Another Obama Administration Failure to Prevent Terrorism

Late Friday, the FBI released a statement that shows the Obama Administration has once again exercised inexcusable negligence and failed to prevent terrorism:

…in early 2011, a foreign government asked the FBI for information about Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The request stated that it was based on information that he was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer, and that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups.

In response to this 2011 request, the FBI checked U.S. government databases and other information to look for such things as derogatory telephone communications, possible use of online sites associated with the promotion of radical activity, associations with other persons of interest, travel history and plans, and education history. The FBI also interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev and family members. The FBI did not find any terrorism activity, domestic or foreign, and those results were provided to the foreign government in the summer of 2011. The FBI requested but did not receive more specific or additional information from the foreign government.

So this foreign government (Russia?) contacted the FBI and told them the older Tsarnaev brother was a radical Muslim and was traveling overseas to join “underground groups”.  Tamerian was not a U. S. citizen.

So why the heck did we allow him back into the country?  And why was he not questioned when he later began posting jihadist videos on YouTube?  Again, he wasn’t a U. S. citizen.  By that time, he was an obvious candidate for deportation if not worse.

Of course, Obama himself did not make these decisions.  And micromanaging FBI investigations and DHS decisions is not his role.  But it happened under his watch and was influenced by his leadership.

(To be fair, the Russians failed in this episode as well.  Putin, a former KGB agent, cannot be happy about it.)

This episode is hardly in isolation.  The Obama administration has looked the other way in other cases of terrorism.  Benghazi was a spontaneous protest against a dumb YouTube video, remember?  The truth, of course, is that our people in Libya warned Washington about the danger and begged for more protection . . . and got less instead.  And Ft. Hood was “workplace violence.”  There were abundant warning signs beforehand in that case as well.  This attitude of negligence beforehand and head-in-the-sand afterwards has trickled down through the Obama administration . . . with deadly consequences.

Although I was on to this failure early on twitter (All the more reason to endure my rantings there.), I am now far from alone in my concern.  Although I do not think he called out Obama, Former CIA Director Jame Woolsey called the Boston Bombing “a government failure” on CNBC this morning.  No reasonable person can now question that the ball was dropped.  Strange how often that happens on poorly led teams.

Even in his strangely detached post-arrest statement, Obama spoke as if the motives behind the Boston bombing were still a mystery.  They are not at all.  The main motive is Jihadist Islam. 

Combine those brands of Islam with the Obama administration’s negligence, and you get Benghazi and Boston.