By RBT

SCROLL FOR UPDATES:

 

See Also:

Lying to ourselves – Blindness to Islam ties helps terrorists by Ralph Peters

A Smoking Gun Dot In President’s Report On Flight 253 Intel Failures!

 

 

 

 

[Edited slightly to correct several typos and formatting errors]

 

HT The New Editor

I haven’t posted much at FOF re the GWOT.  I wrote extensively about this topic over at Rocket’s Brain Trust.  If you’ve read my other posts on the failed Detroit attack, we need a major paradigm shift in our thinking and approach to the GWOT.  We need to get our heads in the game and eyes on the ball.  So far we’re fighting and defending against the last attack.  Our enemy is not completely stupid!  Whether this guy was a lone wolf or not, the bottom line is this ideology can radicalize even highly educated youth.  This guy was not your average disaffected goat herder as Mark Steyn correctly says in his usual pithy flare.

We’re up sh-t creek without a paddle if the mindset of the DHS follows the insight of of Secretary Napolitano.  The only reason this attack failed is “operator error.”  This guy didn’t get it right in igniting the explosives in his underwear ala Reid the shoe bomber. Fortunately the passengers didn’t give him a second chance.   Reid was not low hanging fruit either as he’s been portrayed by media accounts.  He was to light the fuse with a lighter.  Unfortunately after he was denied boarding on the previous day, he was let on the second day.  This time without his lighter.  No one told him the end of the fuse needed to be cut in a different manner so it could be lit with a match.

DHS Sec. Napolitano: “The System Worked” in Failed Bombing of Northwest Flight

http://www.theneweditor.com/index.php?/archives/10680-DHS-Sec.-Napolitano-The-System-Worked-in-Failed-Bombing-of-Northwest-Flight.html

UPDATE I:

HT Hot Air

Poll: “The system worked”? Update: Rep. King votes … no

posted at 12:17 pm on December 27, 2009 by Ed Morrissey

Let’s see how many Hot Air readers agree with this statement by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano this morning.  Under tough questioning by CNN’s Candy Crowley, Napolitano insisted that the failure of the bomb to explode showed that “the system worked” (click the image to watch):

HT Michelle Malkin

Clown alert: Janet Napolitano says the “system worked”

By Michelle Malkin  •  December 27, 2009 01:31 PM

UPDATE II:

HT Michelle Malkin

Breaking: Second Nigerian on Detroit-bound flight arrested; Update: “Stomach problems”

By Michelle Malkin  •  December 27, 2009 02:40 PM

Jihadists never rest.

And their m.o. has always been: Try, try again.

Hello:

UPDATE III:

Good summary of the Detroit attack by the foreign press:

Analysis: Detroit terror attack is a major intelligence and security failure

Mark Steyn commented on the significance of this attack at NRO’s “The Corner” (See Instapudit’s link below).  There is a message to all of us in law enforcement in satirist Steyn’s message.   You can’t win a war by playing defense.  You must play offense. You must know who the enemy is and the ideology that drives it.  The Israelis learned this a long time ago.  We are consuming scarce resources at great expense for a “feel good” sense of security that does little to provide actual security.

I’ve written about this before several years ago.  Perhaps it’s time to dust this off and have these discussions again within the law enforcement community.  To successfully defend this Country from those at war with us, we must  force leverage our scarce police resources in the homeland.  We must use the public as our eyes and ears.  The 600K or so police officers/agents at the local, regional, state and federal level in this Country can’t possibly be everywhere at once.  As I said to a fellow colleague of the Police Futurist International in a post to its egroup of the need to include the American public in the GWOT or whatever one wants to call it now:

Agreed when an attack is in progress [Citizens actively thwarting an attack in progress].  My point is we need a paradigm shift from one of first responders and reactionary responses to one of prevention.  We’ve already lost once an attack is in progress.  Our mission should be to prevent, deflect or disrupt an attack before it becomes operational.  Jihadist terror cells stick out like sore thumbs in our culture before they become operational.  They are very visible to the public if the public is informed what to look for.  With the public acting as our eyes and ears, we can disrupts these cells.  Even if we can’t prosecute because of sources and methods[*], it’s a win when an attack is thwarted.

