Detroit bomber was singing like a canary before being lawyered up

The Telegraph:

Detroit bomber 'singing like a canary' before arrest

The chance to secure crucial information about al-Qaeda operations in Yemen was lost because the Obama administration decided to charge and prosecute Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as an ordinary criminal, critics say. He is said to have reduced his co-operation with FBI interrogators on the advice of his government-appointed defence counsel.

The potential significance became chillingly clear this weekend when it was reported that shortly after his detention, he boasted that 20 more young Muslim men were being prepared for similar murderous missions in the Yemen.

The lawyer for the 23-year-old Nigerian entered a formal not guilty plea on Friday to charges that he tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on December 25 – even though he reportedly admitted earlier that he was trained and supplied with the explosives sewn into his underwear by al-Qaeda in the Arab state.

"He was singing like a canary, then we charged him in civilian proceedings, he got a lawyer and shut up," Slade Gorton, a member of the 9/11 Commission that investigated the Sept 2001 terror attacks on the US, told The Sunday Telegraph.

"I find it incomprehensible that this administration is treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue. The president has finally said that we are at war with al-Qaeda. Well, if this is a war, then Abdulmutallab should be treated as a combatant not a criminal."

Not only did our government throw away its chance to gather valuable intelligence from Abdulmutallab but worse, Abdulmutallab presented us with the opportunity to gather a particular type of intelligence that is now lost to us. 

Contrary to the stereotype being put forth by the White House that terrorism is born of poverty, Abdulmutallab represents the growing threat from upper income, educated young men who were raised or at least educated in the West.  We need to know why these young men are turning to terrorism, how they are being recruited and vetted, and how they are being trained. 

In any case, it is mind boggling that if Abdulmutallab was willing, in fact eager, to give us badly needed information about the threat that faces us that the government would do the one thing that blocks us from gathering that intelligence.  We need to be smarter about how we obtain intelligence.  We could start by not throwing opportunities out the window.

The White House's Gift to Terrorists: Our Weakness

Obama is in trouble and he knows it. Consider this from the Telegraph:

In his weekly radio address yesterday, President Barack Obama patted himself on the back for having "refocused the fight - bringing to a responsible end the war in Iraq, which had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks".

He then told people to remember that "our adversaries are those who would attack our country, not our fellow Americans", before decrying "fear and cynicism" and "partisanship and division" - the code phrases for horrid Republicans used during his 2008 election campaign.

Complacency, faux moralising and partisan shots at Republicans. It was a neat summary of where Obama is going wrong after the Christmas Day debacle when the Nigerian knicker bomber managed to waltz onto a Detroit-bound flight. (emphasis added)

For a man who campaigned denouncing the politicization of national security under President George W Bush, it is worth noting how intensely political Obama's treatment of what might henceforth be known as Underpantsgate has been.

His White House recognized its political vulnerability more readily than it comprehended the level of danger faced by Americans. (emphasis added)

That last sentence should read: His White House cares more about its political vulnerability then it is concerned about the level of danger faced by Americans. Almost immediately after the Christmas day attack we learned of the bomber’s ties to Yemen and Anwar al-Awlaki, we learned that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s father had warned of his son’s radicalization and we learned of Al Qaeda’s involvement. But for all we had learned, the most important lesson was that when our country was attacked on Christmas it took our President three days to speak out and then he did such a weak job of it that he had to come back the next day for a mulligan. But there is no “do-over” when the American citizens learn that the White House had been given the information necessary to stop this attack and they did nothing.

Meanwhile, the White House was working overtime to build a case against Bush. A source in the White House counsel's office told The American Spectator of memos frantically seeking information that would "show that the Bush Administration had had far worse missteps than we ever could".

Yet, President Bush kept this country safe for all the years following 9/11. He was honest with the American people about the threat we faced and how we were going to defeat our enemies. And we were safe until a weak and ineffectual country club manager wannabe took over as president. After Obama was elected he scrubbed the hard language terrorism and substituted pansy phrases like “man made disasters” and in doing so he telegraphed our weakness to the world. And it didn’t take long for the world to respond:

Republicans smell blood. There is a pattern in the Obama administration of dismissing Islamist terrorist attacks as regrettable random acts. In his radio address after Major Nidal Hassan's slaughtered 13 at Fort Hood, Texas, Obama made no mention of terrorism or militant Islam, instead blandly promising that the "ongoing investigation into this terrible tragedy" would "look at the motives of the alleged gunman".

Hassan was a committed Islamist who had corresponded with the fanatical Yemeni imam Anwar al-Awlaki. In June, Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslim convert being watched by the FBI and who had previously traveled to Yemen, murdered a US Army recruit in Arkansas. That rated only a tepid statement by Obama about a "senseless act of violence".

But the violence wasn't senseless, it had a calculated objective - just as Abdulmutallab was not, as Obama described him, an "isolated extremist". No wonder many Americans want to grab Obama by the lapels and scream: "It's the Jihad, stupid." Dick Cheney, the former vice-president, clearly struck a nerve when he charged last week that Obama was "trying to pretend we are not at war".

Obama can pretend that we aren’t at war but our enemies know better. And as long as the President of the United States continues to broadcast our vulnerability and our unwillingness to act our enemies will continue their holy crusade against us. In less than one year, Obama has undone everything that President Bush put in place to keep us safe. The blood that Republicans smell in the water is our own.

More at RedState: Barack Obama’s Vulnerabilities Will Get Us All Killed

David Broder: President of the Janet Napolitano Fan Club

I came back from mini vacation to Largo on an emotional high. I can’t think of a better way to recharge and regroup than spending time with dear friends. Kara and Damon were incredible hosts and even though it had been over two decades since we had seen each other, we picked up right where we left off. Then I had my “Earth to Carolyn” moment.

It came as no surprise to anyone who knows her that Napolitano handled the incident and its aftermath with aplomb. In the years I have known her, she has managed every challenge that has come her way with the same calm command that she showed in this instance. If there is anyone in the administration who embodies President Obama's preference for quiet competence with "no drama," it is Janet Napolitano.

Is David Broder serious? He’s talking about Janet “the system worked” Napolitano, right?

…She is being criticized for saying "the system worked," but her part of the response system did work.

It must have been a frantic time for her. She was in San Francisco, far from her Washington office, and she must have had a sleepless night. But her eyes were bright, and her voice was calm. Everything appeared to be completely normal, except that her usual sense of humor was absent, as it should have been, given the circumstances.

…her part of the response system did work. In what possible way? Does Broder believe that the Department of Homeland Security is an after the fact agency? If that is the case we should rename the agency the Department of Homeland Janitorial Services. However, I think most American would prefer that a security agency prevent terrorist attacks, not come in after the attack and clean up the mess left behind.

Broder defends Napolitano’s dismal performance on television immediately after the attack by saying that she “refused to speculate…”. There was nothing to speculate about. The government had known about the Underpants Bomber for months prior to the attack. What Napolitano did was attempt to spin the attack in such a way that the American people would not find out that our government failed at their prime directive to keep this country’s citizens safe.

Our government failed but they got lucky. The Underpants Bomber was every bit as incompetent at his mission as Janet Napolitano was at her’s. We can’t count on luck. The American people need confidence that their government is looking out for them and when there is a failure that the government will deal with the failure in an upright and honest manner.
We did not get honesty or competence from Janet Napolitano. Broder is not looking at the situation with a critical eye. He is acting like a White House hack.