Was Abdulmutallab flying to meet with "bigger fish?"

Or was his goal to blowup an airliner? Because if his plans did not include meeting with big fish (i.e. Bin Laden and Zawahiri greeting him at the airport) then this excuse doesn't make sense.

US intel did not suspect and/or discover that Abdulmutallab was carrying a concealed explosive device? Should we also believe 9/11 was the same sort of reckless surveillance op? US intel was caught by surprise when the planes were hijacked? Twenty months wasn’t enough time to learn what the al Qaeda operatives were doing in the US?

Kennedy is suggesting that the means justify the ends. The problem with this is that Abdulmuttallab's ends was an attempt to blowup the airliner. There is no indication that Kennedy's notion of "bigger fish" is remotely true.

The intel community should stop playing the super patriot card to justify conduct that winds up with people getting murdered (or almost murdered in the case of Flight 253) on airliners. Futhermore we don't know if the "we want bigger fish" excuse is remotely true.

be meeting a big fish (no less OBL at the airport) in order for this reasoning to not make sense? (ie Abdulmutallab was allowed in the states in order to cast a wider net over a terrorist organization)

One can certainly argue this strategy was bound to backfire, but just because Abdulmutallab was not meeting a big fish does not mean it was not a plausible explanation.

put a damper on any prospect of a "wider net" plan. One would think that a risky surveillance plan would include measures to prevent the plan from backfiring. One would think. The surveillance should have picked up Abdulmutallab's intentions. Was he flying to Detriot to meet Bin Laden and Zawahiri or was he planning to blowup an airliner?

The notion of a reckless surveillance op doesn't make sense because it presumes that US intel learned nothing about Abdulmutallab except for the fact that he was considered dangerous. That is simply not believable. Haskell's account backs this up in relation to the Indian looking man who may have helped Abdulmutallab board without his passport and the man who filmed the incident. Should we believe these men or the people directing these men had no idea of Abdulmutallab's intentions?

Abdulmutallab was planning yet did nothing?