Fly Or No Fly?

Despite warnings from Washington insiders of shock expected to follow from reading an unclassified report about the ease with which the latest muslim airline bomber boarded a plane, in fact, it is not shock we readers will feel. It is disgust. And anger.

The solution to the threat of muslim terrorists flying the unfriendly skies? Diane Feinstein nailed it.

She said we should create a "very comprehensive no-fly list"

In an interview, she said the definition of who can be included should be expanded to include anyone about whom there is "a reasonable suspicion."

Since 100% of airborne terrorist attacks have been committed by muslims, and roughly 99% of ground-based attacks have also been the work of muslims, the people who belong on the No-Fly list are...? Can you guess?

However, if we accept the democratic principle of the Department of Homeland Security that ALL people are equally likely to be airborne terrorists, therefore making it necessary to impose onerous security procedures on everyone, let us put EVERYONE on the No-Fly list and require EVERYONE to demonstrate their fitness to board an airplane before removing them from the No-Fly list and allowing them the privilege of air travel.

National security adviser: Airline bomber report to 'shock'

WASHINGTON — White House national security adviser James Jones says Americans will feel "a certain shock" when they read an account being released Thursday of the missed clues that could have prevented the alleged Christmas Day bomber from ever boarding the plane.

President Obama "is legitimately and correctly alarmed that things that were available, bits of information that were available, patterns of behavior that were available, were not acted on," Jones said in an interview Wednesday with USA TODAY.

"That's two strikes," Obama's top White House aide on defense and foreign policy issues said, referring to the foiled bombing of the Detroit-bound airliner and the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, in November. In that case, too, officials failed to act when red flags were raised about an Army psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Hasan. He has been charged with killing 13 people.

Jones said Obama "certainly doesn't want that third strike, and neither does anybody else."

The White House plans to release an unclassified report Thursday on what went wrong in the incident involving a 23-year-old Nigerian man who tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight.

In Detroit Wednesday, the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was indicted on charges that include attempted murder and trying to use a weapon of mass destruction to kill nearly 300 people. Abdulmutallab, who faces life in prison if convicted, is to appear for the first time in federal court Friday.

He has told investigators that he was trained and equipped in Yemen by a group affiliated with al-Qaeda. His father had gone to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria to warn American officials that his son seemed to be turning to extremist ideology.

Even so, Abdulmutallab's visa to the U.S. wasn't revoked and he wasn't placed on the "no-fly" list.

Jones said the remedies involve "tweaks" rather than the overhaul that followed the Sept. 11 attacks— for instance, hiring for intelligence agencies so analysts aren't overwhelmed by their workload.

"We know what happened, we know what didn't happen, and we know how to fix it," Jones, a retired four-star Marine general, said in an interview in his West Wing office. "That should be an encouraging aspect. We don't have to reinvent anything to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Senate Intelligence Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said a "very comprehensive no-fly list" would be "the greatest protection our country has." In an interview, she said the definition of who can be included should be expanded to include anyone about whom there is "a reasonable suspicion."