The Times Square Terrorist Attack

Thank God it failed!

Still, the attack isn't the only thing that failed. Here's the nutshell of what happened.

A Pakistani man who was a naturalized American citizen had been under close watch by the FBI for suspected terrorist ties suddenly disappeared. An SUV showed up in Times Square packed with explosives, but with the wrong kind of explosives, and a timer that was set incorrectly. The bomb didn't go off, and some observant citizens reported the SUV. Authorities secured it, and the hunt was on for Faisal Shahzad. They finally found him on an airplane -- despite being on the no-fly list -- taxiing out of JFK International Airport on the way to the Middle East. Shahzad claimed to be working alone, but several others have been arrested in Pakistan in relation to the failed attack. Oh, and by the way, Shahzad had traveled to Pakistan just months ago, and trained in a terrorist camp.

No one was harmed, but let's examine some of the problems and lessons learned here. First, how did this guy slip his FBI observers? Second, how did he get on the plane after buying a plane ticket with cash, carrying no baggage, being a young Middle Eastern man heading toward the Middle East, and being listed on the no-fly list? Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano refused to answer that second question when asked. Remember how real airport security works? Yeah, if only we'd done that here.

It should be noted that CNN and the liberal Left immediately jumped to his defense, claiming that he was a 'lone wolf' domestic terrorist, simply disgruntled [at Bush] because the bank foreclosed on his house not too long ago. And that's after a whole lotta' Leftists wrung their hands and hoped against hope that the failed attack had been perpetrated by a Teabagger. Victor Davis Hanson points out the obvious:

The jihadist symptoms of Major Hasan were ignored; General Casey lamented the possible ramifications of Hasan's killings to the army's diversity program; the warnings of Mr. Mutallab's father about his son's jihadist tendencies were ignored but the latter's Miranda rights were not; and the Times Square would-be bomber was quite rashly and on little evidence falsely equated with a "white" bomber with perhaps domestic-terrorism overtones (when it looks like there is a Pakistani radical-Islamist connection) — a sort of pattern has been established, one both implicit and explicit.

It's only a matter of time until this pattern is going to get Americans killed. Mark Steyn has a related take on the Left's spirited defense of yet another radical Muslim terrorist:

Whenever something goofy happens — bomb in Times Square, mass shootings at a US military base, etc. — there seem to be two kinds of reactions:

a) Some people go, "Hmm. I wonder if this involves some guy with a name like Mohammed who has e-mails from Yemen."

b) Other people go, "Don't worry, there's no connection to terrorism, and anyway, even if there is, it's all very amateurish, and besides he's most likely an isolated extremist or lone wolf."

Unfortunately, everyone in category (b) seems to work for the government. ...

Why do public officials so reflexively dissemble and misdirect every time? In the end, all they're doing is undermining confidence in the integrity of their own institutions. That doesn't seem a smart move.

Because it would be politically incorrect to do anything else, that's why. Speaking of which, it is interesting that Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York City, stood up (before we knew whodunnit) and suggested that the perpetrator was probably some 40-year old white guy who didn't like the health care bill; after Shahzad was discovered and captured, Bloomberg again took to the microphones to chastise us that we shouldn't allow one little bit of bias or prejudice to allow us to leap to unfair conclusions. When you bottom-line it, the Left is still convinced that old grandmother Tea Party right-wingers are much more dangerous than young Muslim males from Pakistan. This cognitive dissonance would be really funny stuff if American lives didn't hang in the balance!

Jonah Goldberg attempts to be even-handed in his treatment of the situation. Hit the link for his full thoughts, but I really like his conclusion:

This liberal tendency is not just offensive because it assumes that American citizens – including vets – are somehow an under-appreciated terrorist threat. Though that is plenty awful in and of itself.

It is also disgustingly undemocratic. Why? because so many of these people, starting with Obama himself but including former Presidents Clinton and Carter, the Democratic Party, the editorial pages of the New York Times, and much of the rest of the liberal dominated media, use this talk about the “rhetorical climate” on the right as a means to bully it into silence. That’s what Obama did in his recent commencement address and that’s what hundreds of commentators and bloggers have been doing in response to the tea parties.

They’re saying, “You people need to shut up because you’re aiding and abetting terrorists.” They’re also trying to say to independents: “If you think the rightwingers are persuasive, you need to think again. They’re all just mouthpieces and stalking horses for the homegrown terrorists and the mentally deranged.”

And, last, it’s also dangerous. Not because it will breed frustration and anger among Americans who feel unfairly demonized for simply voicing their objections ( though if liberals really believe the nonsense they spew about conservatives, they might ponder that). No, it’s dangerous because it causes the country to look for terrorists where they aren’t while telling them not to look for them where they are.

Yep, that's liberalism, cloaked in political correctness. Or, as it would be more accurately described, that's a suicidal death wish through cultural ignorance to the degree of fatal stupidity.

I'm sure more will come out on this in the next few days, and I'll post the best stuff.

There's my two cents.



Sources:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/05/security-slip-let-nyc-bomb-suspect-plane/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/nyregion/05profile.html?scp=5&sq=shahzad&st=cse
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/04/alleged-bomber-gone-pakistan-ied-training/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/nyregion/05plane.html?hp
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/how-did-shahzad-get-plane-if-he-was-no-fly-list
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/04/pakistan-arrests-eight-in-connection-to-times-square-attack/
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/04/video-how-shahzad-almost-got-away/
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/05/pelosi-jost-and-bloomberg-need-to-apologize-to-conservatives-after-pakistani-american-democrat-arrested-in-nyc-car-bomb-case/