On the heels of the lamest public CYA statement in a century, where our incompetent Secretary of Homeland Security ran onto the Sunday political talk shows claiming the ‘system worked‘ after a known terrorist sympathizer just barely failed to kill over 200 people on a commercial airliner on Christmas Day, we are reminded of how seriously the previous administration dealt with Islamo Fascist Terrorism.

Today’s New York Times is reporting on one of President Bush’s last acts to stop terrorism, though if you read the article it sounds like the efforts of the current administration:

In the midst of two unfinished major wars, the United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against Al Qaeda in Yemen.

A year ago, the Central Intelligence Agency sent several of its top field operatives with counterterrorism experience to the country, according a former top agency official. At the same time, some of the most secretive Special Operations commandos have begun training Yemeni security forces in counterterrorism tactics, senior military officers said.

The Pentagon is spending more than $70 million over the next 18 months, and using teams of Special Forces, to train and equip Yemeni military, Interior Ministry and coast guard forces, more than doubling previous military aid levels.

Emphasis mine. A year ago President Bush was still in office. To execute this plan a year ago would require planning well in advance, at least back to the spring or early summer of 2008. The last year’s Defense Budget was primarily crafted by President Bush’s team. No where does the NY Times note that these efforts, now looking damn prescient and completely different than the lunatic comments from Secretary Napolitano yesterday, were initiated under President Bush.

If I was a cynical person I would say someone leaked these ‘covert’ (a.k.a. Top Secret) activities to the NY Times to make it look like the US government was being proactive instead of CYA-reactive. To be fair and balanced, the article does note (with a little too much fanfare) that the current administration (led by General “Betray Us” Petraeus) is ramping up efforts with Yemen:

American and Yemeni officials said that a pivotal point in the relationship was reached in late summer after separate secret visits to Yemen by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American regional commander, and John O. Brennan, President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser.

But it sounds to me like a continuation of the Bush plans, not a new initiative like the NY Times is trying to portray this all to be. And yet, somehow all this new activity with Yemen missed the fact a known terrorist sympathizer, who was identified by his own father as a threat, was able to obtain a sophisticated and powerful binary bomb from Yemen, which he then tried to ignite Christmas day over the skies of Detroit, MI.

The NY Times is not reporting, it is covering up for the glaring failures of the current administration.

The UK newspapers are actually doing a better job of providing cold, objective analysis. Something we need in light of this whisper-thin near miss. They understand the system is dangerously broken:

Tough questions need to be asked of not just the US security agencies – such as the CIA and the FBI – but also of Britain’s MI6, MI5 and the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorist unit.

How can a Muslim student, whose name appears on a US law enforcement database, be granted a visa to travel to America, allegedly acquire an explosive device from Yemen, a country awash with al-Qaeda terrorists, and avoid detection from the world’s most sophisticated spy agencies?

Every intelligence agency across the world is fully aware that the targets of choice for al-Qaeda and its numerous affiliates and sympathisers are airliners – preferably those flying to the US. Yet Abdulmutallab seems to have avoided detection in both Nigeria and Holland when he passed through the various security checks at Lagos and Schiphol airports respectively.

Embarrassingly for the Washington, Lagos airport had recently been given the “all clear” by the US’s Transportation Security Administration, an agency established in the wake of the 9/11 attacks which was supposed to improve the security on American airliners.

Yes, how indeed did this happen? Instead of claiming everything ‘worked’ there should have been promises to get to the bottom of this near disaster. And what about future threats? I find this UK article quite disturbing:

COPS fear that 25 British-born Muslims are plotting to bomb Western airliners.
The fanatics, in five groups, are now training at secret terror camps in Yemen.

It was there London-educated Umar Abdulmutallab, 23, prepared for his Christmas Day bid to blow up a US jet.

The British extremists in Yemen are in their early 20s and from Bradford, Luton and Leytonstone, East London.

They are due to return to the UK early in 2010 and will then await internet instructions from al-Qaeda on when to strike.

A Scotland Yard source said: “The great fear is Abdulmutallab is the first of many ready to attack planes and kill tens of thousands“.

It is disturbing on many levels. Why leak this intelligence now? Is this to give the terrorist plotters pause, to rethink their plans? Is it meant to show the UK intelligence forces are on the job? Is it an effort to ignite some needed concern here in the US Federal Government? Is it even real?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. But I can sadly envision a scenario where the experienced career hands in defending against terrorism could be raising red flags about how indifferent the current administration is to the threat of terrorists.

Remember, these people all felt President Bush was making up the threat, using false fear to create support. They opposed the increased scrutiny of people here in our country with questionable ties to known terrorist outfits and personnel. They never felt there was a ‘war on terror’ – by their own admissions. They are the ones who wrote ‘war on terror’ out of the language of governing.

Tags: al-Qaeda, Bomb Plot, Northwest Airline, President Bush, Yemen