CANADA

CANADA

The Toronto Star, Jan. 6: Americans were understandably appalled at the security lapses that led to the Christmas Day terror scare on a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit. Indeed, President Barack Obama’s anger was still evident yesterday, as he said the existing system “failed in a potentially disastrous way” because U.S. officials failed to connect the dots.

But is the answer to turn 630 million people from 14 mainly Muslim countries into terror suspects? Washington now regards Nigeria, Pakistan and a dozen other nations as security sieves.

Before they can fly to the U.S., people with passports from these countries will now face full-body pat-downs and their carry-on baggage will be searched.

‘National profiling’

Obama defended the new “national profiling” net and other security measures yesterday. But it remains to be seen whether they are the best response to a single, if serious, scare — the botched bid to blow a Northwest jet out of the air.

Better screening would require better-trained airport staff. But that makes more sense than having poorly trained staffers giving every single passenger a quick once-over. To a trained expert, Abdulmutallab’s cash purchase of a one-way ticket and his lack of checked luggage, might well have triggered the alarms that could have stopped him from boarding.

AUSTRALIA

The Australian, Jan. 6: Even after a decade of watching al-Qaida inflict evil all over the world, it is impossible not to be alarmed by its appalling opportunism. There is no place on the planet where Osama bin Laden or any of his acolytes could raise their standard with any hope of attracting popular support. So al-Qaida attaches itself to other people’s causes, using them as a cloak to plan mayhem and misery. There is no doubting the importance of Islam in Afghanistan and the religious faith of members of the Taliban who defeated the Soviet Union and its client regime. But ever since, they have been in an uneasy alliance with al-Qaida, who brought the wrath of the U.S. down on them after September 11, 2001. Now al-Qaida operatives have placed Yemen under a similar spotlight.

Domestic war

As in Afghanistan, the terrorists are attempting to take over a domestic war, which may have a religious dimension but certainly not of the kind al-Qaida imposes. In Yemen, Shia people in the impoverished north are in rebellion against the Sunni government in the south. As usual in such struggles, theology comes a distant second to geopolitics and regional powers are using the rebellion to suit their own interests. The Saudis are assisting the government and there are allegations that Shia Iran is helping its co-religionists.

But there is no doubt al-Qaida operatives are using the mayhem to impose their clerical code on the country’s north, and use it as a new base to recruit and train terrorists.