[*] [This is the wall between domestic law enforcement agencies and the intelligence community.  If information/intelligence is obtained in a manner that would preclude its introduction at trial e.g., the failure to advise of Miranda or monitoring of enemy communications, that is acted upon that results in the arrests of others unless other independent and untainted evidence exists, no criminal prosecution is possible.  This is the doctrine of the “fruits of the poison tree” or the Exclusionary Rule.] 

Read the two links in this last line of Instapundit’s (Prof Glenn Reynold) link to Steyn’s post at NRO’s “The Corner” regarding the use of the new/alternative/social media to provide a framework where the public can assist in protecting against terror attacks [See my concept of Mission Focused Strategic Communications below]:

Somebody should write something on this phenomenon. Maybe even, you know, a book!

MARK STEYN: On September 11th 2001, the government’s (1970s) security procedures all failed, and …

On September 11th 2001, the government’s (1970s) security procedures all failed, and the only good news of the day came from self-reliant citizens (on Flight 93) using their own wits and a willingness to act.

On December 25th 2009, the government’s (post-9/11) security procedures all failed, and the only good news came once again from alert individuals.

As I wrote before, “The Traditional Law Enforcement/Criminal Justice System Paradigm is Ill Prepared to Fight this War on Terror –  What should Our Domestic Rules of Engagement be?

 

AQ struck in a deliberate, unprovoked, pre-mediated attack to kill as many people as possible. This was an act of war. This is a war we cannot lose against a nontraditional enemy, which is stateless, and wears no distinctive military markings. This enemy seeks the violent overthrow of our government. These are not normal times. Once this is understood, then appropriate rules of engagement can be formulated while still protecting individual citizens’ rights. [I’m] . . . not advocating abridging fundamental Constitutional rights of U.S. citizens. Reasonable investigators, making reasonable decisions given these special times, must be free to act without fear of second-guessing and repercussions. Such questioning inhibits decisive action to engage the enemy. A good read on this is an essay, “History’s Verdict,” by Victor Davis Hanson comparing the WWII military campaigns such as D-Day and with our expectation of perfection in this war. We must stay focused, our minds in the game, our eyes on the ball, and ignore the cries of foul from the bleachers. If we put our creative minds together we can definitely play the game smarter, out thinking and outmaneuvering the enemy in imaginative, creative, and innovative ways.

Once the ends of this Islamofascist enemy are understood, I’m sure our courts will give law enforcement considerable flexibility and latitude. This Country is as war. A clear and present danger can be demonstrated to invoke the exigent circumstances exception to the Fourth Amendment prohibition against search and seizure without warrant. It’s no big secret that al Qaeda has gone high tech and taken this war into cyberspace. AQ is now using cyberspace for command and control, propaganda, and recruiting purposes. . .

. . . Our enemy is exploiting our tolerance and respect for individual rights, religious freedom, and other cultures. This is the classical ethical dilemma, of the relativistic good of the many vs. the good of the few. Collectively we must defend our Country against this foreign enemy that has infiltrated our society while at the same time striking a fair balance to protect the individual rights of the few. Given our Country must survive to protect the rights of the few, this in this unique circumstance . . .

 

I don’t for a minute believe our founding fathers intended to extend the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens to a hostile embedded enemy, which seeks the violent overthrow of the government. The preservation of the Nation must come first. Collateral intrusions into the personal privacy of a few should not be a bar to actively pursing the enemy. Unrelated criminal activity inadvertently discovered while pursuing the enemy should continue receive the protection of the Exclusionary Rule.

 

Law enforcement’s mission must now be one of prevention e.g., to prevent, deflect, deter, and or to disrupt an attack.  The risk of allowing a successful attack to occur is far too great.  Our traditional role of investigation, arrest and prosecution of offenders is not effective in countering the attacks of our enemy at war with us. We’ve already lost if an enemy attack is successful besides who is there left to prosecute afterwards? We must “go for the ball” to prevent the enemy from launching an attack.  The legal issues and whether a successful prosecution is possible can be dealt with later. 

I’m not advocating the abridgment of our fundamental rights as citizens but I think it’s perverse to afford those rights to foreign nationals or those citizens that have become radicalized.  Neither I’m advocating “water boarding” or other extreme measures.  I would argue the doctrine of “exigent circumstances”  applies in these instances e.g., the classic case of a bomb about to be detonated or a kidnapping.  Our enemy has demonstrated on multiple occasions the will and ability to inflict mass civilian casualties.  Law enforcement should not be punished when acting in good faith when pursuing active terror attacks on the homeland. For example in this latest thwarted attack based on my training and experience there could have been other terrorists on inbound flights to the US.  I would have sought information and intelligence from this suspect without first advising him of Miranda.  The WSJ agrees with my assessment in this OP/ED.  Unrelated criminal activities inadvertently discovered while pursuing the enemy should continue receive the protection of the Exclusionary Rule. If this precludes a successful criminal prosecution so be it.  I have no issues with detaining such foreign nationals as enemy combatants for the duration of this war based on probable cause findings in special military tribunals or courts.  The thought of trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian criminal court in New York City is beyond the pale.  This will become a worldwide propaganda event for the enemy-  let alone a significant security risk to the citizens of New York.

 

Here’s some of my previous thoughts on using the American public via the Blogosphere to force leverage scarce police resources:

Mission Focused Strategic Communication:

These new communications mediums [The Internet, the new/alternative/social media and the Blogosphere] are all key to a concept I’ve coined, Mission Focused Strategic Communication.

Simply stated this is keeping communications as horizontal as possible using the least common denominators. Keep the links short between those having the info and those who can act. A classic failure example of this is the 9/11. FBI field agents figured it out but the risk adverse hierarchical decision-making pyramids of the entrenched intel bureaucracy prevented timely action. The “new media” can be harnessed to force leverage scarce police resources by enabling citizen participation at very little cost. The concept is “spontaneous order.” This occurred at the World Trade Center and also in Katrina where people came together in an ad hoc manner, assessed the situation, and took independent action on their own ignoring official sources of information. In the end they were able to save themselves. Had they followed “official” sources of info they would have died. On the practical side for local law enforcement, blogs are an ideal tool for quick two-way communications between neighborhood watches, the local patrol officers, and detectives bypassing the traditional means of communications. Envision a supercharged virtual neighborhood and business watches without all the face-to-face meetings where old info is dispensed.

 

**

Serial Murder Joseph Duncan & using the Blogos to force leverage scarce police resources

**

“Crowd sourcing” to police the financial markets

**

The Traditional Law Enforcement/Criminal Justice System Paradigm Is Ill Prepared to Fight this War On Terror – What Should Our Domestic Rules of Engagement be?

**

THE EVENT CLOCK IS TICKING . . .

Al-Qaeda seen planning for ’spectacular’ attack

**

POLICE CHIEFS: HOMELAND SECURITY STRATEGY FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED
IACP Urges Focus On Prevention

 
UPDATE IV:

More thoughts from around the Blogos:

HT Roger Simon:

Delta Airlines Terror: Fire Janet Napolitano Now

If the election were being held today in the light of the terrorism on the Delta flight from Amsterdam, I have little doubt that John McCain – whatever his deficiencies as a candidate – would have been elected president, possibly in a landslide. Who would want Barack Obama now – or his bizarre collection of czars and advisers, including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano?

Hours after the near disaster on the Delta flight, up popped the very Napolitano with the following statement: “I am grateful to the passengers and crew aboard Northwest Flight 253 who reacted quickly and heroically to an incident that could have had tragic results.”

