We've heard that the Russians warned us about one of the Boston bombers and that the bomber's mom (hey, Mother's Day is coming so surviving children might want to head to the hardware store for more nails and ball bearings!) was on a terrorist watch list. Now we find that the Saudis warned us in writing about the scumbag (tip to Instapundit):
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sent a written warning about accused Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2012, long before pressure-cooker blasts killed three and injured hundreds, according to a senior Saudi government official with direct knowledge of the document.
The Saudi warning, the official told MailOnline, was separate from the multiple red flags raised by Russian intelligence in 2011, and was based on human intelligence developed independently in Yemen.
Citing security concerns, the Saudi government also denied an entry visa to the elder Tsarnaev brother in December 2011, when he hoped to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, the source said. Tsarnaev's plans to visit Saudi Arabia have not been previously disclosed.
How credible this report is remains to be seen, I suppose. But it fits with an administration determined to be seen as winning the overseas contingency operations against al Qaeda's man-caused disasters and boasting of the receding tide of a war not so long, after all, following the Cairo outreach that has nullified all the damage that George W. Bush did to those normally quiet Islamists. Raising red flags about terrorism based on fuzzy information (it will never be clear-cut enough) to superiors who know exactly how that information will be treated (with damage to their own promotion prospects the immediate collateral damage) means the red flags can be explained away.
It's easier to surprise people whose heads are firmly and comfortably up their own--ah, figurative box that they can no longer think outside of.
I fear it will take a body count in the hundreds in America before we replace the well-practiced grief and determination to move on with a renewed vigor to fight the Long War against Islamist terrorism.
UPDATE: The White House denies the story about the Saudi warning:
We and other relevant U.S. Government agencies who deal with this kind of information have no record of any such letter being received,” National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden told The Hill in a statement.
A Homeland Security official likewise said the agency “has no knowledge of any communication from the Saudi government regarding information on the suspects in the Boston Marathon Bombing prior to the attack.”
The Saudi embassy in Washington also denied the report, along with allegations that it rejected a visa application from Tsarnaev to make a pilgrimage to Mecca.
This seems like an absolute denial. We'll see if this is something that depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is. This only undermines my point a bit, since I did say that it fit with a past pattern rather than being the proof of failing to think we are at war.
But for now, take this Saudi letter off the table as part of the indictment against the administration. After all, perhaps the letter was just received "a long time ago," so doesn't count.
