A response...

As alluded to in my piece the other day, I thought I'd flag a Letter to the Editor in the UK's Independent blaming the Schengen Agreement for the attempted terror attack on Christmas day.
See below my response...
Dear Sir,
Given the various comments beneath Mr Lennox's letter, I can only guess that you published his critique of Schengen for the sole purpose of giving your readers some pre-2010 amusement. Blaming Schengen for the foiled attacks is, of course, quite ludicrous.
First of all, given that Nigeria is not a member of the Schengen Zone, how we can point the finger at the EU for this is beyond me. Furthermore, how Mr Lennox can claim that European airports lack "crucial basic scrutiny and security mechanisms" is also alarming. Fox News has repeatedly reported that the machines used at most airports would not have detected the PETN carried on the flight. The Guardian claims that PETN is extremely "hard to detect". Would full body scanners have worked? Probably. But that's a debate for another day.
Regarding passport checks. Despite Schengen, passport checks still exist in Europe. If they didn't, then how come various ETA terrorists have been apprehended attempting to cross the Spanish border into France? The comparison with the 1999 Millennium Plot is also somewhat misleading, given that said plotters had timing devices and an over abundance of explosives concealed in an automobile, relatively easier to detect than the mere six grams of PETN that Abdulmutallab had stuffed in a condom.
Blaming Dutch passport authorities is also a little short sighted and I would contest that Abdulmutallab's two year US visa had "nearly expired" when it had six months (a quarter of its validity) to go. Believe it or not, entering the US on a one-way ticket with a visa is not out of the ordinary. I would also guess that paying with cash for a flight is quite common in Africa. The real question is whether the US authorities alerted their Dutch counterparts about the threat posed by Abdulmutallab, especially when one considers that he was already on a US watch list. Initial evidence would suggest they did not exchange this intelligence. Abdulmutallab also entered using a multiple-entry visa, which in order to issue, requires a greater deal of scrutiny than a mere visitor's visa. Did the Dutch issue this visa? No. What about revoking the visa after a number of warnings about Abdulmutallab's terrorist training? Of course not.
Before pointing the finger across the Atlantic, we should be aware - as Mr Lennox's Republican colleagues are doing - that this was a major failure on behalf of the Obama administration, nothing to do with Schengen.
Ewan Watt - St Paul, MN