BY ERNEST COREA
The outpouring of joy and goodwill that dominated the early hours of Christmas Eve here was all too swiftly reduced to a trickle, as tragedy and potential disaster raised their heads.
The adoption by the U.S. Senate of health care legislation at the unusually early hour (7 a.m.) for Senators on Dec. 24 caused a reaction bordering on euphoria among the uninsured, the under-insured, and who care deeply about them. Opponents of reform mumbled and grumbled, but they seemed out of place.
Two murders and a near mass-killing, all taking place in different circumstances, in different ways, and with different consequences, disrupted that situation. Grief and fear upstaged joy and hope. In place of life and laughter, the U.S. confronted the stark reminder that “in the midst of life, we are in death.ö
DAUGHTERS
First, on Dec. 24 in Little Rock, Arkansas, 40-year-old Philip Wise, a major in the Salvation Army, was shot dead in the presence of his daughters aged 4, 6, and 8 when they were entering a community center where the local Salvation Army office is located to deposit the red “kettlesö in which the public deposits charitable donations in varying amounts to support the poor.
Although the Salvation Army itself is of British origin, the red kettles -- actually, closed red cauldrons with a slit for donations, hanging on a tripod at public places where bell ringers draw public attention to them -- are an American “invention.ö They were first used over 100 years ago in San Francisco by a Salvation Army officer who collected donations to pay for the wharf workers’ Christmas dinner.
They are now used all over the country from November through Dec. 24. “Kettle moneyö is used to support the distribution of clothes and toys (all new) to children from indigent homes at Christmas, and to support those in need with food, vouchers for buying other essentials, and in numerous more ways, throughout the year.
News reports said one of the two assailants, both of whom reportedly appeared to be in their teens or early 20s, pulled a gun, demanded money and then shot Wise who died right there.
Wise was known, liked and respected in the community for which he worked. His assailants were perhaps from the same social and economic background as the hundreds who are helped year round from “kettle money.ö
Why would they murder Wise, thus eliminating a friend of their community while at the same time harming programs that might have helped their own families and friends? Desperation? Greed? Fear of being identified? Or a fondness for violence in a gun-toting society?
KIDNAPPED
The next day -- Dec. 25, Christmas to many -- in Salisbury, Maryland, about 75 miles from Washington DC, three days after thousands of concerned people from homeowners to hunters began searching for a missing 11-year-old, Sarah Foxwell, hoping that they could find her alive; detectives discovered her body near the Maryland-Delaware state line.
Sarah had lived with her aunt, and was last seen on the night of Dec. 22 (Tuesday) at her home, when a "juvenile witness" awoke and saw Sarah leave the bedroom with "Tommy," a friend of Sarah’s aunt. The search for Sarah began in a matter of hours and ended only when her remains were identified.
The violence that took little Sarah Foxwell’s life was of a different kind to that which killed Wise. The murder snuffed out a child’s life before she could fully understand and enjoy the prospects and possibilities of the future.
"This is not the way we wanted to find our young lady on Christmas, but at the very least we've given closure to the family," the local State's Attorney Davis R. Ruark told a news conference.
Preliminary findings from an autopsy showed multiple injuries. The cause of her death was determined to be homicide. More facts will become known as the details of the autopsy are made public. At the very least, however, it can be said that she suffered physically before she died.
The “Tommyö in whose company she was last seen is 30-year-old Thomas Leggs of Salisbury, a registered sex offender in both Maryland and Delaware. He is in custody and has been denied bail on charges of burglary and kidnapping. Additional charges are expected.
If Leggs turns out to be Sarah’s killer, many questions will be debated down the years. What makes a sex offender a sex offender? Why do they attack children? Why do they harm the innocents by whom they are attracted? Can society be protected against sex offenders without an infringement of their civil liberties? Are they such a menace that society needs to be insulated against each one of them for all time?
BOTCHED
The third event caused the least havoc and caught the most attention. The botched attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 22-year-old Nigerian student, to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 by exploding himself on the aircraft as it neared Detroit, has been widely reported.
