Adele Ferguson - Agents face variety of origins, techniques

I DON’T KNOW why terrorists even bother to consider blowing up Christmas tree lighting gatherings and such when they can wreak so much havoc by hiding explosives in their shoes or their underwear.

Do you realize how your life has been altered by the likes of Umar Farouk Abdulmutaelab and Richard Calvin Reed? Two guys made airplane flights miserable to contemplate for millions of Americans. Not that flights weren’t going downhill already with charges for luggage and food you wouldn’t give a stray dog.

These guys were as different as day and night Reed, the shoe bomber, was born a British citizen in South London.

His mother was white, of English descent.

His father was from Jamaica, an immigrant of African descent and a career criminal.

Richard left school at 16 to become a paid crook.

He went to Pakistan in 1998 and stayed until 2002 , then left to go into training at a terrorist camp in Afghanistan.

He was pounced on by fellow plane riders while trying to light off his shoes which isn’t something you see much during flights.

He’s 37.

The underwear bomber was born in Nigeria, the youngest of the 16 children of his banker father who was one of the richest men in the country.

His mother was the father’s second wife.

Now, it’s a given that suicide bombers are prepared to give their lives to serve their terrorist cause or they wouldn’t be called suicide bombers. But you can do that without loading up your jock strap with explosives. Obviously, the thinking was that the last place anyone would search a man was in the neighborhood of the family jewels.

THOSE WHO TAUGHT the underwear bomber his craft may have read books or seen movies about how the FBI and CIA hid microphones in their crotch because of the same reasoning. If an agent is secretly recording conversations or meetings with suspects, he is aware at some point he may get patted down if they get suspicious of him. The last place they would be likely to pat is you know where. Oh, I forgot about Michael Corleone who got inspected by the corrupt police captain for a gun and did the inseams.

Umar, who is 23, attempted his deed on Christmas Day last year. Though he failed, the damage was done. Angry plane passengers all over the country are outraged over having authorities give them a feel in a vulnerable spot or take a picture that shows what’s in their drawers. They were always furious at having to remove their shoes.

Christmas also was on the mind of the latest terrorist to get caught in the act when FBI agents were successful in a sting operation in which they took him to the brink of “blooey” except that the drums they told him were loaded with explosives were not, was one Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, of Portland, Ore. His target was to be a Christmas tree lighting event in Portland.

SEE WHY IT HAS been so difficult for authorities to decide where to concentrate their efforts to squelch the terrorist organizations? There is no one single home nation they come from. The shoe bomber was a Jamaican from London with ties to Pakistan and Afghanistan. The underwear bomber was a Nigerian. The Portland would be bomber was a naturalized immigrant from Somalia. And if I remember rightly, most of the terrorists on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia. That’s quite a spread.

That’s a far cry from World War II when the enemy plainly was Japan, Germany and Italy so we dropped bombs on those countries. We can’t carpet bomb a slew of countries that have produced a terrorist. Regardless of what the president says about getting out of Afghanistan, I’m afraid this is going to be an ongoing war.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansvile, Wa., 98340.)