THWARTING TERROR
Clinton, Trump need to be specific
Day by day, we learn more about a growing forest of red flags that alerted federal-law enforcement agencies to scrutinize New York bombing suspect Ahmad Rahami.
Among those forehead-slapping clues : Rahami allegedly assembled his bomb-making materials in plain sight — "ordering components on eBay, having them delivered to a New Jersey business where he worked, and even testing some of the material in his family's backyard ... ," the Wall Street Journal reports. There's a cellphone video of a blast in that backyard, two days before investigators say Rahami put a series of bombs in New York and New Jersey. The video shows a black, partly buried container exploding in flames — "followed by billowing smoke and laughter."
Yes, laughter.
It's frustrating that none of these blindingly obvious clues helped the feds avert last weekend's bombings in New York and New Jersey. The only lucky break in this case is that, miraculously, no one was killed.
Cases like these are particularly unsettling to Americans because suspects aren't plotting in soundproof, airtight rooms deep underground. They're going about their terrorist planning chores out in the open.
Don't get us wrong. We're not second-guessing feds or local police in this case. We're sure the FBI and other law enforcement agents sift through heaps of similar leads that yield nothing. The feds can't surveil everyone who may pose a threat. And they can't stop every attack. That's a given.
But that's not a white flag.
In Monday night's presidential debate, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will be asked about the Rahami case and the other terrorist attacks in Europe. Those attacks may be organized and executed by different people, but in one important respect they are not disconnected. They're part of the same Islamic State-inspired terrorism campaign.
We hope to hear more from the candidates about what the U.S. can do to fortify its defenses, and to help its allies abroad. What new ideas do they have to battle this evolving threat? How would they demolish Islamic State in Syria and Iraq? What is an acceptable time frame in which to achieve that? Months? Years? Decades?
How would they beef up law enforcement's ability to detect and thwart attacks? Do they think last year's congressional restrictions on the government's sweeping anti-terrorism surveillance powers play into this case? Or was there something more basic, more telling, in the failure of the feds to anticipate and intercept this plot before it fully hatched?
Ms. Clinton, Mr. Trump, no more talking points about resolve and revenge.
What would you do?
FROM AN EDITORIAL IN THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE
