The Face of Terror

Via BAGnewsNotes, this collection of pictures from a school trip that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (the undie bomber) took to London in 2003 may not be particularly newsworthy, but it does, as the blogger there points out, make the notion that this joker is some kind of arch supervillain that has to be tortured and tried outside the confines of the US judicial system particularly laughable. Just a few years ago, he was nothing more than a sad little boy.

Spencer Ackerman pointed out in a recent edition of Bloggingheads the days of the hardened terrorist operatives with battlefield experience--the KSMs of the jihadi world--are gone. Most of the foiled attempts in recent years have been fairly amateurish in nature, like this one. This is certainly a good thing.