LONDON, May 1 -- Omar Khyam, the ringleader of the thwarted London bomb plot who was sentenced to life imprisonment on Monday, showed the potential for disaffected young men to be lured as terrorists, a threat that British officials said they would have to contend with for a generation. But the 25-year-old Mr. Khyam, a Briton of Pakistani descent, also personifies a larger [sic!] and more immediate concern: as a British citizen, he could have entered the United States without a visa, like many of an estimated 800,000 other Britons of Pakistani origin. American officials, citing the number of terror plots in Britain involving Britons with ties to Pakistan, expressed concern over the visa loophole. In recent months, the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, has opened talks with the government here on how to curb the access of British citizens of Pakistani origin to the United States.
LONDON, May 1 -- Omar Khyam, the ringleader of the thwarted London bomb plot who was sentenced to life imprisonment on Monday, showed the potential for disaffected young men to be lured as terrorists, a threat that British officials said they would have to contend with for a generation.
But the 25-year-old Mr. Khyam, a Briton of Pakistani descent, also personifies a larger [sic!] and more immediate concern: as a British citizen, he could have entered the United States without a visa, like many of an estimated 800,000 other Britons of Pakistani origin.
American officials, citing the number of terror plots in Britain involving Britons with ties to Pakistan, expressed concern over the visa loophole. In recent months, the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, has opened talks with the government here on how to curb the access of British citizens of Pakistani origin to the United States.
WTF? I said before (in connection with the airline data) that we should just have given up the visa waiver, reciprocally. If you let the US bully you three times, they'll do it a fourth time. One of my latest comments on DKos seems very appropriate here. Bush is a symptom, not the disease.
I'm with you on this. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Cancel the visa waiver programme both ways or exempt Americans with Irish heritage - well known for supporting terrorism in the EU - from the visa waiver system.
How intensely stupid can the US regime be?
Give up the visa waiver program. If someone wants to go to the US so badly, they can aply for a visa, and they can see all the information they have to provide and go through the harassment in te comfort of their own home. It's much better than getting turned back on arrival. Bush is a symptom, not the disease.
You'll note from the story that the guy claims that it was the intelligence service of US-ally-of-the-month Pakistan that trained him?
Diary/Open letter? Here's some ammo:
