Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday that the thwarting of the attempt to blow up an Amsterdam-Detroit airline flight Christmas Day demonstrated that "the system worked."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/politicolive/1209/Napolitano_The_system_worked.html?showall

I will admit that I despise intent of this president, the people in his administration and their enablers among the population. But that being stated for the record, is it imaginable the Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is anything less than a complete fu@!ing idiot.

The system worked!

She went on to explain how the list that this attacker’s name had of late allegedly been added too consists of 500,000 entries. Apparently such a number of entries are not effectively searchable so that individual entries could be flagged for extra scrutiny. Imagine that! In the information age within which anybody can almost instantaneously access billions off IP address, where hundreds of millions of credit and debt cards are instantaneously verifiable, where in this country alone the health care scheme purports to digitize the life time health records of every single one of almost 300 million individual so every government bureaucrats, insurance bureaucrats, doctor, nurse, receptionist, janitor will have instant access; as of two days ago airline security apparatchiks literally holding the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in their hands on any given day either effectively can’t or won’t bother to check IDs of flyers against a data base of a mere 500,000.

If you believe anything the people responsible have been saying for years this attacker not only was known to fit a profile - young, Islamic, radicalized associations, unexplained travel to jihadi hotspot, and reported to authorities for suspected radicalization by a credible source; but, then the attacker purchases airline tickets with cash, travels from an unstable country, during a busy travel period, during a culturally significant time period, traveling significant distances with virtually no luggage. Then after successfully evading security but only for a simple twist of fate very nearly downs a commercial airliner and killing hundreds of people on Christmas Day; Janet Napolitano the US Secretary of Homeland Security declares “the system worked”! Is her analysis/conclusion defensible by any measure?

The link provided has a video of this interview, give it a look and see if you agree that if there is nothing else clear it’s that Napolitano personifies this administrations change in posture from the forward leaning/preventative/ military of the previous administration adopted after 9/11 to this administration’s defensive PC/ /after the fact investigate prosecute/ law enforcement posture. And with regard to that question how many innocent people murdered can such an administration stand? If this attack had succeeded in killing hundreds of US citizens on Christmas Day could the administration survive politically?

Yawn.

She's downplaying the incident because she's in charge of a system that fu#*ed up bad. Folks that support BHO will do the same for some strange reason- witness Craig's post. Don't think he would be yawning if he was on the flight or it crashed on his house.

It was a stupid statement, and I'm sure everyone on that airplane would agree. However we are not privy to everything that goes on behind the scenes, and how many other incidents have been thwarted so far. No system is perfect, but unfortunately only 100% perfection will insure total safety.

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Yawn, again.

I glad they don't routinely announce these "close call" incidents, you guys would have your panties in a bunch continuously. This would have been a non event-under the cheney/bush administration too (unless they decided to invade nigeria, just to stay in practice). Wake me up when there's some real news, I'm still on vacation.

This is your fundamental problem. You're unable to allow the administration to function in any reasonable manner and choose to pick on each and every point where you determine that they don't measure up.

The previous administration had hundreds of similar events where their performance was less than stellar............you were sitting on the sidelines with a big fat smile on your face.

Unfortunately, you're a right wing republican and your statements should be taken in context by others on here.

In this specific case, you're correct...........there was no working system..........and her comments are strictly political BS.

Similar to "mission accomplished" and "you're doing a great job Brownie". BTW, did you put up any screaming threads about that?

I think so; one only has to look at the massive intelligence failure that occurred on Bush's watch that killed a few thousand innocent people in NY, DC and PA back in 2001. I seem to recall that he served a second term in office after that debacle...

Not to defend cheney/bush, but the career intelligence/law enforcement people who actually do this work are not politicos, only the top layer of management has any political agenda. We can blame cheney/bush for the post-9/11 decisions, but prior to that it was just business as usually. Whatever flaw in the system that let this latest event occur was probably not related to the actions of any political appointee, but some career middle manager in a cubical someplace.

The reality is that there will be future terrorist activities and some will be successful. Whoever happens to be in office at the moment will get the blame from the opposing party, there will be threats and gnashing of teeth, clowns all over the internet will want to bomb someplace (anyplace), the security moms will get worried again, the airlines will lose some money, and some additional security theater will be put in place. Welcome to the 21st century.

How is this a problem and for whom is it a problem? How am I not allowing the administration to function?

Less than stellar? That’s a very generous comparison!

I am? As defined by you, and you are a? They are, as are your own no doubt!

No one should have any doubt!

What was the mission that had not been accomplished when that statement was made? Brownie did a great job, just not to the level of perfection demanded by the critics.

BTW, as you well know; being that you actually PM’d me with “a query” back in June of 2007, that I did not publicly post to the forum with one or two rare exceptions regarding the operation of the Open Discussion Forum, for about five or six years. So to answer your disingenuous implication that a lack of “any screaming threads about that” or any other subject being meaningful; both you and I know it is not. It is a fact that I agree with the decision of the US to act in our self interest and eliminate the potential threat that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq posed after Al Qaida declared war on the US. I’m of the opinion that hurricane Katrina and later Rita performed a necessary and vital function.

I watched the video and believe that "the system worked" statement is being twisted a bit. My take is that Sec. Napolitano was referring to the post incident processes (notifiying other airlines, increased security put in place, etc), not the prevention of the incident itself. However, you can be your own judge and reach whatever conclusion you'd like.

Wow! Was that take determined before of after what Janet said on NBC this morning! Where she claims the statement "the system worked" was taken out of the context of what she actually meant to say, that "the system worked" only was referring to the "system" of after incident response, and should not be viewed in the context of the entire conversation regarding the complete failure of the 'lets identify and treat appropriately individuals who seek to attack us" system.

Because of that obvious confusion on the part of everyone who does not employ the fine art of partisan motivated hair splitting analysis defense she has now stated what any person with a minimum of brain capacity knows:

A day after saying the system worked, Napolitano backtracked, saying her words had been taken out of context.

"Our system did not work in this instance," she said on NBC television's "TODAY" show. "No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34610850

It should be noted that Napolitano was not the only administration official “taken out of context”, Robert Gibbs was parroting the same pabulum propaganda on ABC’s This week and CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/us/29terror.html?pagewanted=1

Sorry, didn't watch NBC or any other media about the statement, just the video on the CNN page you linked. Interesting that my take is apparently what she meant. Oh well.

Although you may think I know something............you're taking your clairvoyance to a new height. Your lack of posting on the forum during the Bush Administration and your incessant posting and criticism of minutiae regarding the current Administration puts you on the right fringe.

The fact that you are incapable of seeing the duplicity regarding the "Mission Accomplished" and "You're doing a great job Brownie" pretty much seals your deal.

Clearly, higher levels in the administration dictated to her to state the truth regarding the matter.

Unfortunately, you'll never give credit where it's due for this 180 degree reversal.

She was pretty useless when she was running Arizona into the ground, no reason to assume she'd be anything better running DHS.

As I said in another post. The only question of any meaning here is why the guy was not intercepted the instant he bought a ticket, given that his name was already on a terror suspect list. The excuses of the burocracy will be BS just as much as they would have been BS under the previous administration.

- Peter.

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