The system worked?

[Embar Angylwrath]

Guy on a watch list gets on a plane with explosives strapped to his body, after the US had warning, after the guys own father was trying to warn officials, the guy tries to blow the plane out of the sky, with the plane likely being saved only through a failure of the detonation device and some heroic passengers who took the matter into their own hands, and Napolitano's assessment of that was "the system worked".

That's Homeland Security for you... and Obama has remained largely silent on the incident other than to order a review.

Napolitano had to backtrack her statement... explaining that the comment was "taken out of context". She meant that the notification to ground authorities and to other planes worked.

WHO THE FUCK CARES ABOUT THAT????!??!

I care about a system that prevents people from blowing up a plane, not about a system that notifies ground authorites and other planes after a failed attempt.. pretty sure the pilots can handle that scenario. To go on record saying the systtem worked is a fucked up thing to do. Does the Obama administration really think the American people buy that? Fuck, maybe they do.

Now we have the typical response of closeing thebarn door after the horses are out, and the government is imposing yet another set of ridiulous restrictions. Everyone has to be in their seats and belted in for the final hour of the flight with noting in their laps.. no blankets, no coats, nothing. That's fucking ridiculous. How about we spend a little more time focusing on the intelligence failures than making passengers do ridiculous things that have absolutely no effect on passenger safety?

Passing a healthcare bill does nothing for people falling out of the sky at 35,000 feet, maybe Obama should make a statement on that.

[Lurker]

Is this post satire?

[Embar Angylwrath]

Have you been keeping up with the news lately?

[Lurker]

Yeah. That's why I asked if your post was satire. It's either brilliant parody or idiotic commentary. I wasn't entirely sure which.

[Embar Angylwrath]

I expected better of you. This isn't a partisan issue, its a security one.

If you think that the system worked in this instance, you're a moron. Or a partisan hack more interested in Obama's PR and polls. Or both.

This wasn't some genius that had a mastermind plan. He was a shitbag 23 year old idiot that strolled through security with explosives strapped to his body. He just sauntered through. Are you ok with Napolitano's remarks on that?

[Select]

Was he on that serious of a watch list? I may be confusing that with reading he wasn't on the no fly list.

with noting in their laps.. no blankets, no coats, nothing.

I'm about to fly today and hadn't heard of that. That seems really useless. Maybe I'll wear a giant, long skirt over my pants.

[Lurker]

Embar,
I'm not the one trying to turn this into a partisan issue. Check the mirror.

Obama ordered a review to determine what improvements need to be made. It would be a counterproductive for Obama to make a broader statement before more facts were known as it would needlessly alarm the public and elevate the terrorist attempt. This isn't the Bush Administration where every single incident was politicized and threat levels were manipulated. The adults are back in charge now, and Al Qaeda doesn't get to make the President jump through hoops with every incident.

As for Napolitano, she was taken out of context. When she said the "system worked" she went on to explain in the very next sentence that the way we responded to the event worked. If you remember the total chaos that happened on 9/11 after the planes were hijacked and still in the air you'd understand that our response in the minutes after an incident are important.

The suspect was not on the no fly list. His father gave a vague warning to U.S. authorities and he was placed in the central database. There was no warning of an imminent attack, just a vague warning that his son was becoming more radicalized in his religious views. It's would be easy to look back after the incident and wonder why he was allowed to fly, but there are thousands of bits of vague information flowing into the central database all the time. We can't ground everyone. That's why a review is needed to see if there was any way to connect the dots prior to the incident. I'm guessing there weren't.

And the last line about health care in your original post was just plain dumb. Even for you.

[Kulaf]

Well one would hope that anyone placed in the database to be "watched" would then be flagged at any airport for additional screening. Wouldn't one?

[Ddrak]

The system cannot ever work. To date, only two things have improved airplane security since 9/11: Strengthened cockpit doors and the fact that passengers will take down anyone doing anything. In this case, #2 worked.

