WASHINGTON — Eight years after the infamous 9/11 attacks, we still see glaring flaws in our airport security. Why? Why? Why???
Why was Nigerian National Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to bomb the Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas day, not given a good second looking over before he boarded the plane?
He was on a terrorism watch list with 550,000 people. He bought a one way ticket with cash. The warning signs were there. The security was not.
Maybe we have to forget about doing second screenings at airports for grannies with walkers. We don’t need to arbitrarily start profiling. But when folks like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab step up to the counter, the red flags should go up.
There may be no way to close every little security gap. Not everyone with an evil thought is on some kind of warning list. But let’s at least pay attention to those who are!
We can’t keep relying on luck and incompetent terrorists to fall short of their goal.
