President Obama’s policies on National Defense and Foreign Policy have been in the news quite a bit lately now that Obama-care has passed and Congress is in recess. A few days ago I outlined how the Obama Administration announced that terms such as “Islamic Extremism” will be stripped from the central document defining the United States’ stances on National Security. It has now come to light that the Administration has decided to pull nations like Syria, Iran and Lebanon from the list of places where people traveling into the US will be put under heavier scrutiny by the FAA.

These nations were added to the list in January in response to the Underwear Bomber, Umar Faroul Abdul Mutallab, attempting to detonate a bomb hidden on his person as the international flight that he was a passenger on started it’s decent for landing over Detroit, Mi.

This from The World Tribune Online,

Officials said Syria was one of 14 countries exempted from additional airport security, a measure imposed in January 2010, Middle East Newsline reported. They said the regime of President Bashar Assad was cooperating in helping screen passengers on flights to the West.

“There are new measures that don’t require special treatment of passengers from Syria and other Muslim states,” an official said.

On April 6, the administration of President Barack Obama said the exemptions would also affect Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen.

For more than three months, passengers who came from these countries had been subjected to additional inspection, including patting down their entire body before boarding flights to the United States. Iran, Sudan and Syria have been on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist sponsors.

The measures were instituted on Jan. 3 in the wake of a failed bombing of a U.S. airliner by an Al Qaida agent from Nigeria. The would-be bomber, Omar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, had been on a no-fly list meant to prevent entry to the United States.

Officials said President Barack Obama ordered the review that led to the removal of Iran, Syria and other countries from a list that required intensified security measures. They said Obama has sought to base passenger screening in accordance with specific threats to the United States.

“These new, enhanced measures are part of a dynamic, threat-based aviation security system covering all passengers travelling by air to the U.S. while focusing security measures in a more effective and efficient manner to ensure the safety and security of the travelling public,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said.

I think the important question here is why wouldn’t we want to watch individuals coming from active terrorist sponsoring Nations closer than others? When looking at the reason the Nations were added to the list in the first place, I see no reason why the American People should be put at increased risk by removing them.

In almost every single terrorist attack on American targets, the individuals involved and the organizations claiming responsibility have originated in countries like Syria, Yemen, Pakistan and Iran. It is no mystery to anyone that these Nations have a severe problem managing the activities of groups like al-Qaeda with in their borders. For some of these Nations, it’s also clear that they even quietly support and sanction the efforts of terrorism. One of these Nations is Iran, which incidentally was a name removed from the watch list and, of late, has threatened the US by announcing that if Iran is attacked in any way over their nuclear ambitions, “There will be nuclear detonations inside US cities.”

There is also a large amount of conclusive evidence that points to the support of Iraqi insurgents in the form of explosives and small arms coming directly from interests within Iran as well as Syria.

Abdul Mutallab obtained the explosives and support in Yemen from the Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda. He then traveled to Giana and purchased a one way ticket with cash to Detroit with a connection in Amsterdam.

Abdul Mutallab made it increasingly clear that using watch lists with individual names was not a broad enough measure to prevent terrorism on US soil. He flew into the US with no luggage and on a one way ticket paid for with cash. He was already listed on a no fly list and he had no issues smuggling explosives onto the plane because he was not screened by individuals under FAA jurisdiction.

One of the quoted reasons for lessening security on individuals coming from these nations was the increased cooperation by the Syrian Government on passenger screening. After all, shouldn’t we trust them to screen their terrorists? Oh wait….

While the systemic failure was very evident, President Obama’s DHS Secretary, Janet Napalitano, was championing the system by announcing, “The system worked!”

It seems this “head in the sand” kind of approach has infected the current Administration in a big way, as evidenced by them, once again, making it easier for terrorists to do harm to US interests, including the American People.

It is obvious to most that the system is not currently working and anything done to further weaken our ability to vet out possible threats to our security internationally should be viewed as pure lunacy at this point.

This is just the icing on the cake, however. I’m my next post, I’ll talk about how the Obama Administrations’ policies are setting us up for a major power shift internationally and we could cease to be a player in the world community.