A succinct explanation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, those who’ve preceded him and will no doubt follow. From Steve Coll …

As the analyst Marc Sageman once formulated it, the biography is one of dislocation and radicalization that often seems to involve a young man who is raised in country A, becomes radicalized in country B, and then decides to attack country C, with “C” often (but not always) being the United States. Here we also have the elements of economic privilege and globe-crossing travel familiar from the biographies of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s two senior leaders, who by now have reached that state of advanced middle-age in which they can no longer be expected to remember their period of teenage radicalization and early violence very accurately.

I mentioned over the weekend that it’s always a bit surreal to hear that these suicide bombers, at once so alien to our world, are so enmeshed in our popular culture, globalization and the like. And a number of readers wrote in to say, quite rightly, that it’s hardly going to be Pashtun town dwellers or the poor and illiterate who end up getting placed on these missions. They have to work with people with some money, US Visas and the like. That’s of course right. But there’s more to it than that.

We’re getting a lot of good reports from readers about what wavering Dems are saying at home about the current version of the health care bill. Please keep those reports coming. David Kurtz has more.

Steve Clemons has some thoughts about just what we might be getting into in Yemen.

Civilian casualties in Afghanistan for the first 10 months of 2009 totaled 2,038, up from 1,838 in the same period during 2008, according to a new UN report. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

I’m fond of telling friends who are more interested in foreign than domestic policy that they’re two sides of the same coin in terms of the power of a president whose policies you support or oppose. And it’s no less the case with Obama. As Akiva Eldar notes in Haaretz Prime Minister Netanyahu and his advisors have made little secret of their hope that President Obama would fail in his push for health care reform since it would damage him sufficiently that he’d be fatally weakened on the international stage, enough to prevent him from exerting any more pressure on Netanyahu’s government for at least the remainder of Obama’s first term. Read More

To paraphrase Rep. Pete Hoekstra’s latest fundraising letter: This was a dastardly terrorist attack allowed by that weak-kneed liberal Obama and more is on the way — and, oh, by the way, in light of this terrible threat, wouldn’t you like to contribute to my campaign for governor?

TPM alum Spencer Ackerman squares off with Pat Buchanan on Morning Joe over the treatment of the Detroit terror suspect. Watch.

Fox News: Real presidents don’t say ‘allegedly’ about terrorists!

Avi Zenilman Greg Sargent makes a good point. While Republicans are kicking into high gear with partisan criticisms of the White House over the attempted terror attack over Detroit, Dems have been almost completely silent.

It’s not that you’d expect them to be defending the TSA’s practices, which may or may not makes sense. But Republicans are making a broader attack — claiming that Obama’s more general stance on the world stage is leading to more terror attacks. That should not be a hard argument to push back against. And it’s really a mistake that they’re not.

Former Homeland Security Advisor and then DHS Secretary Tom Ridge says that it’s some sort of a shande to try Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab in civilian courts. I know a lot of Republicans are making this argument now. But can we at least get some Republicans who didn’t oversee doing exactly the same thing on their watch? Just for consistency’s sake?

Remember, the AbdulMutallab case is virtually identical to the Richard Reid “Shoe Bomber” case from December 2001 — to an uncanny degree. Same explosive, (PETN), same MO (blowing up an airliner bound for the US), same failed attempt.

It’s really about as close to identical cases and you get. And, of course, Reid was tried in civilian courts and is now serving a life sentence. Seemed to work fine in his case. And unless I’m misremembering, I don’t remember anybody criticizing this approach at the time. Read More