Exactly Who Do You Have to Piss Off Around Here to Make the List?

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who did a really bad Richard Reid impersonation in a plane on approach to Detroit Christmas morning, reportedly was not listed on any US "no fly" lists. That doesn't really cause me any great concern. How are we supposed to root out every one of these international misfits worldwide? I mean, it's not as if these terrorists' loved ones are walking into our embassies and reporting their own son to a foreign (USA) government.

Nigeria's This Day newspaper cited family members as saying that the suspect's father, Umaru Mutallab, the retired chairman of First Bank in Nigeria, has been uncomfortable with his son's "extreme religious views" and had reported him to the US embassy and Nigerian security agencies six months ago.

Uh....well, let's read on...surely we did something about that...

The US government created a record on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab last month in the intelligence community's central repository of information for known and suspected international terrorists

See, not so bad. Someone took that information and apparently passed it on to the right folks.

...but there was not enough negative data to place him on a no-fly list, a US official said.

Please do not tell me that there is some concern about a non-US citizen's "right to fly" into the United States of America after his own father reports him to his own nation's security forces AND to our embassy. I hope Speaker "You Lied, CIA" Pelosi insists on an investigation to shine some light onto the Administration's handling of this intelligence critical to domestic security.

After all the light we saved by not shining it on the health care "reform", there ought to be a surplus of it for this. Oh, wait, main stream media? Are you back from your post-inauguration slumber yet? Got a light?

(Source: Guardian.co.uk)

Inside Obama's Afghanistan Decision

Interesting story here from this morning's Washington Post on the decision-making process behind the President's recent announcement on energizing our effort in Afghanistan. A couple of things become clear:

1. I am comfortable and satisfied with the President's maturity and judgment in how he went about his decision-making here. Only time will tell if it was the RIGHT decision, but I cannot argue with the mechanics.
2. The beating that General McChrystal took in the press--a bit of it here in this blog (which I subsequently took back)--for providing the President a "do it this way or we'll lose" plan was completely and thoroughly wrong. As is evident from this piece--McChystal's plan responded to the political requirements that were placed on him. He did his job, he did it well. The politicians then realized that the MISSION HE WAS GIVEN was potentially unachievable within the political risk space they were willing to operate.
3. General Jones as National Security Adviser--clearly, early in the administration, someone was out to discredit him. Given the extent to which Special Envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke has been marginalized (and his well-known talent for behind the scenes smears) I believe Holbrooke led this effort. But if you look at the folks at the top--Gates, Clinton, Jones--you see people who appear to be working well together and tackling tough policy questions with collegiality. This is the mark of a superior National Security Adviser.