Is it really our leaders’ intent to protect us from terrorist attacks?

Dan S. writes:

The revelation that the CIA knew about Abdul Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab and his al-Qaeda connections before the failed Christmas Day attack, yet failed to notify anyone, needs to be placed in the wider context of the response of our political elite to the threat of Islamic jihad terrorism. This is not the first time that American intelligence agencies have been clued in about dangerous Muslim jihadists and did nothing in response. Going back to the early nineties the CIA cleared the Egyptian Omar Abdul Rahman (the blind Sheikh) to enter the U.S., knowing full well his connection to the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and other acts of jihad while in Egypt. Abdul Rahman would later go on to be the spiritual leader of the cell of Muslim jihadists that attacked the World Trade Center in 1993 and who intended to attack other American targets. Again, prior to 9/11 our intelligence agencies knew that several young Saudi men with known al-Qaeda connections were in this country taking flight lessons, yet did nothing about it. We all know how that ended.

After the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission we were told that the assorted intelligence agencies “failed” and that they would be reformed in order to stop further jihadist attacks. Well, here we several years later and we learn that the FBI and the U.S. military knew that Major Nidal Malik Hasan was in contact with the American-born jihadist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and had expressed his desire on multiple occasions to kill Americans, yet they did nothing. Thirteen people (14 if you include the unborn child) are now dead because of their refusal to act. Meanwhile, the CIA did nothing with the knowledge it had to prevent Abdul Mutallab from entering the U.S. and trying to murder some 300 Americans and other non-Muslims (of which he almost succeeded). And these are only the more well known cases.

The result of all the above is a conviction that our political and intelligence elites do not care if Americans are killed by jihadists. I can have no other conclusion. That is not to say they desire the death of Americans (as parts of the anti-American left do), but that they are indifferent to this occurring. The fundamental failures are not due to mere incompetence, but to utter indifference. Both Janet “The System Worked” Napolitano and B. Hussein Obama have demonstrated in both word and action that they don’t care, as have the leaders of the intelligence community for the past two decades. For them liberalism and multiculturalism are the supreme good and to take serious the threat of Islamic jihadism would naturally undermine these sacred doctrines, so they are indifferent to the threat. If 13 or 300 or 3,000 people have to die to further the liberal/multicultural utopia, then so be it. That is just the price we must pay to obtain the liberal society.

LA replies:

Here are two prime pieces of evidence that support Dan’s conclusion.

First prime piece of evidence: Army Chief of Staff George Casey’s statement (which, unlike Napolitano’s “the system worked” remark, was never qualified or corrected) that to damage the Army’s diversity by apprehending and weeding out Maj. Nidal Hasan prior to the Fort Hood massacre would have been a more tragic loss for America than the massacre.

Second prime piece of evidence: Janet Napolitano’s remark that “the system worked.” Of course, she says that the remark was taken out of context, because she wasn’t talking about the system preventing the attack, but about the system responding to the attack, and the response did work well. But the clarified Napolitano statement is even more damning than the putative Napolitano statement that the system worked to prevent the attack. Why? If she believed that the system worked in preventing the attack, then she’s simply a mental incompetent and must be fired. But she did not (she tells us) intend to say that. Instead, she was saying that the real purpose of homeland security is not to prevent attacks, but to respond to attacks. She was saying that the function of the Homeland Security Department is not to defend the homeland, but to succor the homeland and bind up its wounds. She’s saying that protecting Americans from being killed and protecting American airliners and cities from being destroyed by terrorist attacks is not her job and not her concern.

As absurd as that may sound, it is the inescapable logical conclusion of her comment that in her mind, the system worked meant that the system responded effectively to an attack after it had happened.

- end of initial entry -

James P. writes

Dan says,

“The result of all the above is a conviction that our political and intelligence elites do not care if Americans are killed by jihadists. I can have no other conclusion. That is not to say they desire the death of Americans (as parts of the anti-American left do), but that they are indifferent to this occurring. The fundamental failures are not due to mere incompetence, but to utter indifference.”

I am not sure that indifference is really the right word. They probably sincerely regret the deaths of Americans. However, such regret is only one factor in their calculations, and I believe they think there is an “acceptable level of terrorism.” The level they find acceptable is far higher than the level ordinary Americans would find acceptable, because our elites are not willing to do what it takes to reduce this level much lower than it is by (for example) controlling the border and excluding genuine fruitcakes. If reducing the “acceptable level” means compromising or reducing diversity, why then, the “acceptable level” will remain high.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 31, 2009 10:52 AM | Send