Obama Confirms AQ Behind Crotch Bomber

Although this is not news, here it is.

President Barack Obama on Saturday blamed an al Qaida affiliate for training and equipping the man who allegedly smuggled explosives aboard a Detroit-bound airliner in a failed bombing plot on Christmas Day.

The president gave his most detailed comments to date on the bombing attempt. A 23-year-old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, allegedly boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 carrying explosives. Quick action by other passengers thwarted his alleged attempt to detonate them.

Obama said Abdulmutallab traveled to Yemen, where "it appears that he joined an affiliate of al Qaida, and that this group, al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America."

The same group killed one American in a bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen in 2008, Obama said. It also has bombed Yemeni government facilities, Western hotels, restaurants and other embassies in recent years, he said.

Obama said the U.S. would strengthen its cooperation with the government of Yemen to train and equip Yemeni security forces and share intelligence in a fight against al Qaida terrorists…

Inserted from <McClatchy DC>

Despite calls from idiots, teabaggers and GOP legislators to invade Yemen, Obama is doing the right thing here.  Why invade a country that is and has been cooperating?  Claims from idiots, teabaggers, and GOP legislators that Obama is somehow at fault for this are equally ludicrous.

These are the facts in this case.  The TSA policies that failed were set up during the Bush/GOP regime.  Any changes to improve them that the Obama administration might have made have been delayed, because Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) put a hold on Erroll Southers, Obama’s appointee to head the TSA.  The crotch bomber received his US visa during the Bush/GOP regime.  The crotch bomber was allowed to visit the US on two previous occasions during the Bush/GOP regime.  At the Saudis’ request, in order to garner their support for the Iraq war, the Bush/GOP regime released several Yemini AQ operatives from the GOP Gitmo Gulag, ignoring objections from both the military and the CIA that these men were terrorists who had expressed their determination to attack the US.  These may have been the very men who trained and equipped the crotch bomber.  These are the facts in this case.  When idiots, teabaggers, and GOP minions tell you the big lie that Obama is at fault for this, remember and repeat them.

And when they say that the Democrats’ policies are responsible for 9/11 early in the Bush/GOP regime, remember and repeat this:  When, less than a month before 9/11, CIA Director George Tenet sent a CIA agent all the way to Crawford to brief Bush that AQ intended an imminent attack against the US using airplanes, Bush brushed him off dismissively, “OK you covered your butt.”