We have been inundated here on news shows with the Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab since it happened – or nearly happened if you like; every news programme, every magazine programme - every day.
There are a few things about the whole episode and Mister Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab which fascinates me.
First of all I am using his full name of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and not just Abdulmutallab in case there are lots of other Abdulmutallabs and you get mixed up as to which Abdulmutallab I am talking about.
Number one: doesn't he look a lot like Tiger Woods? He does, doesn't he – will they be asking Cuba Gooding Jr to play him too?
Another thing which I find intriguing is the list of bad guy countries that have been red flagged for special attention; you know countries like Iran, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen and Cuba; Cuba??? Cuba?????
Can't the Americans get rid of the 'hard on' they have for Cuba after all this time? It's all over - the Cubans have no plans, I'm sure, to invade or even attack America.
After Hurricane Katrina Castro offered help and the USA ignored him; what does America want Cuba to do now?
Castro got rid of a very very corrupt government run by the American Mafia, turned the country from being mostly illiterate to mostly literate by sending young student teachers into the rural areas to teach reading to workers in isolated spots throughout the country; he established a universal health care system and before he reached towards the USSR Castro reached towards the USA to recognise his government and the USA refused.
The USA recognised the Batista government in Cuba immediately after the Batista military coup which happened overnight a short time before a general election; after the coup Batista worked with the mob and the mob had their own country which Castro got rid of – I am still bewildered!
Castro is reputed to have done some bad things too but show me a leader who hasn't!
But back to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab; I know we have seen a lot of 'after the event' wisdom with the accusation that the USA security services didn't join the dots.
Well you know sometimes there are so many dots that they are hard to join up.
I have heard that the embassies around the world get one hundred and thirty five tips per day about some individual or other being a bad guy so Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's father's information must have been lost in the mix; the fact that the security services had heard that there was a Nigerian in Yemen who was being trained by Al Qaeda must also have been lost in the mix and when he booked his ticket one way and paid cash and had no baggage for his trip must also have gone astray.
An ex-CIA man on the radio the other day was asked why Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was refused a visa to enter Britain and granted one for the USA and he answered 'because the British are better at this game than we are.'
I think he meant that there are so many law enforcement agencies in the USA that they seem to fight each other and they don't have computers that speak to each so things tend to – get lost in the mix.
But what gets me about Mister Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and the other terrorists from Al-Qaeda who carried out the nine eleven attacks is why they didn't buy round trip tickets, why they didn't have luggage with them and why they paid in cash.
These are the three things that WE all know about so why didn't Mister Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and the nine eleven terrorists go through the motions of packing bags and buying round trip tickets? To pretend they were regular passengers? WTF?
By the way my friend Jim wrote in the comments after my last post about the Christmas trees and the fact that the Americans tend to take them down too early:
For the record, my mom who's 86 celebrated Christmas with me in Canada with a tree I cut down with my handy axe (actually my friend's axe)in the real wilderness of Northern Manitoba and had a cousin's two 6-yr olds and myself and some people in their 70's decorate it. And it's still standing in my mom's living room, although she thinks it might come down this week-end. Cheers to trees staying up as long as they can, don't we owe it to them?
I can vouch that Jim did cut down the tree and there's a photo up at the top to prove it but the reason the trees are supposed to come down on twelfth night (apart from being a fire hazard when the needles fall off) is that it is supposed to be unlucky and according to the traditions of man, and not the Bible, January 6 is the Epiphany - sometimes called "Little Christmas" or "Little Epiphany" - and is the day the Magi met the newborn King and presented him with his royal gifts.
It is explained to children that, if you take down your lights before January 6, the Wise Men may not be able to find their way, even though all the Christmas lights in the world, combined, would not be as bright as the star God used to guide them.
Taking down ornaments on January 6 is a European tradition still followed by many people of German, Polish and Czech ancestry. The tradition, in part, dates before 1900 when ornaments were often real fruit, nuts and marzipan and would be eaten.
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