Hayward, Barone: It's Time To Hulk Out On National Security

John Hayward, Staff Writer 11.18.10 Last Christmas, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to detonate his explosive-laced underwear on a passenger flight bound for Detroit. He walked past the Department of Homeland Security and Transportation Security Agency to take his seat, and only the heroic last-minute actions of the other passengers on Northwest Flight 253 dragged him out of it before he could murder them. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano declared “the system worked,” and proceeded to approve intrusive body-scanning and pat-down measures that have driven airline passengers into a state of near-revolt, but which would not have done anything to stop Abdulmutallab. Yesterday Ahmed Gailani – an al-Qaeda terrorist who murdered 224 people, including a dozen Americans, in Tanzania and Kenya - skipped out of a New York courtroom with nothing but property-damage charges sticking to him. He faces a minimum sentence of 20 years, which does not mean he will be in prison until 2030. The Obama Department of Justice is “pleased” with this outcome. Drug-fueled violence on the Mexican border is spilling over into the United States. Captain Stacy Holland of the Texas Department of Public Safety told Fox News “it’s war on the border.” Illegal aliens bring everything from violent crime to deadly traffic accidents into the country. Half of them pass through Arizona, which got tired of watching the federal government refuse to enforce its immigration laws. When the state government stepped in to provide that enforcement, they were mercilessly attacked by the same people in D.C. who had previously ignored them. The President recently deployed 1,200 National Guard troops to assist with border security, but that’s only 20% of the force President Bush dispatched in 2006, and all they can do is play hide-and-seek with cartels and human-smuggling coyotes. Legendary Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio is putting together a volunteer posse, which gained star power with the involvement of duly deputized action star Steven Seagal, and “Incredible Hulk” actor Lou Ferrigno. Together, these and other incidents paint a picture of a national-security crisis. Our new Congressional representatives should do what they can to address it swiftly, before anyone else gets killed. — John Hayward