U.S. Security: Republicans Prefer Waterboarding

Brennan cited “a number of streams of information” — the 23-year-old suspect’s name was known to intelligence officials, his father had passed along his concern about the son’s increasing radicalization — and “little snippets” from intelligence channels. “But there was nothing that brought it all together.”

“In this one instance, the system didn’t work. There were some human errors. There were some lapses. We need to strengthen it. But day in and day out, the successes are there.”

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab apparently assembled an explosive device, including 80 grams of Pentrite, or PETN, in the aircraft toilet of a Detroit-bound Northwest flight, then planned to detonate it with a syringe of chemicals. Passengers and crew subdued the suspect when he tried to set off the explosion. He succeeded only in starting a fire on himself.

“What we need to do as an intelligence community, as a government, is be able to bring those disparate bits and pieces of information together so we prevent Mr. Abdulmutallab from getting on the plane.”

Republicans prefer waterboarding for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab  

(Op-Ed NY Times) – The sudden discovery that the United States has a major problem in Yemen reminded me of the brief trip to Sanaa that then-Secretary of State James Baker made on Thanksgiving Day in 1990.

Yemen at that time held a seat on the U.N. Security Council and Baker was trying to mobilize a majority for a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq — which four months earlier had invaded Kuwait.

We flew in from Saudi Arabia and the day began with a walking tour of the old city. Many of the merchants in the market had posters of Saddam Hussein prominently displayed but the atmosphere was unthreatening. Still, Baker’s security detail was on high alert. Many of the men milling around in the souk wore curved daggers stuck through their belts with richly decorated hilts made from rhinocerous horns or ivory.

In their meeting, Baker warned Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh he was risking $70 million in annual U.S. aid by refusing to cooperate with the United States in the Security Council. But in a press conference after the meeting, Saleh delivered a resounding no to the resolution. By late afternoon, we were on the plane heading back to Jeddah.

Later that month, when the resolution came up for a vote in New York, the Yemeni ambassador spoke first in the debate and vigorously attacked the United States and its allies. In his memoir, “From Political to Diplomacy” Baker wrote the following: “I scribbled a quick note to Bob Kimmitt (a senior aide). ‘Yemen’s permenant rep. just enjoyed about $200 to $250 million worth of applause for that speech’.”

… it seems fair to say that its worldview at that time looked at international relations as something to be carried on primarily between leaders rather than between nations.

If Yemen’s leaders offended the United States by voting the wrong way in the Security Council, Washington could react by cutting off aid to its people. After all, those people could not possibly ever be a threat to us.