All Systems Go! (Or Stop, Or. . .)

“And one thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked.” – Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, after a terrorist’s bomb failed to explode on a Detroit-bound jet.

“Great system, Janet Baby!”  -- Osama Bin Laden, master terrorist vowing to stop hiring explosives experts trained by Homeland Security.

Federal authorities have charged a Nigerian man with terrorism after an explosive he smuggled aboard a jet bound from Europe to Detroit burned instead of exploding, but no charges have been filed against the Obama administration bureaucrats who let him fly in the first place.

Nor have charges been filed against the “security” teams in Nigeria and Europe who let a 20-something guy with no checked luggage buy a ticket with cash and board a U.S.-bound jetliner with a six-inch tube of explosive and a chemical-filled syringe.

Nor have charges been filed against the system-loving bureaucrats at the U.S. embassy in Nigeria who didn’t do much after they heard this guy’s father warn that his son was  an incipient nut case who seemed to hate Americans and belong to the radical Islamist fringe.

In all of these cases, everyone was just doing their job in a working system.

So Janet Napolitano may be right that the system worked, but maybe we ought to think about a different system. Our responses to terrorists with this one haven’t been stellar.

Richard Reid tried to blow up a Miami-bound jetliner in 2001 with a similar explosive in his shoe. Our final threat response was to make everyone take off their shoes before going through airline passenger screening.

Since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to set off a bomb hidden in his pants, perhaps our final response will be to make everyone take off their pants before entering the metal detector.

That could be effective, since the sight of millions of Americans trying to travel barefoot and bareass might so distract the terrorists that they wouldn’t have time to find another place to put a bomb. Or buy one that works.

However this all sorts out, it will certainly be interesting. Will Janet Napolitano stick with her working system? Will Osama Bin Laden finally hire someone who knows something about explosives?

Stay tuned. The program, alas, is far from over.

###