You simply can't defend with 100% certainty against a determined and suicidal attacker. The sooner the government admits this and stops making new and even more retarded rules the better.

PETN doesn't seem like a very useful explosive for what he was trying to do though. It's hell to get it to detonate without something like Lead Azide to prime it.

Dd

[Select]

I flew out of NY tonight and nothing was different. Everything was just as smooth as it's always been, save for a slight delay with the plane arriving. A friend's parents flew from Atlanta and were fine, too. Are these strange new rules only for international flights? There was a girl flying in from Japan complaining on FB, but she tends to be overly sensitive.

[Ddrak]

Possibly international only. From Oz, US-bound flights basically require you to go through a pat-down and all sorts of weird onboard restrictions. After all, we know that despite terrorists flocking to US-bound flights, they'd never actually arrive and board a domestic flight.

Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

I flew out of NY tonight and nothing was different. Everything was just as smooth as it's always been, save for a slight delay with the plane arriving. A friend's parents flew from Atlanta and were fine, too. Are these strange new rules only for international flights? There was a girl flying in from Japan complaining on FB, but she tends to be overly sensitive.

They made the new restrictions apply to everyone, and then backed it off to international flights. The lifting of restrictions happened early yesterday. Probably in response to the excoriation the restrictions were receiving by the portion of the American population paying attention to the incident. They are ridiculous restrictions, even on international flights.

Flight safety begins and ends before the airport. If a terrorist makes it to the airport, its too late. Flight protection is an intelligence issue, not a screening one. Screening is important, don't get me wrong, but the screening procedures in place don't do much (other than the metal detectors) to prevent an attack. Taking off shoes does nothing. Taking your computer out of a bag does nothing.

[Partha]

Taking your computer out of a bag does nothing.

Sure it does. It lets me see who's got a computer worth stealing once we leave the destination terminal.

[Ddrak]

Refuse to be terrorized. Whether the bomb goes off or not, stupid overreactions give the victory back to the terrorists. How much did this *failed* attack cost the economy? Is it sensible to allow even the most stupid attack to cost millions in failed revenue and increased ineffective procedures?

http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/ ... on_the.php

I want President Obama to get on national television and project indomitability. I want him to dial back the hyperbole, and remind us that our society can't be terrorized. I want him to roll back all the fear-based post-9/11 security measures. We'd do much better by leveraging the inherent strengths of our modern democracies and the natural advantages we have over the terrorists: our adaptability and survivability, our international network of laws and law enforcement, and the freedoms and liberties that make our society so enviable. The way we live is open enough to make terrorists rare; we are observant enough to prevent most of the terrorist plots that exist, and indomitable enough to survive the even fewer terrorist plots that actually succeed. We don't need to pretend otherwise.

Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

Obama isn't that kind of man. He doesn't have the grit and mettle for that kind of statement. Hell, it took him three days to address this incident, and he's had to change the message after people essentially laughed at him for his first response. He took a mulligan.

His administration has a predictable response of denial that anything wrong happened (the system worked), then trying to spin the response (my words were taken out of context), and then finally a capitulation that they fucked up. Same pattern this time. Obama's admin is more interested in packaging and marketing the presidency than actually doing something.

And Obama didn't really help them out by playing golf and shooting hoops while Americans got mixed messages about air travel security, and who, if anyone, was in charge.

Sorry, Obama may be a bright guy who means well, be he ain't a leader.

[Lurker]

Embar, you are pathetic. Obama's response has been pitch perfect. Napolitano's words were taken out of context. There was no "spinning" of words because she didn't say anything different than she said in the original statement. She just restored the context.

Take your own advice and stop repeating wingnut talking points and trying to politicize this.

[Select]

Sure it does. It lets me see who's got a computer worth stealing once we leave the destination terminal.

