By now everyone knows about the attempted terrorist attack on a Northwest flight headed to Detroit on Christmas Day. It's been almost two weeks since the thwarted attack, and the administration is still trying to figure out what went wrong. Here are some of the major headlines.
Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, has come under fire from
Republicans for saying that "
the system worked really smoothly" the Sunday after the failed Christmas attack. However
President Obama has said that he has
faith in her and her ability to lead the department. Maureen Dowd, an outspoken opinion writer from the New York Times, wrote an interesting
piece on her on Sunday.
Also over the weekend,
TSA ordered tougher screening for
14 countries that started Monday at midnight. Passengers leaving the countries headed toward the US will have to go through
secondary screening like pat-downs,
full body screening, and inspection of carry on bags. The 14 countries include Cuba, Iran,
Sudan and Syria who are listed as state sponsors of
terrorism. Additionally, Afghanistan,
Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia,
Somalia and Yemen are classified as countries of interest.
The US and Britian embassies have closed in
Yemen because of security threats. *Just learned that France, Germany and Japan have also closed their
embassies as well. I think we will be hearing alot more about
Yemen in the coming months as a new training ground for
terrorism as news that the local
Al Queda group in Yemen trained
Umar Abdulmutallab, the suspected Christmas Day bomber.
President Obama has a high level meeting with all of his
intelligence advisors Tuesday that will include discussions on what went wrong on Christmas Day and the new changes being implemented to circumvent more
terrorism threats.
I always skirted over foreign affairs in favor of women's history and presidential biographies, however with all the recent news I'm finding myself wanting to learn more and more about foreign policy. As our world becomes smaller and smaller national security will continue to dominate our headlines. With the recent attempted plot, it's really becoming clear to me the deep hatred that so many individuals have for the US. I, like many others thought the threat was limited to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran yet we are seeing additional countries being added to the list. I really hope in the future that we not only focus on the above countries, but smaller countries that have Al Queda forces in them as well. With so much money focused on the 2 wars we have forgotten that Al Queda's threat and influence is spreading and isn't limited to just one location. xoxo, politicalgirl
numbers and tackle financial regulation reform. Also up this year are the congressional midterm elections and whether Democrats will hold on their majorities in Congress
. A couple more topics are listed below. finally enters its last stage, conference committee
Address
and decrease the 10% unemployment numbers
and the environment
regulations