Vin Suprynowicz

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had announced his sympathy for jihadi terrorism to many of his co-workers. He sought contact with a radical Muslim cleric. Yet so crippled by “political correctness” are today’s American armed forces that no one blew the whistle on this burning fuse. Instead, he won promotion in today’s army and was sent to Fort Hood, where he donned his uniform and opened fire on his fellow solders on Nov. 5, killing 13 and wounding 30.

Almost two months later, the current administration can’t even find the balls to identify Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan as an Islamic fundamentalist jihadi terrorist. They can’t even decide that yes, maybe soldiers (at least officers, for heaven’s sake) should be allowed to carry self-defense arms on our U.S. military installations. That, after all, would mean overturning a decision made by that renowned military genius, Bill Clinton.

And where was our “Homeland Security” chief, former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, when the Fort Hood attack occurred?

Overseas. Her press conference, absurdly (but oh so politically correctly) warning Americans not to blame Islamic fundamentalists for attacks by Islamic fundamentalists, was held Nov. 8 in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, as a bunch of people wearing keffiyehs (let’s not call them “ragheads,” please) stalked around behind her, making sure she read it right. (Photo: www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/08/napolitano-warns-anti-muslim-backlash/.)

What was she doing overseas? Negotiating agreements to make it harder for Americans to send their cash overseas to protect it from Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

Or perhaps she felt our Islamic friends needed lessons in how to invite more illegal aliens across their borders to sign up for welfare programs and voter ID cards, as Ms. Napolitano was famous for doing when she was governor of Arizona.

Next — even as the uniformed goons known as the Thousands Standing Around were pointlessly strip searching little old ladies in every airport in America, seizing mother’s milk from couples traveling with newborns, rendering domestic holiday air travel an arduous nightmare for millions of innocent Americans, helping to bankrupt many of our domestic airlines and thus seriously harming all cities dependent on airborne tourism (like Las Vegas) — 23-year-old Islamic radical terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was able to smuggle explosives onto a Detroit-bound plane originating in Nigeria and stopping in the Netherlands.

The Nigerian radical tried to blow up his load after emerging from a 20-minute sojourn in the passenger bathroom as his flight approached Detroit. Officials said Monday he carried enough explosives to have blown a hole in the side of the plane. Fortunately, Abdulmutallab was apprehended by a Dutch filmmaker who jumped over the seat after the Islamic zealot proved incompetent at his suicidal task.

Wait, it gets better (or worse): The young terrorist’s father had repeatedly turned in his name to the American embassy in Nigeria, warning American authorities his son had fallen in with al-Qaida terrorists (in Yemen, as it turned out) and might try something like this.

The CIA had been tracking this guy since August. The State Department, under existing procedures, passed the “Viper” information to the National Counterterrorism Center for entry in its terrorism database, the AP reports. But officials admitted Monday neither the State Department nor the NCTC checked to see if Abdulmutallab had ever entered the United States or had a valid entry visa — information readily available in separate consular and immigration databases.

“It’s not for us to review that,” a State Department official said.

What? Where was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — off handing out billions in tax money to bribe Third World nations to pretend to “fight global warming”?

On the TV talking head shows on CNN and elsewhere last weekend, “Homeland Security” chief Janet Napolitano actually said “One thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked” in the Abdulmutallab attack.

What? A passenger had to place his hand between the terrorist and a flaming bomb, and “the system worked”? The administration won’t even acknowledge this was a terrorist attack! Instead of turning him over to military authorities for some firm interrogation on his purported al-Qaida links, it’s now reported the young Nigerian was given a civilian lawyer, whose first act was to tell him to stop talking!

With what “domestic crime” is the Obama administration planning to charge this terrorist, “smoking in the boys room”?

Since her appointment, Ms. Napolitano has focused her department on supporting amnesty legislation for illegal aliens and warning that disgruntled returning American military personnel, unhappy with the clueless policies of the current administration, should be watched lest they become “domestic terrorists.”

Yet President Obama came to her defense Monday, claiming the U.S. government is doing all it can to protect U.S. citizens.

What?

Ms. Napolitano’s latest “close-the-barn-door-after-the-horse-has-bolted” solution? She announced over the weekend that no passenger can get out of his or her seat during the last hour before a plane lands — kids and oldsters can just wet themselves. Heck, they can’t even hold a pillow, a blanket, or a newspaper in their laps. (Because Abdulmutallab held a blanket in his lap, see? The next Islamic terrorist will be incapable of doing anything even minutely different from what the last Islamic terrorist did, see?)

This’ll presumably do almost about as much good as having every air traveler take off his or her shoes, which we still do because one Islamic would-be mass murderer tried to light his shoe on fire on a flight from Paris to Miami EIGHT YEARS AGO. Why not require passengers to hop aboard their flights on one foot, wearing pink underwear and singing Belgian nursery songs? That’ll confuse ’em!

The terrorists seek to cripple America’s economy by attacking it at places where a single suicide bomber, using the least sophisticated tools and techniques, can do the most damage, spread the most disruption and fear. The current monstrous, absurd, counterproductive and thoroughly unconstitutional “airport screening” regime accomplishes just that goal for the enemy, while failing every test set up to determine whether it offers us any real protection — the most recent such “test” being the real-life Christmas Day attack of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Yet President Obama merely promises us our current, “out-of-date” airport pantomime will now be made more oppressive, more intrusive, and presumably even more unconstitutional, by issuing more vastly expensive government “technology” contracts to sniff our bodies and see through our clothes.

This would be hilarious, were it not helping to bankrupt the nation at the same time it offers us no real protection, inviting further attacks.

President Obama should turn over Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab — an irregular, out-of-uniform saboteur subject to be stood up against a wall and shot according to every law of war — for military interrogation and justice. He must immediately demand the resignation of the clueless Janet Napolitano, despite her otherwise ideal qualifications to hold a Democratic cabinet post (unattractive, incompetent, female, of uncertain or confused sexual preference, a Fearless Drug Warrior, refers to Christmas trees as “holiday trees.”) And he must acknowledge we’re under attack by Islamic fundamentalists bent on jihad. For starters.

The “Thousands Standing Around” TSA regime, with its hours-long lines, does no good, and certainly a lot of economic harm. (I used to fly monthly, at least. I now do my best to go years between flights, solely to avoid entering the required “bleat like a sheep” mode, when I know our best defense against terrorism in the air would be to let me and millions of other responsible Americans fly armed. There are millions like me. What do you think is the cumulative impact on the economies of the states we used to visit?)

It’s time to take a page from Israel and every other nation which has approached this problem with common sense: Allow law-abiding American to travel in peace, carrying their self-defense weapons (also providing some defense OUTSIDE the security checkpoints, which is where the enemy will probably strike next.) Instead, start closely questioning young Islamic men who fit the terrorist profile.

Duh.