Bombing attempt reveals counter-terror failure

The attempted terror bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 onChristmas Day has proven two things beyond any doubt.

First, the policies and procedures adopted after the 9/11attacks are not working.

Second, when it comes to the threat of Jihadist terror, theObama Administration remains dangerously out of touch withreality.

Everyone who has flown commercial following the 9/11 terrorattacks has put up with airport security procedures. We’re allfamiliar with the drill. We dutifully remove our shoes and walkthrough metal detectors in our socks. We carefully separate3-ounce-or-less toiletries, remove laptops from their cases andendure screening lines that are sometimes far too long.

We endure intrusive, even humiliating procedures in the mistakenbelief that these government-dictated measures somehow make airtravel safe from the threat of terrorism.

Since 9/11, the federal government maintains lists designed toprotect us. There are federal lists of bad people (includingpotentially bad people) known collectively as the “Terror WatchList. Another list made up of really bad people (or completelyinnocent folks with names similar to those of really bad people) isknown as the “No Fly List.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab nearly succeeded in blowing up Flight253. The 23-year-old Jihadist was indeed on a government “TerrorWatch List. That fact did not prevent him from boarding Flight 253,nor did it subject him to an automatic strip search by airportsecurity staff. Mr. Abdulmutallab carried a powerful explosive onhis person, but it was not detected by common airport screeningprocedures.

Janet Napolitano, President Obama’s Homeland Security secretary,declared that the near disaster aboard Flight 253 somehow provedthat “the system worked.

The system did not work.

The system failed completely. It will fail again and again andagain until it is scrapped and we adopt a reality-based approach tothe threat of Jihadist terrorism.

Let’s be clear here. The only thing that prevented hundreds ofinnocent lives from being lost aboard Flight 253 on Christmas Daywas the terrorist’s defective detonator.

The system Ms. Napolitano praised allowed a suspected terroristto book a commercial flight and it failed to detect a bomb carriedaboard that flight.

President Obama described the would-be bomber as an “isolatedextremist, a curious description since published reports say UmarFarouk Abdulmutallab received Jihadist terror training as part of agroup of 25 in Yemen.

Until we get serious, Americans remain at grave risk ofterrorist attacks, especially against public transportationmodes.

Getting serious requires a fundamental change in our view ofJihadist terrorists. We may not be at war with them, but they arecertainly at war with us.

Accurate, actionable intelligence shared among all agencies inreal time – this is an obvious yet still unrealized goal. Gettingserious means anyone whose behavior has earned them a spot on the”Terror Watch List is automatically placed on the “No Fly List, andautomatically denied entry into our country. No exceptions.

Terrorists continually seek out new soft spots in transportationsecurity procedures, then exploit these weaknesses. That is whatterrorists do. Therefore our entire transportation security focusmust now change.

We must shift from detecting only bad things like box cuttersand flammable liquids to detecting bad people. El Al, the nationalairline of Israel, has adopted this common sense approach with along history of success.

As long as terrorists and potential terrorists are allowedaccess to our transportation system, they will always discover newways to kill innocent people.

Instead of telling passengers they can’t use the bathroom or getout of their seats, it is time that we finally prevent terroristsand suspected terrorists from boarding our planes, trains, busesand ferries in the first place.