Napolitano quickly retracted her statement when faced with mounting evidence that our government ignored repeated warnings. For crying out loud, the bomber's own father fingered him to US officials in Nigeria as a potential terrorist.
But doesn't it give you a very uneasy feeling to realize that the Secretary of Homeland Security actually thought, for a few moments, that this was an example of "the system" working? If that's the case, then what the heck is "the system"?
When she said that the system worked, Napolitano expanded on what she meant: "The passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action."
Well I guess now we know what the system is. Here is how it works. You, Mr. and Mrs. Air Traveler, will be frisked and strip-searched, have all of your baggage rummaged through so that you are disarmed of anything so dangerous as nail clippers, knitting needles, or shampoo—and then when the wild-eyed Islamic fanatic in seat 11A tries to blow himself up, you will be expected to tackle him to the floor, bop him on the head with the butt end of a fire extinguisher, and keep him tied up until the plane lands. And in gratitude for your courageous service as Involuntary Temporary Air Marshals, you will have even more restrictions placed on what you can bring on board when you fly.
So remind me why we are spending all of this money on a Department of Homeland Security, if the basic message to air travelers is: You're on your own. Good luck!
It is important to realize that this is not just a failure of the bureaucratic implementation of homeland security—though that is certainly the case. This is a failure of the entire idea of "homeland security." It is the failure of assuming that some kind of purely defensive strategy can protect us—that we can set up some perfect system to block incoming jihadis, rather than taking the war to the enemy and stopping the terrorists where they start.
The best "homeland defense" is a good offense. The best defense is a War on Terrorism, which the previous administration fought in a sometimes confused and inadequate way—and which the current administration refuses to acknowledge at all. It was Napolitano, you may remember, who famously redefined terrorist attacks as "man-caused disasters," and she is part of an administration that has banished the phrase "War on Terrorism." And this administration has gone off of a war footing, appeasing the leading state sponsors of terrorism, such as the Iranian regime, while replacing military tribunals for captured enemy combatants with civilian trials, granting the terrorists constitutional rights (which they don't have, because they are foreign combatants) and Geneva Convention rights (which they don't have, because they are unlawful combatants). In doing so this administration has weakened our offense against Islamic terrorists.
Toppling state sponsors of terrorism and destroying the bases from which terrorists operate is part of the war we have to fight. The other part is capturing enemy terrorist leaders, detaining them indefinitely, and subjecting them to harsh interrogations intended to uncover plots like this one. When George W. Bush advocated these policies, he used to talk about the need to "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here."
The newest bombing attack, and the administration's initial reaction to it, is a good example of what it means to fight them over here—a conflict in which you are the first and only line of defense.
Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist (TIA) and contributor to The Freedom Fighter's Journal
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