UNBELIEVABLE - AT 11:06 A.M. ET:  More on the terror theme.  A story like this seems unbelievable.  You wonder how anyone can be this dumb.  And yet, before you condemn the British, think of Major Hasan at Fort Hood, a commissioned officer in the United States Army.  From The Times of London:

Ten members of a suspected Islamist terror cell, said by MI5 to be plotting to blow up a shopping centre and a nightclub in Manchester, had been granted permission by the Home Office to work as security guards in Britain.

The Pakistani students — who were never charged for lack of evidence — were arrested over an alleged plot to bomb Britain last Easter. Police believed they had conducted “hostile reconnaissance” of the Arndale and Trafford shopping centres and the Birdcage nightclub.

It has now emerged that in the months before the alleged plot, the men were given licences to work as security guards by the Security Industry Authority (SIA), a Home Office body that regulates the private security industry.

They all passed a vetting programme designed to bar criminals and undesirables from taking up sensitive security posts protecting airports, ports and Whitehall buildings from terrorist attack. When arrested, two of the students were working for a cargo firm which had access to secure areas at Manchester airport.

COMMENT:  Now, we all know that some "civil libertarians" would say that, since the men were never convicted, there is no issue here.  But there is.  There is no "right" to any of these jobs, especially jobs in sensitive areas.  Every precaution should be taken to exclude those about whom there is even a minimal suspicion. 

But political correctness apparently prevailed.  The result could have been a disaster.  Some day, that's exactly what will occur.

December 13, 2009