Or do you mean that the existence of a Caliph makes it a political system? Originally the Caliph had more duties than prerogatives and privileges. There is no clergy in Islam acording to the orthodoxy.

If you choose to only take into account radical interpretations then you're right. Although you should consider the fact that Wahhabism doesn't represent mainstream Islam (as Protestant Fundamentalism doesn't necessarily represent mainstream Christianity).

If you look for a moderate interpretation then you're really off the mark. I'm pretty sure you've never been to the Middle East either. Not every Arab country is like Saudi Arabia.

As far as values are concerned there are still people in Europe who believe and practice their religion be it Christianity, Judaism or even Islam and respect our "way of life"... everything depends on what you understand by "way of life". I'm sure that devout Christians wouldn't condone the things that would threaten Muslims like profanity or lack of modesty (not taking into account alcohol although I've seen quite a few bars when I went there and I don't think that any devout Christian would really see shameless drunkenness as something to be commended). Of course if you're an atheist you'll find that any religious type can be easily offended.

If you mean that Islam is fundamentally antidemocratic then you're wrong. The Islamic prophet Muhammad got into trouble in Mecca for freeing slaves and one of these slaves who was named Bilal became the first muezzin of the Muslim faith. Racial equality was important back in the 7th century...

Gender inequality is disputed but from what I've read it has to do more with Arab traditions rather than religious teachings.

It's a very complex culture that is larger than the Arab world and you can't claim you understand it if you don't read about it and try to approach it without prejudice.

Another thing to keep in mind is that not every country applies the Sharia nowadays. Still, in Saudi Arabia if you're dirt poor and you steal some food to feed your family you'll have your hand cut off whereas rich folks have toilets made of solid gold and can get away with gambling, drinking and ****ing. Talk about double standards...

 

I am going on what I have read and your respeonse Caradhras feels like an automatic "we should not offend any religion cause it is bad and narrowminded to do so" response. From what I have read there is no separation of church and state in islam they are one and the same, islam is a universal and all pervading religion. The word of god should guide the leaders every step of the way and the only law is the sharia. As I understand it this is the core of the conflict in the muslim world that if it isn't like this in a country dominated by muslims then there will be a group of very very angry people.

You can look at Turkey, a secular islamic contry, how is it secular? For Turkey to be secular they have had to have several coups and much of the secularisation is enforced by the military and they are still again losing ground. A devout, faithful muslim can only be governed by the Koran and sharia everything else is against their faith.

As I understand things.

 

Thinking of Islamic terrorism, I fail to see the qualitative difference between a catholic Irish or protestant Irish thug blowing up a bus or a Nationalist or Islamist Arab doing the same thing. In doing so they are all murdering civilians - and commit a grave crime. 'Islamic terrorism', or better still 'Islamofacism' - both terms are used by politicians for its emotional appeal, and by apologists of Israel to suggest that they and the US both face the same enemy, a monolithic militant Islam intending to establish nothing less than a world wide caliphate and to thus subjugate the West!

Which of course is self serving

For those politicians the use is all about playing the game of politics justified by an exterior enemy.

The guy who made the attempt fumbled it. Good! It's not only that they Al Qaeda people only need to be lucky once. Even when the attempt fails they succeed - the panic is all the same. I still observe the great conflation between interrogation and punishment prevalent in America. That is suggested by reading that poll that sees a majority of Americans wanting the pants bomber to be water boarded. For what end? The guy was dispensable, a pawn meant to die anyway, which means he was denied operational knowledge out of principle, because, q.e.d., he also could get caught. Uh, never mind, the guy's an ass hole, which appears to be reason enough for waterboarding or 'intense and hostile' interrogation, or whatever else titillates the fantasy of the reader. America is still mightily confused.

Luckily, this kid was a dilettante. Packing heat, so to speak, to then sweat it into dysfunctionality ... let's just say this: I read in an Army manual that det cord (i.e. nitropenta) must not get wet.

The US can be lucky that domestically and on flights they meet morons like this guy. In Afghanistan they meet enemies of an entirely different calibre. These guys just recently succeeded in killing seven experienced CIA field officers who were involved in targeting al-Qaeda personnel for drone strikes. That loss is a big blow. They cannot be easily replaced. In US military lingo that would be a 'decapitation strike' against a 'hardened target'.

 

Of course there is no difference and of course they are terms used to whip up the masses but the fact remains that islam is a religion that is very very hard to combine with western liberal democracy. They do not have a cop out phrase like "give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" which the Christians have and which enables them to live in socities where the law and government is secular and then they can keep and follow their wacky religion in private or in their own group. A large part of the reason for the rage directed against the west (an even larger part is that we have acted like jackasses) is that we are actively trying to undermine their religion and replacing it with something else. Islamic law is done, complete and it is the only law that matter to a devout muslim. Most of the things we see as boons of our society are viewed as a threat and abominations by many many devout muslims. In their opinion society and law was perfected more than a thousand years ago and anything else is an affront to god. Our attempts at "modernizing" the islamic world is like the abortion debate in the US times a thousand we have to convince religious people to give up core values and that is not easy.

Obviously most people dont give a rat's butt about these things, they want to live in safety and security, have food on their tables and a future for their children but the seekers, the angry, the confused they find plenty in their religion to turn them against the values we treasure so much in the west.

There are lots of reasons why so many in the middle east are peeved at the west but this is one I think isn't discussed much as it is frowned upon to speak about religion like that. Hopefully islam will reach the hypocritical heights of christianity and will be able to ignore large parts of their holy texts as to enable it to move into the modern world but they just as christianity will have to leave large chunks of their dogma behind.

 

Why do otherwise rational and well educated people become Scientologists? The whole story sounds too absurd to take seriously by those of us not in the cult.

And therein lies your answer. Reason does not trump belief, no matter how well off or well educated you are. As James Randi often says "Anyone can be fooled".

Also most revolutions are not started by the lower classes. They are started by the MIDDLE class because these folk are in the perfect position to see what the 'Haves' are doing to the 'have nots' without being themselves in debt to either or secure in their own misery(as the lowest classes usually are).

 

Yes, but racial equality is not the same thing as democracy. The two are neither mutually inclusive nor exclusive. You can have either one, neither or both. The US is a perfect example: We had a fully functional democracy for about 100 years while slavery existed, and a fully functional democracy for about another 100 years after that before there was anything close to racial equality.

I agree that many westerners don't "get" modern Islam, and I will count myself among them. However, I think we can even delve a little deeper into this - why are they the only people on the freakin planet who still live this way?

Chistianity wasn't all that different a few hundred years ago - kings ruled by divine right, and Christianity was legislated. Things have changed though. Why is this not so with a significant portion of Muslims? Why are they unable to see a dicotomy between religion and government? My mother-in-law is about as devout a Christian as you can find, and she sees this difference perfectly. She disagrees with the lives others lead, but she doesn't think violence is the solution to that. I guess my point is that it is one thing to point out a root cause, but it is another to explain why such a root cause that is similar to other parts of history has not evolved as it has everywhere else.

 

Let's sum up your argument: religions are bad and people have to discard any religious dogma so they can live in a free democratic society. Did I get it right?

That is disrespectful, prejudiced and offensive to any believer (I'm not a believer but I find such a simple generalization mind numbing).

I find this phrase really offensive (and I'm not a Christian).

I can understand someone being an agnostic or an atheist but I find it incredibly ironic when someone paradoxically turns atheism into some sort of credo. Going to such extents is just another form of fanaticism that is just as bad as any type of religious fanaticism.

It seems that to you any devout Muslim is a religious nutcase (and probably any devout Christian too). To me it seems that you're just venting out your antireligious prejudice.

