Politicalgirl: Headlines - National Security

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