Faisal Shahzad's stupidity bailed us out, but the next terrorist may be smarter
Michael DalyDaily News
May 20, 2010
Check out the mug shot of the world's dumbest terrorist.
After his arrest, Faisal Shahzad was questioned in a Brooklyn hotel, where he spun fantasies about attacking Boston, Washington and landmarks across Manhattan and asked investigators why his car bomb in Times Square failed to go off.
The answer is this mutt was unable to build a working bomb almost any idiot could make.
And that was after he went all the way to Pakistan for bomb-making classes.
The problem is there must have been more than one student in the class and not all of them could have been dunces.
There is more than one school, and the next bomber is almost certain to be smarter.
He does not even need to be marginally smarter to buy the other kind of fertilizer.
Or to stop into a drugstore and an art supply store to get the makings of the explosive the bad guys call Mother of Satan.
Unfortunately, the recipe is instantly available online.
All it takes is someone not quite as stupid as Shahzad.
We can be sure they are out there, clever enough not to thwart themselves the way Shahzad did, the way the underwear bomber did, the way the shoe bomber did.
The ones to worry about are the ones like the would-be martyrs who were going to bomb the subway last fall.
They knew exactly how to build a bomb.
They really were thwarted, by cops and agents who did not get enough thanks.
And there are many more bad guys who will need thwarting.
That is why we need all the resources were can muster.
So I have to wonder why nobody seems excited about $308 million that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says New York has failed to spend on transit and port security.
Where is it?
Who has it?
Napolitano's people say it's with the New York State Office of Homeland Security, which promised to respond to questions yesterday, but never did.
Albany is renowned for wasting and diverting money.
But to just sit on it?
Why aren't the mayor and the governor demanding answers?
It's a third of a billion dollars at a time of war and financial crisis and it's supposedly just sitting around, doing nothing?
If the money really exists, then why haven't the MTA and the Port Authority heard about it?
Is some of it the money that magically began appearing this week?
Late Tuesday, the Port Authority was notified it was finally getting $36 million to harden a PATH tunnel and $5 million for cameras that it had been fighting to wrest from Napolitano's agency for more than two years.
Wednesday afternoon, Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) was notified by the state homeland security people that Napolitano's agency released another $80 million for mass transit security.
That makes $121 million suddenly free in two days.
"Maybe I'll call you in an hour and another $100 million will have come," King joked.
Logic suggests that the magic $121 million was part of the $308 million Napolitano has been saying we were just sitting on.
"I have no idea," King said. "Nobody knows what she's talking about."
Is it possible that Napolitano's agency started giving us these millions after she alleged that we already had them?
Or maybe it really has been sitting with the state people.
Napolitano is still ultimately responsible for ensuring the money is put quickly to use.
It's not good enough to say, "Hey, it's not me, it's those other hacks up in Albany!"
She is the one our President put in charge of the security of the homeland.
And we are the ones living in the bull's-eye, hoping against hope the next bomber is not as dumb as the one in the mug shot.