Sometimes We Are Our Own Worst Enemy

Jnauray 1, 2010 — This is not the best way to start out this blog in the new year, but I just cannot let this story of the intelligence failures concerning the Nigerian who tried to blow up the Delta flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day pass.

The President has called this "human and systemic failures" and that those failures led up to this terrorist attempt to kill innocent people. Gee, no kidding Mr. President. What that really means is someone didn't do their job and the system they work in does not readily support them in doing their job. This story (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34637190/ns/politics-the_new_york_times/) from MSNBC.com and first reported in the New York Times readily points out some of those human and systemic failures and brings to light what always happens and that's the finger pointing that goes on in our government. Little Johnny saying..."I didn't do it, he did!" Please, give me a break.

If it is known that there were "humans" that had responsibility for knowing that this Nigerian was a terrorist threat and that the information should have been shared, then those people should be immediately and without question fired! End of story on the human part of it, but there is still a larger problem to be fixed and that's the system.

There is no doubt in my mind that this country possesses the greatest capability in the world to collect human, electronic, photographic, and communications intelligence. And yet we can't get out of our own way. This is not a new systemic problem Mr. President...it has been there, I am betting, since the collection of intelligence data began. I don't pretend to know the ends and outs of our intelligence gathering activities and all the agencies that do this work. It has, however, been pointed out in the not to distant past that those agencies do not readily share their information. It's like my friend Little Johnny telling me..."I know something you don't know, nah, nah!" There have been attempts in the past to fix this systemic failure, but obviously only band-aids were applied and no real fix was employed.

As long as we continue to allow one intelligence agency or another to hold their secrets, then we are going to continue to have the potential for another disaster to occur such as the one attempted on Christmas Day. The system must be fixed and it is we the people that have the power to do that. We must demand that it be fixed. Islamic terrorist are not going to cease what they are doing and we have to have a system of whatever in place that functions to meet the threat of terrorism at every turn. To do otherwise is to run the risk of the contiuned slaughter of innocent people.

Let me state this again. We the people have the power to fix this system. It's not just the Obama administration or the Congress that will get this done, but each and everyone of us caring about our freedoms and the right to exist in a world with little or no fears...it's what really matters!