Well, thanks a bunch, Janet. They certainly were heroic. But why did they even have to do it in the first place? What was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab doing on that plane anyway when he was already apparently on the terror watch list and his own father had given warnings to the US Embassy of his son’s religious extremism only a month before? Any comment about that?

*****

HT Megan McArdel – The Atlantic

TSA Fails to Intercept Terrorist; We Pay the Price

28 Dec 2009 09:49 am

 

I don’t know what annoys me more:  Janet Napolitano saying “the system worked” when what she means is “the system failed, but smart passengers proved that the system is unnecessary”, or the moronic new rules the TSA is apparently putting into place in order to “prevent” future such occurances.  The TSA’s obsession with fighting the last war is so strong that I expect any day to see them building wooden forts at our nation’s airports in order to keep the redcoats at bay.  Every time they miss something, we have to give up more liberty.  .  .

UPDATE V:

I posted this summary of some of the thoughts here and some new material to the Police Futurist Int’l email group: 

I  was talking with a fellow Cassandra at Starbucks this morning who help me clarify my thinking.  He’s probably a little left of center.   He doesn’t believe “The One” would deliberately put the Country at risk.  With “The One’s” advisers e.g., Napolitano, I would  differ as this is all about style rather than substance.  I don’t think this is intentional but one from lack of experience and naivety in the real world and from a frame of reference re the threat we are now facing e.g, Neville Chamberlain.  Obama is still in campaign mode and so far hasn’t made the transition to one of being a leader that must make hard decisions quickly without the aid of focus groups to consider the political consequences.  My friend has issues with Bush/Cheney’s view of Islamofascist terrorism as acts of war e.g., a traditional war with a nation/state of the past.  He’s right to a point re our over use of the term “War” for other things like the War on Poverty, War on Drugs, War on Crime et al.  This presupposes that these wars are winnable.  Further it gives a false sense of expectation that our government will eventually win.  When the government comes up short it creates discontentment.

My friend and I are looking at the same elephant.  The real issue is how do we address this unique problem which in essence is a clash of cultures/ideologies – one that is modern (free will of men and equality of men and women) vs. one from Medieval times where man is inherently evil, women are chattel, and behavior must be controlled by Immans who interpret the will of G-d here on earth.  We are at war with a transnational, asymmetrical enemy that is driven by a radical ideology that seeks our total destruction that is fueled by our dependence on oil and the great wealth that flows from it.  Before the age of dependence on oil these ideologies did not pose a threat to our homeland.  These countries are feudal in nature and do not share this great wealth with their people.  In fact they keep them in check by this ideology and can divert the civilian anger conveniently to the Great and Little Satan as the root of all Evil.  We have had our own religious/political driven radical sects/cults from time to time e.g., the Inquisition, the Holocaust, David Korisch and Jim Jones.  David Korish and Jim Jones were recognize for what they were and were not funded by oil.  BTW the Sauds are not our friends in this war that have brokered a deal with the Devil e.g., the hard line Wahhabi’s to fund their radical mosque and madrases to remain in power.   Neither is the Iranian Regime which spends a great deal of its wealth pursuing a nuclear weapon and funding terrorist groups of both sides of the schism of Islam – Shi’ia and Sunni, to destabilize Lebanon and Israel.  Notwithstanding the people of Iran notwithstanding that have been subjugated by a radical minority of Shi’ia sect of Islam.

