Credit Where Credit is Due

I wrote yesterday's blog very early, even before I had a chance to read the news and lo and behold what do I read after posting the blog? That an arrest has been made in the Times Square bombing attempt. From the time the bomb was found to the time the arrest had been made was less than 54 hours. That isn't just amazing, it is astounding. For all the talk that many of our politicians and pundits in Washington have been spewing about how there is a lack of security in this country under the current administration or how we are more vulnerable now than we ever were before I would simply point to this arrest as a sign of the system working when it's given a chance.

Sure there will always be mistakes made. Perhaps if we'd paid more attention then Pearl Harbor or the attacks of 9/11 could have been averted but in this case, the system was given a chance and it worked. I wouldn't call it a perfect system but nor would I simply characterize this as a case of blind stinking luck. I recall the case of Mir Aimal Kasi who killed two CIA employees outside of its Langley Headquarters in 1993. He had plenty of time to escape after those attacks and was living in Pakistan for several years until he was finally arrested and extradited to the United States. In that case it took years to catch the culprit and bring him to justice. Now in this case, the arrested Times Square suspect, Faisal Shahzad, was arrested as he prepared to board a flight bound for Dubai. Had things not gone well, it's possible that Shahzad could have also fled as Kasi did and lived a life away from the US for a number of years.

Now perhaps Shahzad isn't the only culprit and perhaps he isn't completely guilty (though I have already read reports that he's confessed to plotting the attack) but the mere fact that he's been arrested and is in custody speaks well of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Perhaps all the efforts that were taken to streamline the flow of information to all concerned agencies is really happening. Of course that's not good enough for folks in the opposition parties. They seem to think that nothing is good enough. I sometimes think that even if their kids bring home a perfect report card they'd still expect (or perhaps demand) an even higher performance.

Regardless of what the opposition party states (oh Hell... I'll just say Republicans) they have to give credit where credit is due. I'm not saying that they must credit the Obama Administration, but they shouldn't lambast the efforts of our law enforcement groups who supposedly read Shahzad his Miranda Rights while arresting him. Why behave as if now we'll never unravel the mystery behind this case. Can these same politicians really point to cases where suspects have been arrested as enemy combatants or terrorists and it has led to the complete destruction of terrorist cells? I don't know but I haven't heard of a slew of such cases despite the number of people who have been arrested as enemy combatants as opposed to violent criminals. I'm sure more details will be revealed in this vile act and more action will be taken against those who have attempted to attack our nation. I just wish some of these politicians and commentators could spend a little more time looking at the things that went right rather than pointing fingers like they always seem to do.