Daily Lessons from Life 03-04 May 2010 -

I could not logged on to my blog for some reasons last night so here goes the 2-day version!

"Pakistani-American arrested in Times Square bomb plot Posted: 04 May 2010 1247

NEW YORK : Police arrested a Pakistan-born suspect trying to flee aboard a plane to Dubai after the failed Times Square bomb plot that officials said Tuesday was designed "to kill Americans".

Officials identified the suspect as Faisal Shahzad, a US citizen born in Pakistan.

Attorney General Eric Holder, announcing the arrest, said the wide-ranging probe was ongoing and was seeking information on "overseas" terrorist groups.

News reports said the suspect, aged 30, lived in Connecticut and had recently returned from a five-month trip to Pakistan and the city of Peshawar, a known jumping off point for Al-Qaeda and Taliban recruits.

A statement from law enforcement officials said the suspect was taken into custody around 11:45pm on Monday "for allegedly driving a car bomb into Times Square on the evening of May 1, 2010" but gave no specifics on charges.

New York officials said carnage was narrowly avoided when the car bomb parked near the theater staging "The Lion King" musical failed to go off."

This is a lucky escape and the scary thing is that it happened without the supposedly tight homeland security processes and investments made in spotting and anticipating and pre-empting any terrorists' activities in the USA!

It showed that there is really NO sure way to prevent terrorists' crazed acts except to continue to do whatever everyone think is necessary. And pray hard that it does not happen in your country and on your watch!

Lessons for me are:

1. don't worry about what if but to work on what we can do in this type of situation!;

2. to do nothing is not acceptable even though to do something or many things that may detect, prevent terrorists' acts may still not worked!;

3. in reality, Lady Luck may just smile on you and the self-made bombs or whatnot went 'out of order' at activation time like in this case! Otherwise, New Yorkers just have to pick up the pieces and decide it life should go on or should everyone just stay at home for the next 3 months so that anyone who walk on the streets can be questioned for potential terrorist acts! (Alright. I am saying this jest!)

As for thsoe who spotted the smoking device(s), they were right that they are NOT heroes. Stop the American bias of finding heroes for people responding in a normal 'trained' or 'heightened alertness' manner of spotting suspicious people and objects after so much publicity and education on 'how to spot a terrorist?".