He's back -- Osama bin Laden vows more attacks on United States

Some guys never give up. We're referring, of course, to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who apparently released a new audiotape claiming responsibility for a failed attack on an airliner on Christmas Day and threatened new attacks against the United States. The authenticity of the new message was not confirmed by the White House, which characterized it as "hollow justification" for the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on New York and Washington, according to the Reuters international news service. In the tape, the voice presumed to be bin Laden's said the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 near Detroit was a continuation of its fight against the United States for backing Israel's survival in the Middle East. "Our attacks against you will continue as long as U.S. support for Israel continues," bin Laden said on the tape. "It is not fair that Americans should live in peace as long as our brothers in Gaza live in the worst conditions." Bin Laden also praised the foiled attack on the plane by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was subdued by fellow passengers before he could ignite chemicals he had been hiding in his underwear. U.S. President Barack Obama, to whom the tape was addressed, said shortly after the failed attack that a wing of the terrorist group based in Yemen was responsible. So, it looks like al-Qaida is still in business -- but so, obviously, is the United States. The spectacularly cataclysmic al-Qaida attack that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York did not, as bin Laden apparently thought, cause the collapse of the United States or the disengagement of its allies. In fact, the opposite has happened, despite the preposterously bad administration of George W. Bush in Washington. And, now, the failed attack on Northwest 253 has prompted an increase in military aid to Yemen and a series of attacks on suspected al-Qaida positions that reportedly killed several of the group's top leaders but not bin Laden himself, even though Yemen became a haven for al-Qaida fighters after the 2001 terrorist attacks, Reuters said. In perhaps the most encouraging development, Western powers have planned two international conferences this week in London to discuss their approaches to Yemen and Afghanistan. The embattled government in Sanaa also is reportedly trying to resist a Shiite rebellion in the country's north and separatists in the south, Reuters said.

White House report on failed airline bombing reveals glaring mistakes

We're all happy that the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines plane failed on Christmas Day when the alleged terrorist was overpowered and subdued by alert passengers. But a lot of people, including U.S. President Barack Obama, were not happy to find out that federal authorities knew the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab of Nigeria, posed a threat but hadn't yet placed him on a no-fly list. "The intelligence fell through the cracks," Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan told reporters Thursday, according to Cable News Network (CNN). "This happened in more than one organization." That could well be what happened, but it's far from reassuring. Nine years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington exposed major weaknesses in U.S. intelligence and led to the creation of a multibillion-dollar domestic security operation, the new apparatus failed a basic test. "Though all of the information was available to all-source analysts at the CIA and the NCTC [National Counter Terrorism Center] prior to the attempted attack, the dots were never connected," said the report, written by a Brennan-led panel. The dots were never connected? There are terrorists trying to kill us and the government is looking for dots? Maybe that's the problem, right there! It's sounds a little like all of the excuses we heard after the 9-11 attacks about how three hijacked airliners could have flown undisturbed for hours until they had crashed into buildings and killed thousands of people in New York and Washington in 2001, doesn't it? Isn't a little late for the country to rely on luck to prevent terrorist attacks? Or, if we were going to rely on luck, why did we spend those untold billions of dollars on security upgrades?