Janet Napolitano: "the system worked" ... really?

In a recent CNN interview after the failed terrorist bomb attempt to bring down a Northwest jet, Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano stated:

“One thing I want to point out is that the system worked. Everybody played an important role here. The passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action.”

Knowing what we now know, if Napolitano really believes that the system worked then she needs to be replaced immediately. The system failed and it failed big time. The only thing that saved that jet was the inability of the terrorist to bring about an explosion. His efforts resulted in a fire; but not the explosion he had hoped to achieve.

It seems that the entire process of air travel needs to be re-examined. Working the lines of travelers the TSA security personnel are diligently finding and confiscating sharp objects, checking our shoes and laptops and seizing over sized tubes of toothpaste, while the highly paid experts at CIA and Homeland Security cannot recognize a possible terrorist even when that individual is called to their attention by a relative. To the average American with no more than a high school education a Nigerian flying on a one way ticket paid for with cash and having no checked baggage would probably raise suspicion. Those having this info and even more did not see this individual as suspicious. Janet Napolitano should immediately resign (or be fired) and all those in every agency who dropped the ball in this case should be reassigned to less intellectually demanding positions.

The current practice of allowing passengers to carry on all their baggage and then jamming it in the overhead compartments must stop. TSA personnel are spending too much time screening this stuff and too little time on screening passengers and the smaller items they carry on board. Airlines created this baggage problem when they began charging for checked baggage and it must stop.

Like many Americans I am losing confidence in the ability of our protective agencies to do their job. The Secret Service could not identify and stop a couple from crashing a formal White House state dinner. At the risk of being politically incorrect and viewed as profiling the U.S Army could not protect its own soldiers from an Islamic extremist on the grounds of Ft. Hood Texas and now we have the debacle of Northwest flight.

Today former vice-president Dick Cheney accused the President of "trying to pretend we are not at war". I am no fan of the former VP; but his accusatory comment speaks for the millions of Americans who dutifully go through the TSA airport security lines shedding their shoes and coats, having bags checked over and scrutinized and on occasion being subjected to a pat down body search while a wanabe Islamic terrorist with numerous indicators of suspicious behavior is allowed to board a U.S bound jet with bomb making chemicals in his boxers.

President Obama may say that we are at war with terrorists; but the carelessness of the CIA and the absurd comment that "the system worked" by Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano along with the failings of other agencies seems to support Cheney's comment that the administration's efforts are not as serious as President Obama states and the American public expect.