Do read Geert Wilders’ message to the American people:

America as the last man standing

I’m tend to see the current world from the frame of reference as does Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does as reliving history circa 1938.  There can be no appeasement of Evil e.g, Adolf Hitler and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

What is the solution?  Weapons of mass destruction can now be launched by a group a few individuals that have the capacity to cause mass casualties.  As I’ve written before the name of the game is prevention.  We can’t allow an attack to occur.  The concept of “first responders” is a misnomer.  We’ve lost the game if an attack is successful.  As I wrote in the above post:

I’ve written about this before several years ago.  Perhaps it’s time to dust this off and have these discussions again within the law enforcement community.  To successfully defend this Country from those at war with us, we must  force leverage our scarce police resources in the homeland.  We must use the public as our eyes and ears.  The 600K or so police officers/agents at the local, regional, state and federal level in this Country can’t possibly be everywhere at once.  As I said to a fellow colleague of the Police Futurist International in a post to its egroup of the need to include the American public in the GWOT or whatever one wants to call it now:

Agreed when an attack is in progress [Citizens actively thwarting an attack in progress].  My point is we need a paradigm shift from one of first responders and reactionary responses to one of prevention.  We’ve already lost once an attack is in progress.  Our mission should be to prevent, deflect or disrupt an attack before it becomes operational.  Jihadist terror cells stick out like sore thumbs in our culture before they become operational.  They are very visible to the public if the public is informed what to look for.  With the public acting as our eyes and ears, we can disrupts these cells.  Even if we can’t prosecute because of sources and methods[*], it’s a win when an attack is thwarted.

[*] [This is the wall between domestic law enforcement agencies and the intelligence community.  If information/intelligence is obtained in a manner that would preclude its introduction at trial e.g., the failure to advise of Miranda or monitoring of enemy communications, that is acted upon that results in the arrests of others unless other independent and untainted evidence exists, no criminal prosecution is possible.  This is the doctrine of the “fruits of the poison tree” or the Exclusionary Rule.]

Law enforcement’s mission must now be one of prevention e.g., to prevent, deflect, deter, and or to disrupt an attack.  The risk of allowing a successful attack to occur is far too great.  Our traditional role of investigation, arrest and prosecution of offenders is not effective in countering the attacks of our enemy at war with us. We’ve already lost if an enemy attack is successful besides who is there left to prosecute afterwards? We must “go for the ball” to prevent the enemy from launching an attack in the first place.  The legal issues and whether a successful prosecution is possible can be dealt with later. 

I’m not advocating the abridgment of our fundamental rights as citizens but I think it’s perverse to afford those rights to foreign nationals or those citizens that have become radicalized.  Neither I’m advocating “water boarding” or other extreme measures.  I would argue the doctrine of “exigent circumstances”  applies in these instances e.g., the classic case of a bomb about to be detonated or a kidnapping.  Our enemy has demonstrated on multiple occasions the will and ability to inflict mass civilian casualties.  Law enforcement should not be punished when acting in good faith when pursuing active terror attacks on the homeland. For example in this latest thwarted attack based on my training and experience there could have been other terrorists on inbound flights to the US.  I would have sought information and intelligence from this suspect without first advising him of Miranda.  Denying the interception of enemy signal/communications is also perverse. 

 

If we had not cracked the the German and Japanese codes, the outcome of WWII could have gone the other way.The WSJ agrees with my assessment in this OP/ED.  Unrelated criminal activities inadvertently discovered while pursuing the enemy should continue receive the protection of the Exclusionary Rule. If this precludes a successful criminal prosecution so be it.  I have no issues with detaining such foreign nationals as enemy combatants for the duration of this war based on probable cause findings in special military tribunals or courts.  The thought of trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian criminal court in New York City is beyond the pale.  This will become a worldwide propaganda event for the enemy-  let alone a significant security risk to the citizens of New York.

 

As I wrote before, “The Traditional Law Enforcement/Criminal Justice System Paradigm is Ill Prepared to Fight this War on Terror –  What should Our Domestic Rules of Engagement be?

