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A Nigerian man tried to ignite explosives aboard flight 253 bound for Detroit. AP Photo JP Karas
It is early but based reading blog posts and tweets one can already get a sense of how conservatives will attempt to politicize the flight 253 terrorist attack tomorrow. I will be watching Fox News closely to see if I am correct in predicting the following talking points.
Conservative Talking Point #1: This is a result of political correctness. This man (his name is Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab) was not searched because they were afraid of offending him. The liberal political correctness agenda has got to go to protect America.
Response: First of all the security checkpoints took place overseas not in the United States. Secondly anyone who has been to through many airport screenings or seen the recent TSA manual release knows that in fact they already do profile in their searches. Passengers from some nations are automatically searched while others are not. The security folks are hardly afraid of political incorrectness. This security lapse was more likely the result of incompetence or laziness, not political correctness.
Conservative Talking Point #2: This is a result of President Obama apologizing to the world. Look at what his soft policies have gotten us. First Fort Hood and now Bin Laden sends this guy over here to blow up a plane. Obama's foreign policy is a joke and it is threatening our national security.
Response: I am sure before Abdulmutallab set off to kill himself (which he clearly would have done had he succeeded) he said to himself "You know under Bush I was afraid to kill myself because he was so tough on terrorism but now that I see President Obama bowed to the Emperor of Japan I think I am going to give this terrorism thing a shot." Yea I am sure he thought that. Finally those who claim President Obama is soft on terror seem to forget that he has actually committed more resources to Afghanistan (the center stage for terrorism) than President Bush ever did. President Obama did this even though it infuriated his liberal base. If that is soft on terror I would like to see what a tough policy would look like.
Conservative Talking Point #3: We need to start profiling everyone of a certain race, or religion, "funny" sounding name like this Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab guy. Forget about searching the seventy-year-old grandmas we know who the terrorists are and we need to target our resources.
Response: Undoubtedly the most recent terrorist attacks have been committed by radical Muslims. One needs not to reach back too far however to see that a white man with a very "American" name of Timothy Mcveigh also is capable of committing horrible terrorist acts. In addition if we do profile we will (1) hurt our relationship with the very people we need to help us fight the terrorism and (2) enable the terrorist to know who is being searched. If we start to not search white women with European names then al-Qaeda will quickly recruit the whitest woman they can find to send through a security to blow up a plane. Al-Qaeda has already shown an ability to recruit Westerners into their ranks so it is not beyond imagination to think that they could exploit whatever profiling system we adopted.
Comments
I am from OKC, OK....I know about your mention of that guy well. I was there when it happened.
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Manny Whitlock
Head in the sand?
Witt,
Who is the enemy here; the terrorists or the conservatives? Good grief!
Typical far-left moonbat.Hopefully YOU or your family is on the next plane these dunecoons try to blow up, @sshole.
Ed: Wow. For responding to conservative attacks you wish death on me and my family. You make Gigi seem tame. A new low. I am going to let your comment stay because I think it speaks volumes about you. You are a sick human being.
Thanks for giving us the lib talking points in defense of the terrorist.
It must be a slow news cycle if you have to make stuff up to argue against.
John: Isn't there a special place for people like you? Like...uh...elsewhere! You may have noticed, the Liberal media has co-opted race-baiting to avoid having to rationally address real concerns over Obama's agenda and performance. Ya'll ole-timey racists may as well go back to huffing gasoline. Aaahhh, that's better.
I'm sorry, but profiling works. The name 'Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab'--let alone his suspected terrorist conections--whould have been a red flag. BTW, I remember a Dravidian prof of mine, who said he was waved-through the N. Ireland-Eire border, while the caucasians' were searched and questioned...
Eight years of Bush Administration political correctness led to this and Fort Hood. The hiring of Arabic and Urdu interpreters at the FBI and DHS was a joke: most have turned out to be double agents. Affirmative action kept card-carrying jihadi Maj. Hasan in his job. Security authorities (DHS, FBI, NSA) never liquidated foreign-funded jihadist front organisations, like Salafi mosques, CAIR and the Muslim Students' Associations. Behind the rhetoric, the Rebublicans have been as bid 'Dhimmwits' as the Democrats.
And enough with the McVeigh comparisons. The current threat is Islamic jihadism and all the politically correct equivocating won't change that.
Profiling alienates the very people we need to help us... I hardly think so. Muslims who believe in peace and do not condone violence will gladly submit themselves to searches on airlines. If you have traveled in a muslim country then you know security is tighter not only in airports but hotels, government buildings and highways.
While we can all agee that McVeigh bombed the OKC building. Let us look at the number of terrorist acts committed over the last ten years and set a proportion to profiling that makes use of the statistical probability.
My Two Cents
Pure drivel from folks who have never passed through Amsterdam.
How he slipped through THERE is the salient question.
The fact that the Bad Guys still screw up simple things like chemical detonators, however, is a good thing.
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