The Xmas bomber: No big deal?
DAVID BROOKS: To me, the whole reaction was overwrought.
We have all these geniuses who are, post hoc, that they could have figured out if only they were in place, sort of a hysteria calling for Janet Napolitano’s head, calling for this person’s head.
The fact is that we have this vast bureaucracy. The NSA, National Security Agency, alone captures four times as much data per day as exists in the Library of Congress. They do a pretty good job of reducing the risk of terrorist attack. Occasionally, somebody gets through. That is going to inevitably happen.
We should have some sort of steady, level-headed response. That is the sign of a resilient nation. We don’t have it. We have had the last week of the whole country going — or at least the punditocracy — going into semi-hysteria over this. And it’s just not the sign of a serious country. And I think nobody has covered themselves with glory in all this.
I’m a huge David Brooks fan, but I’m not with him on this one at all. Contrast Terry Moran, talking to Rep. Pete Hoekstra on ABC:
MORAN: Well, let me ask Congressman Hoekstra about something else Senator Lieberman said, and that is the pace of the Al Qaida operational tempo this year accelerating and some missed signals already in the Little Rock recruiting office, essentially. Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, also known as Carlos Bledsoe, he was the subject of an FBI investigation. At the Fort Hood military post, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, of course, also the subject of a federal inquiry. And on Northwest Flight 253, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was also the subject of FBI — of the intelligence community’s attention.
Congressman Hoekstra, what is happening here, eight years after 9/11, a failure to connect these dots? Or is it just as many terrorism experts say, time that we have to face the fact that maybe we won’t be able to stop every potential attack?
Three attacks in one year, all with apparently significant warnings missed by the intelligence community. I accept the proposition that we can’t stop every attack. But it seems that these attacks are the kind we could stop if we were paying more attention.