Tag Archives: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab

This guy seemed to have left every clue short of raise his hand and proclaim, “arrest me, I am a terrorist!”

2010-01-07-umar_farouk.jpg Can someone explain to me how he managed to purchase a one way ticket, pay for it in cash, board the plane with no luggage, have his own father report him as a radicalized threat to a CIA base in Nigeria, be denied a visa to the UK where he previously lived and worked, and on top of that be on an active US terror watch list for two years, yet still not be flagged by the system as a security threat?

And can someone explain to me how after those six glaring red flags were missed – not to mention the explosive material in his underwear – the debate today is not about why and how they were missed, but about whether he could have been flagged for being of a certain skin color, hair texture, place of birth, faith, or namesake?

The racial profiling argument is lazy and unimaginative; most of all it is irresponsible because it evades the real problem starring us in the face: a fatal breakdown in communication between our intelligence units. Ironically, this is a problem so troubling that an entire new department, the National Homeland Security Department, was created with the sole mission to address it.
Continue reading →