Terrorism Has Returned to American Soil

On Christmas Day, a plane carrying 278 people to Detroit from Amsterdam had a terrorist incident. On it's approach to Detroit, approximately 20 minutes from Detroit Metro Airport, the homicide bomber fired his weapon.

In November, a month before the Detroit flight, a man in Nigeria reported to the United States Embassy that his son might be plotting a terrorist attack on the United States. The father was the former chairman of the First Bank of Nigeria. Still the son was not put on the no fly list.

When the terrorist was purchasing his ticket for the flight, he was asked how long he intended to stay in Detroit and they were told two weeks. Yet he had no luggage. This is a warning sign for possible terrorism. Yet he wasn't checked further. He also paid for his ticket in cash, another warning sign.

The terrorist had sewn an explosive into his underwear. The same explosive used by the Shoe Bomber. We've all heard the stories of elderly men and women being checked thoroughly before being allowed on a plane, but somehow, a guy with no luggage and who paid cash for his ticket, wasn't given the same scrutiny, or possibly any scrutiny.

As the plane made it's approach to Detroit Metropolitan airport, the terrorist set about igniting his bomb. But something when wrong. Instead of exploding, it popped like a fire-cracker, and ignited his pants. Smoke was seen, then fire. A passenger dived across four seats onto the terrorist and suffered burns himself in trying to subdue the terrorist and put the fire out.

The passengers pinned the terrorist down and they, along with the crew restrained him and moved him to the front of the plane. When the plane landed, authorities took the terrorist into custody. They read him his Miranda rights. He is now facing 20 years in prison. He's since claimed to have been trained by Al-Queda for this mission.

Following the attempted homicide bombing, Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano claimed that the security measures worked. She later had to back off of that when challenged on that statement.

Quite the contrary. There are many things wrong with this. First, a prominent man in Nigeria gave the warning about his son. Yet the son was not put on a no fly list. There was no security that prevented the terrorist to board the plane. If there was, he'd have not been permittted on the plane.

The only reason this man was stopped was because of some alert and fast acting passengers none of whom were government security people.

The only thing that the government accomplished in this is they allowed a terrorist on the plane then took him into custody, giving him rights he's not entitled to. The passengers are the hero's.

Does this sound familiar? Beginning in 1993 with the first World Trade Center bombing we were attacked at least 8 times ending with the USS Cole in 2000. All of those caught were tried in Federal courts.

On September 11, 2001 we were attacked for the first time under President Bush. Less than a month later, he took the war to Afghanistan. From September 11, 2001 until the end of the Bush Presidency, we were not attacked on our soil again. Yes, there were attempts, but they were all thwarted. Some we know about, some we don't. During those year, liberals have complained about our government listening in on private conversations of Americans. They don't include in their complaints that the calls are made either to this country from another country or from here to another country. They prefer to make it sound like the wiretaps are on Peggy sharing her chocolate chip cookie recipe with Agnes on the other side of town. They don't seem to have the same problem with the Obama administration monitoring twitter and facebook accounts.

We were warned during the campaign of 2008 that Democrats didn't care about National Security. We were warned by Vice-President Elect Joe Biden that Obama would be tested in the six months of his Presidency. He was only off by three months. On November 5, Fort Hood was attacked. Now, less than two months later, a second attack. There were warning signs in each but they were ignored by this administration.

Let me be very clear. These are acts of war. These are not parking violations. These are not breaking and entering crimes. These are not bank robberies. These are acts of war. So what has this administration done in the past year? They'd said they'd close Guantanamo Bay by January 2010. This will fail. They can't get it done by then. They have released detainees back to their home countries and in the case of one group, released them in the tropics. This group may now be serving you your drinks when you're on vacation this winter.

They have passed a stimulus package that has failed miserably. The money has gone to their backers but not back to the people of this country and what has gone out has failed. They have done "cash for Clunkers" which was a bust. They've passed Cap and Trade in the House, then it was discovered that global warming was a hoax when E-mails by the scientists were discovered.

Now they have passed health care despite more than 58% of the people of this country being against it.

However, they have failed miserably at National security. Two attacks in 10 months time and they are going to try these acts of war in criminal court along with the vilest terrorist, Kaleed Sheik Muhammad.

What was their solution to this latest attack? They came out with a directive that you may have nothing on your lap the last hour of your flight. That was rescinded within 24 hours of having issued the directive, which may be the only right thing this administration has done since taking office.

There are some simple solutions to this. When a father tells you his son may be a terrorist plotting an attack on you, don't let him fly into this country. When you have a nutcase in the military, a psychiatrist no less, you don't give him a weapon let alone teach him how to use it.

When a terrorist does happen to work his way through, and you catch him (or more appropriately the citizens of this country do your job for you), you classify him as a prisoner of war and shove him into a 6x6 cage at Gitmo and get as much information from him as you can and then leave him to rot in that cage until the war is over....sometime in the next century.

Terrorists were treated as jaywalkers in the 90's and prosecuted in the courts. Yet we were attacked over and over again. When they were treated as prisoners of war, and we actually went and bombed Afghanistan after the worst attack in our history, and terrorists were put into Gitmo indefinitely, we didn't have any more attacks in the country. Now we have another liberal in the White House that is afraid to deal with war criminals as war criminals we can expect more and more attacks.

We just keep getting more and more examples of the incompetence of this administration and people die from this incompetence. That's not protecting the American people from foreign attack which is their charge. Two attacks. 12 dead. 32 injured. But not one dead terrorist yet. The courts are filling up though.

We've had three attacks in the past 8 years. Three planes crashed and killed people on the ground. Two at the World Trade Center and one at the Pentagon. People on the plane were killed, people in the buildings were killed. One plane crashed that saved either the Congress or the White House when the passengers (citizens) gave their lives to save politicians. One attack where 12 were killed and 31 injured at Ft. Hood. Now another attack that was thwarted by passengers (citizens) and one injured. So far, it appears that the American citizen is saving more lives than the government, who have the power to stop anyone from being hurt with just a tiny bit of due diligence in these latest two incidents.

Terrorism has returned to our soil after seven years. This could be a long (and deadly) three years coming up.

You're welcome to comment.

Brett