Blame the Brits

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“ Profile This   [Mark Steyn] Andy [McCarthy], you're right to call out the President for taking refuge in discredited cliches about "crushing poverty" as a "root cause" of terrorism: Young Mr Abdulmuttalab lived in a London flat worth £2.5 million - ie, four million bucks. Still, it's good to know the President has abandoned his laughable assurances that the Pantybomber was an "isolated extremist". After all, when the leader of the global hyperpower says things that any reasonably informed person at home and abroad knows are complete twaddle, he makes his country look stupid to the world. But I think we're still missing the larger point here. So the President's conceded Mr Abdulmuttalab was in Yemen. Good. But, by the time a guy gets on the plane to Sana'a, he's already on board for jihad. All they do in Yemen is the training. So where was he radicalized and recruited and when did he decide to embrace a life of terror? Well, look at it this way while you're standing in line at Atlanta or LAX. After 9/11, our pen-knives and other sharp implements were confiscated. After the Shoebomber, we began the shoeless shuffle. After the 2006 Heathrow plots, we had to restrict our liquids and gels and place them in small bags for separate scanning. And now, after the Pantybomber, we can't use the toilet for the last hour or put a paperback on our lap or whatever the TSA's idiocy du jour is. Whom should the traveling public thank for these impositions? The 9/11 killers were mostly Saudi. But the Shoebomber was a British subject. So were the Heathrow plotters. And the Pantybomber was educated in British schools - first in Togo; then at University College, London - and there is plenty of evidence he was radicalized while in the UK. So three of the four circles of homeland security hell with which the public are tortured are British in origin. [Continued] ”