AQ struck in a deliberate, unprovoked, pre-mediated attack to kill as many people as possible. This was an act of war. This is a war we cannot lose against a nontraditional enemy, which is stateless, and wears no distinctive military markings. This enemy seeks the violent overthrow of our government. These are not normal times. Once this is understood, then appropriate rules of engagement can be formulated while still protecting individual citizens’ rights. [I’m] . . . not advocating abridging fundamental Constitutional rights of U.S. citizens. Reasonable investigators, making reasonable decisions given these special times, must be free to act without fear of second-guessing and repercussions. Such questioning inhibits decisive action to engage the enemy. A good read on this is an essay, “History’s Verdict,” by Victor Davis Hanson comparing the WWII military campaigns such as D-Day and with our expectation of perfection in this war. We must stay focused, our minds in the game, our eyes on the ball, and ignore the cries of foul from the bleachers. If we put our creative minds together we can definitely play the game smarter, out thinking and outmaneuvering the enemy in imaginative, creative, and innovative ways.

Once the ends of this Islamofascist enemy are understood, I’m sure our courts will give law enforcement considerable flexibility and latitude. This Country is as war. A clear and present danger can be demonstrated to invoke the exigent circumstances exception to the Fourth Amendment prohibition against search and seizure without warrant. It’s no big secret that al Qaeda has gone high tech and taken this war into cyberspace. AQ is now using cyberspace for command and control, propaganda, and recruiting purposes. . .

. . . Our enemy is exploiting our tolerance and respect for individual rights, religious freedom, and other cultures. This is the classical ethical dilemma, of the relativistic good of the many vs. the good of the few. Collectively we must defend our Country against this foreign enemy that has infiltrated our society while at the same time striking a fair balance to protect the individual rights of the few. Given our Country must survive to protect the rights of the few, this in this unique circumstance . . .

 

I don’t for a minute believe our founding fathers intended to extend the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens to a hostile embedded enemy, which seeks the violent overthrow of the government. The preservation of the Nation must come first. Collateral intrusions into the personal privacy of a few should not be a bar to actively pursing the enemy. Unrelated criminal activity inadvertently discovered while pursuing the enemy should continue receive the protection of the Exclusionary Rule.

Perhaps we should be honest with the American people.  Yes this is a war but can we stay in a perpetual state of war?  Will there be an end?  The Modern World has been fighting this war of ideologies since the 8th/9th Century.  There will be successful attacks.  We can’t be 100% successful in preventing/diverting these attacks.  This ideology has many of the same elements/attributes of other failed ideologies that couldn’t distribute goods/services equitably to the people and became totalitarian in nature with regard to the universal truth of the free will of men and women e.g., Nazism, Communism, Fascism, Maoism, Feudalism et al.  This war will not be won in our lifetime.  This is perhaps the fault of the Bush/Cheney Administration.  While they said this war was going to be a long haul, they’re characterization was somewhat less and this is a source of discontentment.

We have never faced a similar threat to our very existence.  Our current legal system as I wrote before is ill prepared to deal with this threat.  We need to be realistic and analyze what is driving this threat. We must make the distinction between these attacks and traditional criminal events while at the same time protecting the fundamental Constitutional rights of our own citizens.  We must be able to call a “shovel a shovel” and act accordingly. Whether we continue to call this a war or not our rules of engagement must change.

In my minds eye I keep seeing Det. Rosewood in Beverly Hills Cop I in the climatic scene near end of the movie when the detectives are “storming” Victor Maitland’s mansion (bad guy) to rescue the heroine. Det. Rosewood is making a “tactical approach” to the rear with the others. After taking numerous volleys of automatic weapons fire,  Det. Rosewood stands up, completely exposing himself, and yells to the gunmen on the veranda, “Police – You’re all under arrest.” Of course this is followed by several more blasts of automatic weapons fire narrowly missing Det. Rosewood, who then dives back over a concrete railing. There are other similar parallels between the political correctness in this movie and our current situation. The time for political correctness has long since passed.

 

UPDATE VI:

Airline security idiocy of the day: Milblogger Michael Yon handcuffed, Joan Rivers blocked

By Michelle Malkin  •  January 5, 2010 12:38 PM

File under “Homeland Security is a Joke.”Milblogger/independent war correspondent extraordinaire Michael Yon reports that he was stopped at Sea-Tac airport and handcuffed by TSA agents: