Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab

Thankfully, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, 23, failed in his attempt to detonate explosives aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253.

Oddly, the White House is referring to the incident as "an attempted act of terrorism."

From the New York Times:

A Nigerian man tried to ignite an explosive device aboard a trans-Atlantic Northwest Airlines flight as the plane prepared to land in Detroit on Friday, in an incident the United States believes was “an attempted act of terrorism,” according to a White House official who declined to be identified.

The device, described by officials as a mixture of powder and liquid, failed to fully detonate. Passengers on the plane described a series of pops that sounded like firecrackers.

Federal officials said the man wanted to bring the plane down.

...It was unclear how the man, identified by federal officials as Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, managed to get the explosive on the plane, an Airbus A330 wide-body jet carrying 278 passengers that departed from Amsterdam with passengers who had originated in Nigeria. A senior administration official said that the government did not yet know whether the man had had the capacity to take down the plane.

“We’re trying to ascertain exactly what he had and what he thought he was doing, but our sense is he wanted to wreak some havoc here and was attempting to do just that,” the official said. “Whether at the end of the day he had the ability to do that is what I think we’ll be able to pull together over the next several days as we investigate this.”

A senior Department of Homeland Security official said that the materials Mr. Abdulmutallab had on him were “more incendiary than explosive,” and that he had tried to ignite them to cause a fire as the airliner was approaching Detroit.

Mr. Abdulmutallab told law enforcement authorities, the official said, that he had had explosive powder taped to his leg and that he had mixed it with chemicals held in a syringe.

A federal counterterrorism official who asked not to be identified said Mr. Abdulmutallab was apparently in a government law enforcement-intelligence database, but it is not clear what extremist group or individuals he might be linked to.

“It’s too early to say what his association is,” the counterterrorism official said. “At this point, it seems like he was acting alone, but we don’t know for sure.” Although Mr. Abdulmutallab is said to have told officials that he was directed by Al Qaeda, the counterterrorism official expressed caution about that claim, saying “it may have been aspirational.”

...President Obama was kept informed throughout the day as he spent Christmas with his family and friends at a secluded Hawaiian beach house. After a secure conference call, he was given several follow-up briefings on paper. John O. Brennan, the White House counterterrorism chief, convened an interagency meeting in the late afternoon to go over what was known about the incident and discuss what precautions should be taken.

A second Department of Homeland Security official said that the Transportation Security Administration used layers of security measures at the nation’s airports and that it would be tightening them as a result of the incident in Detroit.

These measures — some visible to passengers, some not — include bomb-sniffing dog teams, carry-on luggage and passenger screening measures, and plainclothes behavioral-detection specialists inside airport terminals. The official said there were no immediate plans to elevate the nation’s threat level, which has been at orange since 2006.

I thought the Obama administration was going to dump the color code system. Why is the nation's threat level even being discussed? Isn't that a Bush era relic?

I thought Janet Napolitano was going to create another system.

It seems strange for Obama's regime to acknowledge the orange threat level. It was supposed to do better and revamp system. I guess that's still on the to-do list.

Napolitano doesn't even like to use the term "terrorism." She prefers "man-caused disasters."

From Napolitano's interview with Der Spiegel:

SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, in your first testimony to the US Congress as Homeland Security Secretary you never mentioned the word "terrorism." Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?

Napolitano: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word "terrorism," I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.

She is a scary woman.

So why is the Obama administration using the term "terrorism" in the case of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab?

What's with all the politics of fear being bandied about? On Christmas Day, Team Obama decides to talk "terrorism"?

That's quite a departure.

I'm not at all surprised that Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, an extremist claiming to have received orders from al Qaeda, wanted to bring down the plane.

We know the enemy and we know they want to kill us.

I wonder why the Obama administration is being so quick to throw around the term "terrorism" and to stress Mutallab's possible al Qaeda connections.

It seems kind of politics of fear-ish to me.

Here's more about Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab and his attempt to blow up Flight 253:

A Nigerian man with reported links to Al-Qaeda attempted to blow up a US airliner as it began its descent into Detroit before being tackled by passengers and crew, officials said.

Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab was badly burned in the botched Christmas Day terror attack as he tried to set off a sophisticated explosive device on the Northwest Airlines Flight which had 278 passengers on board, witnesses said.

...Abdulmutallab told the authorities after being taken into custody that he had used a syringe filled with chemicals to mix with powder taped to his leg in a bid to cause an explosion, according to senior officials quoted by US media.

White House officials and US lawmakers confirmed that the incident was a terror attack and President Barack Obama, on Christmas vacation with his family in Hawaii, ordered security measures to be stepped up at airports.

"We believe this was an attempted act of terrorism," a senior White House official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

...Abdulmutallab was reportedly receiving treatment for third-degree burns to his legs at the University of Michigan Medical Center in the nearby Michigan city of Ann Arbor.

...The suspect also told the authorities he was following orders from Al-Qaeda, according to US media reports, but counter-terrorism officials said it was too early to know for sure and suggested he could have been acting alone.

US media, citing a federal security bulletin, said the man told investigators he had acquired the explosive device in Yemen, along with instructions as to when it should be used.

I would like some consistency from the Obama administration.

I don't think it's appropriate for a White House official to declare the Christmas Day incident aboard Flight 253 to be "an attempted act of terrorism."

Wasn't it more of "an attempted man-caused disaster"?

I think that works better with the new world order in the era of Obama.

The end of the global war on terror occurred long ago.

This is all rather confusing, isn't it?

But this much is certain: Obama would never utilize the politics of fear the way the Bush administration allegedly did. Right?

Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab did not attempt an act of terrorism. He was trying to achieve a man-caused disaster.

Everyone relax. Don't be afraid. Obama is the president.