Questions about the terrorist incident

The account in the New York Times of the terrorist attack on the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit yesterday is contradictory. Some, including Rep. Peter King, say that the attacker, a Nigerian Muslim named Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, was trying to set off an explosion, which fortunately fizzled, sparing the plane. Other say that the substances on his person were flammable, not explosive. Or did the passengers, by immediately jumping on Abdul and subduing him, prevent him from some further act that would have set off an explosion?

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James P. writes:

There are so many things to feel good about in this story!

1. We’re letting Nigerian Muslims into the USA!

2. He got on a plane despite being on the no-fly list! [LA replies: According to earlier reports. However, later reports said he was not on a no-fly list, but only in an anti-terror data base.]

3. He got on the plane despite having some sort of explosives on his person!

4. “Syed Jafry” is “proud to be an American”!

5. Janet Napolitano is monitoring the situation, yaaay!

Rick U. writes:

We were lucky that we didn’t have a tragic Christmas this year. Here is the American Thinker blog pointing out the folly of our leadership in not profiling for people we KNOW want to perpetrate these acts. It is mind boggling that after 9-11 somebody, especially someone named Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, can sneak explosives aboard a plane strapped to their leg. Apparently, the passengers subdued this guy. The American people get it—when will our leaders?

Laura G. writes:

Well, well, well. The White House is reported as saying the attack is an “attempted act of terrorism.” It appears that the mockery Obama has been subjected to because of his poo-pooing of the jihadist motives of the Fort Hood jihadist may be causing the White House to begin to acknowledge reality to some degree. Now, the goal for those of us who live in the real world is to force the administration to make the connection between terrorism and Islam. The perpetrator is reported to have said that he is under instructions of Al-Qaida [LA adds: authorities think this is just boasting.] The White House needs to be mocked and scorned for failing to identify it as an “attempted act of Islamic terrorism.” We might start to get somewhere in the enlightenment of our general population if that identification were to be made every time these attacks occur. Our sorry “press” also needs to be mocked if it fails to focus prominently on the Islamic motivation and determination of this and all other attacks. I pester my own little local paper on this issue, and they have made some progress in that they do now identify the jihadis as Muslims and not just “terrorists.”

Dan S. writes:

The media is, as usual, asking how such an incident could have occurred and what can be done to prevent it from happening again, but they never seem interested in the answer to those questions. The notion that pious Muslims, like this failed Nigerian Muslim bomber and the earlier Fort Hood shooter, see themselves locked in a perpetual jihad against the West (and indeed all non-Muslim civilizations) is something that our political establishment (including most so-called conservatives) refuse to acknowledge (and which liberalism is inherently incapable of acknowledging). The fact that this Nigerian Muslim, from a notoriously violent African Muslim population committed to jihad (just ask the besieged Nigerian Christians), was even granted a visa shows, once again, how late the hour has become for the West. Britain has imported countless jihad-minded Muslims from Pakistan, and the United States seems determined to to follow this path (seemingly not content to import Latin American gangs and other assorted violent criminal elements). I thank God that He prevented this savage from murdering all those people on that airplane, but it must be clearly stated that our own government, by enforcing liberalism and multiculturalism, is complicit in this act of attempted jihad/murder.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 26, 2009 10:52 AM | Send