For context, a few facts bear repetition: Abdulmutallab was on a non-stop flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. He is said to have boarded the aircraft with a sufficient quantity of a lethal explosive (pentaerythritol tetranitrate or PETN) to blow a hole in the aircraft sewn into his underwear. He attempted to blow himself up as the flight neared Detroit but was thwarted by a Dutch passenger and others. An Al Qaeda franchise in Yemen has claimed responsibility for planning the failed attack.
Abdulmutallab is the son of a prominent Nigerian banker, and has lived a comfortable life both at home and abroad. He possessed a multiple entry visa issued by the U.S. Embassy in the UK.
He had recently cut himself off from his family, and his father had duly informed the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, of this circumstance, also providing information of the son’s increasingly “extremeö views.
Abdulmutallab’s web entries portray a complex and angst-ridden young man who was harried by the conflict between his physical cravings and the dictates of spiritual discipline.
Which of these compulsions turned him into a potential mass murderer is not known.
What is clear, and does not even need to await the review of security arrangements ordered by President Obama, is the hopeless disarray of the “gang that could not shoot straightö – the U.S. bureaucracy.
Very early indications are that clues to a possible attack were missed as a result of dysfunction, inertia, and interagency gridlock. This was demonstrated at the State Department’s daily press briefing of Dec. 28, 2009 conducted by Department Spokesman Ian Kelly.
NEST OF VIPERS
The exchange below is only a segment of a fatuous display of incompetence, evasiveness, and defensiveness that would be comic if it were not so tragic:
“QUESTION: ….. was there not like a State Department system in place that’s designed to track active visa holders and sort of this failed twice? Has that come up in all of this? I mean, there is a system in place that should track it, that there’s an active visa holder and that . . .
MR. KELLY: Right.
QUESTION: -- didn’t it fail, and why?
MR. KELLY: Once we issue the visa, and there comes . . . there is information subsequent to that issuance, the State Department role is to pass that information on, which is what we did after this November 19 visit. So we sent in what’s called a VISAS VIPER cable. This is a system that was set up after November . . . September 11, 2001, and under this system, when we receive information that could cause the . . . cause us concern, we send it in to the counterterrorism community for their review. There was also set up, as you all know, the National Counterterrorism Center. And this is the interagency process that reviews the information as this information comes in.
QUESTION: Can I stop you . . .
MR. KELLY: And the information in this VISAS VIPER cable was insufficient for this interagency review process to make a determination that this individual’s visa should be revoked. It wasn’t – it’s not – it’s insufficient, and it is not a State Department determination per se in these kinds of issues under – let me give you the name of the act of Congress – under the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002, the State Department is mandated to utilize this VISAS VIPER system when we get information, like we did on November 19.
QUESTION: But did the system fail that you had in place?
MR. KELLY: I can’t address the entire system that is . . . this entire interagency system. It’s not my role to do that . . .ö
RULE OF LAW
The averted tragedy on Flight 253 has caused an eruption of criticism directed at Obama by his far right opponents, on the basis that he is “softö on security. Among those who have been braying at him for some time is Senator DeMint of South Carolina. The Senator has, meanwhile, blocked confirmation of Obama’s nominee for the leadership of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). And why? because -- drum roll, please -- DeMint wants to be assured that TSA employees will not be allowed to form a union.
So now, consider this: With mid-term elections due in 2010, will Obama seek to deflect rightwing criticism by resorting to the kind of oppressive and unusual measures that lost the U.S. global respect over the past eight years? Or can he stand firm by his principles, ensuring that national security and the rule of law are both protected?
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The writer has served as Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Canada, Cuba, Mexico, and the USA. He was Chairman of the Commonwealth Select Committee on the media and development, Editor of the Ceylon ‘Daily News’ and the Ceylon ‘Observer’, and was for a time Features Editor and Foreign Affairs columnist of the Singapore ‘Straits Times’. He is on the IDN editorial board. |
