What Did He Say?

Friday’s Washington Times posted an article about President Obama’s recent speech on terrorism. The President explained that the threat of terrorist attacks in the United States has returned to pre-9/11 levels. That’s a great idea, but there are a few problems with it. First of all, even though it was not obvious until 9/11, the threat was there–we were fortunate to stop the millennium bomber who was planning to blow up LAX, we were not so fortunate in Oklahoma City, and I am sure there were many thwarted attacks we were unaware of. We really weren’t all that safe before 9/11, and we are even less safe now.

The article reports:

The Heritage Foundation has been cataloguing foiled terror attacks post-9/11 by Islamic groups. The number: 54.

James Carafano, a military analyst at Heritage, said the 1990s’ numbers “were a fraction of that.”

The article lists five attacks since 2009–two of which were successful:

Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad opened fire at a military recruiting office in Little Rock, Ark., in June 2009, killing one soldier.

Najibullah Zazi, who said he was a member of al Qaeda, tried to detonate bombs in New York City’s subway in September 2009.

• Army Maj. Nadal Malik Hassan opened fire at a soldier processing center at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to explode a bomb hidden in his underwear onboard a flight to Detroit in December 2009.

Faisal Shahzad attempted to detonate a car bomb in Times Square in May 2010.

It would be nice if we could declare that the war on terror was over and have it be so, but we are not there yet, and it is dangerous to presume that we are.

Enhanced by Zemanta