Options for preventing attacks

I am really surprised at the nation's ho-hum reaction to the recent failed attack on Northwest Airline Flight 253 bound for Detroit on Christmas day. It has only been a little over eight years since the last successful attack on the homeland. How soon we have forgotten and become complacent. Everyone should be breathing a collective sigh of relief that this terrorist was incompetent and unsuccessful. So should we rely solely on the ineptitude of terrorists to prevent future attacks?

The recent headline, "Lawmakers' goal: One step ahead", is a no-brainer, but how do you stay one step ahead? The article essentially lays out two approaches being considered by lawmakers. One approach is enhanced airport screening using full-body imaging and/or randomly choosing people to take off shoes, belts, other clothes, open bags, confiscate sharp objects and tubes of liquid, etc. Nearly everyone who has flown since 911 has either seen or experienced one of these methods. (If they're going to take my toothpaste, at least give me a few bucks to replace it.) Now this method isn't being touted as a cure-all, but if it's important now, why didn't TSA continue to employ them, or better yet, why did Congress, in their oversight role, become lax in pressing them to continue employing them? I don't know how a terrorist could carry out his or her plans if this method was fully employed, but I don't want to kill the infidel either. Faith makes people do extraordinary things...for better or worse.

The second approach is not politically correct but is more effective; therefore it will probably not be employed based on the desire of most politicians not to offend anyone...even the sworn enemies of America whom we are formally fighting in two countries. That approach is Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn's desire to "treat Abdulmutallab as an enemy combatant." A spokeswoman for the senator said, "Cornyn thinks the Nigerian suspect shouldn’t have been given a lawyer, read his rights and encouraged to remain silent. Cornyn believes we must put a stop to this harmful trend and afford our intelligence community with the tools they need to secure the American people before we afford would-be-terrorists rights they have not earned." In other words, ask him some questions without a lawyer present which leads to the second part of this approach: information sharing. “It looks like various parts of the government had pieces of information, but they just weren’t put together,” said Texas Republican Congressman Thornberry. Remember the 911 report which chastised the intelligence community for not sharing information? Do we need another successful attack, another report and another bureaucracy?

If he had been a citizen, he would and should have these rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. However, he is not a citizen, so he has not earned them and should not be afforded them. Now that he has been told to remain silent and has counsel for his defense, he cannot "give up" the names, addresses and phone numbers of the other terrorists in his network, which by now has probably morphed into a new group with the same goal. Instead, he has been charged with attempting to destroy an airplane and for putting an explosive device on the same. Since he is being treated like a criminal instead of an enemy combatant, how about 289 counts of attempted murder? Is the DOJ more concerned with an airplane than with people? Is this justice?

The primary job of the federal government is to protect and defend the citizens of this country and its Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic. It seems that the politicians would rather take away more of our liberties than defend them.