There is nothing wrong with being religious as long as you respect others and tolerate their beliefs. You'll have a hard time proving that what we refer to as "moderate" Islam doesn't tolerate the existence of other religious beliefs especially when it comes to other Abrahamic religions. According to Islam, Judaism and Christianity are religions that are based on Holy Writ.

It's very arrogant and patronizing to go and tell people how to live and that is the kind of attitude that infuriates people from third world countries because it's a simple rehash of the colonialist principle of the White Man's Burden.

Add some silly blabbering about crusades and you really mess things up. Bush's use of the word "crusade" in the context of the War on Terror was rather significant in that respect. Nobody can blame Muslims in third world countries for resenting the use of that word since it clearly states that the West consider them to be the enemy.

I like history and I've read a lot about the crusades and let me tell you that if in the West we consider crusaders as heroes they certainly left a totally different impression on the populations of the Middle East. The crusades were synonymous with massacres. The siege of Jerusalem in 1099 ended up in a terrible bloodshed. Crusaders didn't limit themselves to killing infidels as they sacked Constantinople in 1204 (it was Christian at the time). There are also some (Christian) sources that point at instances of cannibalism during the crusades. In that light the use of the word crusade was at best misguided.

Back on topic, it seems that the American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan won't put an end to terrorism and that it will probably only fuel the anti-American feeling around the world. Going there and bombing was the easy part but when it comes to rebuilding it's another matter. If it was so easy to establish some sort of political stability it would have been done by now. The future looks rather grim for everyone.

I consider the American Declaration of Independance to be a very beautiful text and the fact that it didn't include provisions about slavery (which is understandable at that time) can be seen as the original sin of the Fathers of the American Republic.

I believe that you can't have democracy without racial equality. Slavery is and was an abomination and an insult to the dignity of Man. So I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that point.

What you have to understand is that the governments that rule over these countries are not religious for the most part. Iran is a different case (it's a Shiite country and they have a clergy).

Another important thing is that these countries were colonized or occupied by European powers. In the case of the Arab world, the kings that rule over Arabia have been put into power by the British after WWI. They're not divine rulers. In fact according to Islam they have no right to rule and that's why some of them have tenuous claims that they are descended from the Prophet (which can't be true according to an orthodox approach but from what I'm lead to understand most people don't believe them anyway).

If we're talking about royalty, you also have to bear in mind that most European countries still have monarchs. It would be easier and quicker to list countries without sovereigns in fact. Of course they don't have the same powers in Europe.

Do you really think that all Muslims believe that "violence is the solution"? No offense but that is really short-sighted to generalize things like this. Apart from terrorists you won't find many Muslims advocating violence. Only considering the nutcases in that respect would be the same as drawing conclusions on all White Americans if we were to ask White Supremacists about President Obama.

It's quite ironic to read such a comment on the separation of Church and state given the fact that from a European point of view the fact that people in the States swear on the Bible when in court or when they take office seems to contradict the view of the state as being separated from religion. Don't you have "In God We Trust" as a motto in America?

 

Man Carad you really assign the generalisations to other people liberally here. My posts are attempts at trying to explain and understand why there are muslims pissed off enough sacrifice themselves to hurt the west. Seeing as we do not have one billion angry muslims flooding us with bombs on their chest I would take it as a given that not everyone is that pissed off no?

I am convinced that it is impossible to merge any faithful following of any of the abrahamitic religions with modern society. Most christians have discarded the things that do not fit in the modern world (something I find very hypocritical and which I have adressed in other threads) as have most muslims but there plenty of them around who have not and for them there can never be a reconciliation between islam and the values we in the west treasure so highly.

Aldeth, as I wrote before Christianity had the luxury of their greatest prophet giving them a way out from the conflict between earthly power and divine. The "give unto Caesar" line, islam lack that.

And this if for Cara again, I have stated my views about religion before but to do it again I find religion to be stupid, silly superstition that is a yoke around the shoulders of humanity and I can't help but view religious people the same way I would view a person over the age of ten who still fervently believes in Santa Claus.