Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on September 29, 2012

Abstract: In 2009 alone, U.S. authorities foiled at least six terrorist plots against the United States. Since September 11, 2001, at least 30 planned terrorist attacks have been foiled, all but two of them prevented by law enforcement. The two notable exceptions are the passengers and flight attendants who subdued the "shoe bomber" in 2001 and the "underwear bomber" on Christmas Day in 2009. Bottom line: The system has generally worked well. But many tools necessary for ferreting out conspiracies and catching terrorists are under attack. Chief among them are key provisions of the PATRIOT Act that are set to expire at the end of this year. It is time for President Obama to demonstrate his commitment to keeping the country safe. Heritage Foundation national security experts provide a road map for a successful counterterrorism strategy.

In 2009, at least six planned terrorist plots against the United States were foiled. This has led some to wonder whether the U.S. is experiencing the results of a resurgence in terrorism. However, these latest acts were not a new phenomenon: At least 30 terrorist plots against the U.S. have been foiled since 9/11. It is clear that terrorists continue to wage war against America.

President Barack Obama, however, took office determined to shed the idea of a war on terrorism. Besides an obvious change in lexiconfrom the "global war on terror" to "overseas contingency operation" and from "terrorism" to "man-made disaster"there were even more consequential actions, including the decision to prosecute foreign terrorists in U.S. civilian courts, dismantlement of the CIA's interrogation abilities, lackadaisical support for the PATRIOT Act, and an attempt to shut down Guantanamo Bay within President Obama's first year in the White House. The danger of this new attitude was revealed all too quickly by the near-miss airline bomb plot of Christmas Day 2009.

Undoubtedly, the nation wants to be successful in fighting terrorists. The U.S. counterterrorism system has worked successfully in the past, as demonstrated by the foiled plots, and it can work successfully in the future. But continued success requires the White House and Congress to work together to ensure that the military, law enforcement, and intelligence community have the tools they need to defend the country. At the same time, it is essential that the Administration lay out its counterterrorism strategy to the American people, including next steps for aviation security, visa security, and intelligence and information sharing.

Terrorism and the Obama Administration

Homeland security and counterterrorism were relatively unexamined issues during the 2008 presidential campaign. Terrorism was not in the forefront of Americans' minds; the downward-spiraling economy and lost jobs were understandably front and center.

The discovery of the Zazi plot in September 2009 served as the first in a series of wake-up calls to the nation on the state of national security. Najibullah Zazi was arrested after purchasing large quantities of chemicals from beauty supply stores in a plot to detonate TATP bombs on the New York City subway. This plot was considered extremely serious and was in the later stages of development when Zazi was apprehendedwhich made the plot deeply troubling to many Americans.

Shortly thereafter, in November 2009, were the Fort Hood shootings. This attack, perpetrated by Major Nidal Hasan, a U.S. Army psychologist, was not a foiled plot. Hasan went on a shooting rampage, killing 12 and wounding 31. Evidence demonstrates that he was in communication with al-Qaeda via the Internet before the attack and that the U.S. government had what should have been damaging intelligence on Major Hasan before the incident occurred.

While still questioning what led to the failure to act on the known intelligence in the case of the Fort Hood shootings, the U.S. experienced a near-miss attack on Christmas Day 2009. That day, Nigerian citizen Umar Farouk Abdulmutallabwhose own father had alerted U.S. consulate officials in Nigeria to his son's radical leaningsattempted to detonate a bomb on a Northwest flight landing in Detroit. His bomb failed to ignite, and passengers restrained him so that he could not try again.

The startling failure of authorities to connect the dots and bring together valuable pieces of information has led Americans to question whether authorities were doing what needed to be done to keep them safe. Specifically, questions center on whether the homeland security system worked, why it worked in the past, and whether it will work in the future.

Read the original:
30 Terrorist Plots Foiled: How the System Worked

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
Tags: