As we all know by now, Nigerian man Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airplane on Christmas day. What could have been a Christmas Day massacre failed as Abdulmutallab failed to ignite his bomb. What troubles me, is that the U.S. had received information from the U.K. that Abdulmutallab had previous connections with extremist organizations. According to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokesman, Simon Lewis, Abdulmutallab's name had been included in record of people who communicated with known extremists in the U.K. Officials had believe he was radicalized after leaving the country in early 2008. The point of government in our society is to provide protection for the people, and structure in our society, so that citizens can live their lives accordingly and pursue their wishes, living safely in the privacy of their own homes. Ideally, Government rids crime from our society. Realistically, government tries to rid crime from our society but has continuously failed to do so. This past Christmas Day the Obama administration caught a huge break, had the bomb ignited correctly, hundreds would have died and who would be to blame? Since reportedly the U.S. had every bit of information that suggested this man had extremist ties, why was he allowed to fly? Although he was not personally singled out as a known terrorist he had confirmed ties with extremists in the U.K. less than 4 years ago!
I do understand the argument that this man should have been put on a no fly list, I'm just not sure if I agree with it (obviously in retrospect, I do). There are thousands of people who make connections with extremist groups, both knowingly and unknowingly, and who do not plan terrorist attacks. In fact, Abdulmutallab was not involved in a terrorist organization. Though I cannot claim to understand his reasoning for what he did, he was not at all a normal candidate for committing a terrorist attack. His father was a wealthy banker and he grew up in a large town-home in London worth tens of millions of dollars. Most terrorists grow up in small, middle eastern, African or Asian villages, and are rarely presented with the privileges that Abdulmutallab was.
ReplyDeleteI am not saying that profiling based on income is right, but Abdulmutallab simply didn't fit any of the profiles for a terrorist. Intelligence agencies undoubtedly flagged him as a rebellious teen, angry that he didn't get accepted to elite Ivy League Schools, instead of a terrorist-to-be. Unlike the threat of Osama Bin Laden in the months preceding 9/11, a known terrorist and clear threat with high level intelligence interest, Abdulmutallab was not considered a threat by American intelligence agencies. Though he was on a list of people who had had contact with terrorists, he was not considered a terrorist by England.
I'm not sure, but I think I heard on the news that the reason he was allowed to fly despite there being so much information about him was because different government agencies weren't communicating adequately. There was not enough sharing of information, and as a result, the information was made useless.
ReplyDelete