Friend Says Abdulmutallab Was Not Extremist In London

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CBS News' Sheila MacVicar spoke with a former friend and classmate of Christmas Day would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab early Wednesday. MacVicar was told Abdulmutallab showed no signs of extremism during his schooling in London.

The friend "says there was nothing that he saw here," MacVicar, appearing on "Washington Unplugged," told host Kimberly Dozier. "That his positions were not extreme. That he did not in any way raise eyebrows."

"In the view of this young man," MacVicar added, "Whatever happened to Abdulmutallab happened to him in an intellectual, psychological sense after he left London" in June of 2008.

Marisa Porges, an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the connections made between the young Nigerian and al Qaeda in Yemen were "legitimate." She said the social and religious atmosphere in Yemen fosters radicalization in the country.

"Hopefully we will begin to understand just how the process of radicalization took place for him because it will confirm how that may happen again in the future on a wider basis," Porges said.

Watch the full roundtable above.

[NowBeWithThat]

To get past heightened airport security with a bomb in your drawers, send a young wealthy formally educated Nigerian national with a quiet demeanor and excellent table manners.

Never mind that he paid cash for his ticket, had no luggage, had spent time in a Yemeni terror camp, had been ratted out to the US consulate by his own father, and had been banned from entering the U.K. for applying to a bogus school.

Every time I see this guy's face, I just want to smack him down.

[violist47]

The fact that he apparently has become a twisted and vile terrorist doesn't preclude our trying to find out why he has become a twisted and vile terrorist. There is a good chance that if we treat Abdulmutallab in accordance with intelligent human rights practices, he may give us vital information on the ways and means of turning innocuous young men into living bombs.
By "intelligent human rights practices" I mean by not torturing, not incarcerating incommunicado for years, not depriving him of human rights or human dignity.
So yes, let's try to find out what turned Abdulmutallab into a terrorist. Then maybe we will not find ourselves doing a "George Bush" and releasing tortured, screwed-up individuals to return to the terrorist scene.

[nowhiningallowed]

...who cares what he was before...what matters is what he's become and how twisted and vile a terrorist he is...