That made me

[Embar Angylwrath]

Embar, you are pathetic. Obama's response has been pitch perfect. Napolitano's words were taken out of context. There was no "spinning" of words because she didn't say anything different than she said in the original statement. She just restored the context.

Take your own advice and stop repeating wingnut talking points and trying to politicize this.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/31021.html

So I guess Politico is a wingnut organization now.

But I have to say, you certainly are the poster boy for an Obama cheerleader. And you fit right in with the pattern of denying anything was handled wrong. But you need to get with the program. The administration's denial phase is over. So is spin phase. Now its "study the problem" phase. Im just glad we have right-thinking people who know how to handle themsleves when a terrorist tries to blow them out of the sky. Because if a father walking in to a US embassy and ratting out his son isn't enough heads up for the system to prevent the guy from getting into the US, we have only ourselves to rely upon.

But hey, keep up the Obama rah-rah. Its cute, but you make yourself look like an idiot doing it.

For those of you that haven't acquired the talent or desire to suck Obama's cock as Lurker has, here are more "wingnut" comments on Obama's handling of the issue. And for Lurker, every issue involving the President is political issue, my naive friend.

http://www.politico.com/arena/

[Lurker]

So I guess Politico is a wingnut organization now.

Yeah, actually... it is. The creators of Politico are the same guys who admitted that Drudge rules their world. Politico has a symbiotic relationship with Drudge Report.

But since you are being a partisan douche about this and even the AP is repeating the Republican line, here's the entire transcript in question.

CNN at 9:00 AM

CROWLEY: So, just to finish up on the question-- I do want to talk to you about security measures -- but do you think -- has there been any evidence of the Al Qaida ties that this suspect has been claiming?

NAPOLITANO: Right now, that is part of the criminal justice investigation that is ongoing, and I think it would be inappropriate to speculate as to whether or not he has such ties.

What we are focused on is making sure that the air environment remains safe, that people are confident when they travel. And one thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked. Everybody played an important role here. The passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action. Within literally an hour to 90 minutes of the incident occurring, all 128 flights in the air had been notified to take some special measures in light of what had occurred on the Northwest Airlines flight. We instituted new measures on the ground and at screening areas, both here in the United States and in Europe, where this flight originated.

So the whole process of making sure that we respond properly, correctly and effectively went very smoothly.

CROWLEY: Well, it seems as though the reason this plane did not explode is that the explosion failed and then you had some quick passengers who jumped on him when he lit this fire. So let me ask you about how he could have gotten on the plane, with this substance, the PETN. I mean, we get on, you can't have more than 3.4 ounces of toothpaste and you can't have more than 3.4 ounces of anything in a little bag, and so I think people are thinking, so how does he get on with an explosive? How does that get past security?

NAPOLITANO: Well, we are asking the same questions, looking at what happened in Amsterdam as he transferred flights to a flight that was U.S.-bound. We have already been working with the airport and airline authorities there to see what kind of screening, screening equipment was used. We have no suggestion that he was improperly screened, but we want to go through and see. We're always ...

CROWLEY: I'm sorry, but if he was not improperly screened or properly screened, and yet you want Americans to feel safe on the planes, and so if it was properly screened and he got on anyway with that, it doesn't feel that safe.

NAPOLITANO: Well, you know, it should. This was one individual literally of thousands that fly and thousands of flights every year. And he was stopped before any damage could be done. And now the forensics are analyzing, well, what actually could have been done with whatever substance he had and whatever amount. Those are all undetermined issues right now. And then we will go back and see about that technology, about that screening, just as we will go back at the president's request and look at how we put people on different types of watch lists. Those are things that had been in place for many years. They have been the procedures that we have utilized.

And again, once this incident occurred, what I really think deserves attention is everybody responded quickly, effectively, without panicking and shutting down the airline systems or air travel. What we did is dealt with the incident, put out additional security measures both at airports here and abroad, and made sure that the flights that were in the air were indeed safe.

ABC at 10:30 AM, where the media / Republican narrative holds that she changed or spun her earlier statement.

JANET NAPOLITANO (SECRETARY)

Well, I think first of all, we are investigating, as always, going backwards to see what happened and when. Who knew what and when? But he - I think it's important for the public to know there are different types of databases. And there was simply throughout the law enforcement community, never information that would put this individual on a no-fly list, or a selectee list. So that's, that's number one. Number two, I think the important thing to recognize here is that once this incident occurred, everything happened that should have. The passengers reacted correctly, the crew reacted correctly. Within an hour to 90 minutes, all 128 flights in the air had been notified. And those flights already had taken mitigation measures on the off chance that there somebody else also flying with some, some sort of destructive intent. So the system has worked really very, very smoothly over the course of the past several days.

JAKE TAPPER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Well, let me ask you a question about intelligent sharing. When, when the suspect's father went to the US embassy in Nigeria and said, I'm worried, because my son is displaying extremist religious views, how was that information shared with other parts of the US government or did it stay just at that US embassy?

JANET NAPOLITANO (SECRETARY)

Well, again, we are going to go back and really do a minute by minute, day by day scrub of that sort of thing. But, when he presented himself to fly, he was on a TIDE list. What a TIDE list simply says is his name had come up somewhere, somehow. But the no-fly and selectee lists require that there be specific what we call derogatory information. And that was not available throughout the law enforcement community. He went through screening in Amsterdam as he prepared to board a flight to the United States. The authorities in Amsterdam are working with us to make sure that screening was properly done. We have no suggestion that it wasn't, but we're actually going through, going backwards, tracing his route. But I think important for the traveling public to recognize that A, everybody reacted as they should. We train for this, we plan for this, we exercise for this sort of event should it occur. And B, we have instituted additional screening, what we call mitigation measures. That will be continuing for awhile. And so we ask people, perhaps, to show up a little bit earlier at the airport during this heavy holiday season. And to recognize we're going to be doing different things at different airports. So don't think somebody at TSA is not on the job if they're not doing exactly at one airport what you saw at another. There will be different things done in different places.

JAKE TAPPER (ABC NEWS)

(Off-camera) Secretary Napolitano, you keep saying everybody acted the way they were supposed to. Clearly, the passengers and the crew of that Northwest Airlines flight did. But I think there are questions of whether everybody in the US government did. And here's a question for you. How many - so many of us are subject to random security searches all the time. How come somebody who's not on a terrorist database isn't subject to more stringent security when they check into a flight to the US? Why does that not automatically just happen?

JANET NAPOLITANO (SECRETARY)

Well, if he had had specific information that put him on the selectee list or indeed on the no-fly list, he would not have actually gotten on a plane. But those numbers pyramid down. And they need to, because, again, there's lots of information that flies about this world on a lot of different people. And what we have to do in law enforcement is, not only collect and share, but do it in the proper way. Now, once this incident occurred, everything went according to clockwork. Not only sharing throughout the air industry, but also sharing with the state and local law enforcement. Products were going out on Christmas day. They went out yesterday. And also to the industry, to make sure that the traveling public remains safe. And I would leave you with that message. The traveling public is safe. We have instituted some additional screening and security measures in light of this incident. But, again, everybody reacted as they should. The system, once the incident occurred, the system worked.

There is absolutely no substantive difference between Napolitano's statement on CNN and her supposed spinning on ABC later that morning.

P.S. Bush had a similar response to the shoe bomber incident, although it took him a full six days to make any statement about it. In his statement he praised the alertness of the stewardess and made no mention of the security breech. The Democrats didn't make a political issue about it. Unlike the douchebag Republicans they can put country over party and don't seek political advantage over everything.

[Lurker]

I'd also add that you've created a complete fiction about what happened, what was said, and what the Administration response to the incident was in order to turn this into a partisan issue. Nothing from your last two posts was accurate. Pathetic.