No Napolitano, the system failed miserably!

In the aftermath of the attempted terrorist attack on the Detroit bound Northwest airways flight on Christmas day, Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano says the "system worked". She said this on a CNN interveiw with Candy Crowley. The system worked? Has Napolitano not been following the news? The only reason the plot failed was because the explosives failed and fellow passengers jumped in on time. If Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had been intercepted before he got onto the plain, then the system would have successfully prevented the death of the 300 passengers aboard the Detroit bound Northwest flight 253. The only system that worked was the intuition and the quick feet of the passengers that jumped into action on the plane. The people on that plane saved themselves and deserve applause for that.

According to CNN.com, Dutch officials say 23 year old Nigerian Abdulmutallab's name was on a manifest supplied by the airline, which was passed to U.S. authorities, who cleared the flight to depart. Clearly someone did not take a closer look at that list. Someone did not do their job. Abdulmuttallab should never have got onto the plane in the first place. And very importantly, with all the screening that goes on in the airports, how did they miss the explosives that this 23-year old man was carrying?

The US was well aware of Abdulmutallab as a possible terrorist. Granted he was just one name on the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database maintained by the U.S with another over 500,000 people, but why did he not go through additional screening? Napolitano says there was not enough information to put him on a no-fly list. What more information does one need after someone's own father expresses his concerns about his son's extreme tendencies.

Abdulmuttalab had a valid US visa granted to him in June 2008 good through June 2010. The USA government has the right to revoke someone's visa at any point, so to say that they did not have sufficient information to evoke his visa is to take the life of American citizens for granted. Do you please one man while risking the life of hundreds maybe thousands? The man is a Nigerian, not American. It is not his constitutional right to enter the USA. Whatever happened to 'Better safe than sorry'? It is this same lackadaisical attitude that cost America 12 soldiers in the Fort Hood shooting in November. The signs had been there, but were not enough for "the system" to do anything about it. Have no lessons be learnt? Must something bad happen for someone to do something?

For Napolitano to claim that the system worked (in preventing the attack) is to downplay the incident, forgetting that it could have been a huge disaster. It is outright stupid, if not distateful for her to repeatedtly claim so. This could have very possibly been a christmas spent mourning the death of 300 inocent people on that flight. Passengers should not have to get on a plane and have to worry about their security. It was not the passenger's job to intercept the terrorist. That is the job of Janet Napolitano as Secretary of Homeland Security and her "system". That is why we pay taxes. The system failed miserably and it would be humble and teacheable for Napolitano to admit so and work out better measures to protect America. There are so many people are after this country that we cannot afford to take anything for granted. The sad thing is that very likely after the hysteria has died down, everyone will relax again and go back to business as usual. Until we get another wake up call.