If you are looking to find blame on Yaradua and the rest of the Nigerian government this is not the article for you. Perhaps you are interested in juicy details of Abdulmutallab's early life? Unfortunately, my father could not afford to send me to $25,000 tuition/year schools so I did not know Abdulmutallab until we all met him on Christmas eve. Interestested in my discussing how the US Homeland Security can possibly make my US border-crossing more miserable? Move along, nothing there. I cannot imagine how much harder it would get. Any more scrutiny and I would have to cross that border with a lawyer in tow. And no, I am not going to join the bash-the-west fest to justify this idiots actions. (I hear that there's still ample space on that no-fly list so I will pass.)

Unfortunately, much of what I have read over the past week on Abdulmutallab has offered little unique perspective. With obvious trepidation I offer my argument. 

Since the attack, it is clear that America's main stream media has been on an Orwellian mission to convince the American public and the entire world that Islamic extremism is a Yemeni and Nigerian problem with the poor and helpless west at the receiving end.

The failing of the developed world, when fighting terrorism, has been its insistent on keeping brown and black terrorists away from its borders in an attempt to protect their citizens. In its coverage, the undertones of mainstream media message is: "Its not terrorism if the 'victim' isn't white or from the west." 

Here is why I think so.

In the last few days alone, more than forty people have died of terror attacks, many of them Muslim and of course, non western. However, there has been little outcry, instead we'd rather spend hours talking about one foiled attack. Where are all the intelligence agencies cooperating with Pakistan on who the terrorist blood suckers within their borders are? Where is the tightening of scrutiny of extremists flighting from the west to congregate in Yemen and Somalia? None, Somali lives aren't worth the effort at prevention. Only American lives are good enough. 

And as my more vulgar brethren would say, you know what fucks about this shit? The most brilliant of these terror attacks are plotted by extremists bred in the west. Need proof?

One of the incidents that shook me this year was a suicide bombing of Somalia's only medical school. It killed off all the graduands of the medical school, its founder, some teachers and three ministers. What angered me most about this attack was not just its heartlessness and mindlessness (where else in the world could there be a bigger need for doctors), but because it reminded me too much of a similar loss about five years ago. (In 2005 five of my classmates lost their lives in the Sosoliso plane crash that killed 108 people in total)

What struck me about the Somali terror attack was that it was carried out by a foreign import, a Somali man who had grown up in Denmark.  Apparently, because he spoke English well there was no suspcision when he falsely claimed that he was UN employee. In the absence of expensive screening apparatus and equipment, Somali security instinct that the average Al-Shaahabi local could only manage fluent Somali and perhaps some memorized Arabic would ordinarily prove sufficient but for his apparent sophistication. This incident opened my eyes to the varied ways that sophisticated foreign trained extremists could wreck the already frail security infrastructure of poor countries. 

And this is not the only example of how rich countries like Britain are turning out to be very sophisticated Afghani-style recruitment, breeding and training camps for extremist groups deployed in and from poor countries. Terrorists tend to be wealthy and educated, many with a Western education . A closer look at some of the leaders of these terrorist organizations like Osama bin Laden one cannot help but notice that they are wordly citizens who at different times of their lives have had red carpet access to western countries. A recent study (pdf) by two University of Oxford sociologists shows that engineers are three times more likely than other professionals to make violent terrorists.  Now, amid such sophistication, how can we expect developing countries to play catch up with their resource limited security apparatus?

Even in the latest incident of Abdulmutallab, I keep imagining what would have happened if this British-educated and -trained terrorist with lesser ambition had settled on the Arik Air flight from Accra to Lagos instead of a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit for his dastardly act. Does Nigeria have a no-fly list? Heaven help us if there is even electricity on that day to operate the body scanners. If the plot he pulled is such that even the almighty, globally-recognized eagle eyes could not stop him, how much more, poor us, especially without a President? Why is the developed world not concerned about helping the Yemeni government fight al Qaeda within its borders? The Yemeni government claims that there are several hundred al Qaeda operating in their country. 

Why is the developed world notmore concerned about terrorists finding their way to Yemen that thefact that they'll fly right back to Britain and blow up a plane? Who iswatching out for British trained terrorists on flights to Nigeria,Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan? Does it matter at all that far more peopledie in far more sophisticated attacks because of these foreign basedradical recruits? Does it not matter at all the injustice that failureto curb radicalism on London streets is causing grief to a Pakistaniwidow half way around the world?

These are issues the media has found largely inconvenient to address. Full blown poverty porn images of Yemen and Nigeria obviously make for much better stories. How is it that gullible viewers are simply content to hold the view that terrorists camping out in failed states are only a problem because they will eventually board a flight to the US?

What is dismaying is that there are likely hundreds of educated and well-connected "failed-state bound" terrorists in different parts of the world including London, Minneapolis and New York, but with no conceivable way of identifying them. In fact, I would argue that it is much easier for the US to profile non-white Muslims as potential terrorists, however how does the Nigerian government tell the Abdulmuttalabs apart from other Nigerians when there names are such commonplace! 

What pains me is that instead of seeking ways to globally co-operate on combating terrorism, a violence that affects people of all races and religions, the developed world is only protecting its borders ignoring the fluidity of legal inter-border movement of citizens around the world. Admittedly, countries with no law and order are likely and are harboring terrorists, however, evidence there is continued evidence to show that even countries that strictly enforce their laws are grounds for radicalization and growth of terrorist cells.

Terrorists do not just attack the west, but have attacked people within their race and religion. As we have seen extremists hate and attack everyone who does not sucumb to their perverted version of Islam, not just the "western way of life".

As Batman once said, "some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."

Sooner than later, especially in light of this very recent event, we should all come to realize that terrorism is a global problem- not just a western one.