Leftist groups from the American Civil Liberties Union to the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee have zealously campaigned against “racial profiling” by federal law-enforcement agencies, especially when it comes to individuals of the same ethnic and racial backgrounds as the 9-11 terrorists. In doing so, the ACLU and ADC have couched their arguments with language that invokes the specter of blacks being unjustly pulled out of their cars by redneck highway patrolmen for “Driving While Black.”
Racial profiling, we are told, is the last vestige of Jim Crow and has no place in pluralistic, diverse America. Leftists argue that ending racial profiling will only serve to protect innocent Americans from the heavy hand of overzealous police officers, in keeping accordance with the far-left’s general anti-police, “Free-Mumia” mentality.
Following 9-11, the ADC and the ACLU formed a close alliance, sharing resources and synchronizing media and political outreach efforts. Both organizations took great pains to express their abiding concern for our national security; after all, they are just as patriotic as the rest of us. In fact, it is precisely their patriotic duty to question and hamper the U.S government’s efforts to fight terrorism, through litigation and propaganda.
Of course, national security and patriotism are not the true motivators behind these groups’ actions. And the ADC-ACLU front, having been taken at their word, made proving their own intransigence that much simpler.
On June 17, President Bush declared the first ever comprehensive prohibition of the use of “generalized stereotypes” based on race or ethnicity by federal and local law-enforcement agencies. This merely followed through on a pledge the president had made in his first address to Congress that racial profiling was “wrong, and we will end it in America.”
But were these so called civil-liberties organizations satisfied? Was their thirst for justice satiated by the actions of this open-minded president, dedicated to improving race relations within his nation?
Naturally, the answer was no. Their outrage? The president’s pledge came with the sensible caveat that the ban would not cover the use of race and ethnicity to combat potential terror attacks.
ACLU legislative counsel LaShawn Warren, went on record as saying that making this exception would “legitimize and encourage the use of racial profiling at our borders, in our airports and anywhere else federal agents can apply vague and hollow justifications of national security.”
Apparently, Warren must have missed the “vague” warning sent to us by the destruction of 3,000 American lives at the hands of Arab terrorists, who were able to manipulate their way past INS scrutiny and into this country due to the pervasiveness of just such over-sensitivity.
Just how “hollow” a justification is national security when it comes to racial profiling? A quick look at the list of just some of the individuals apprehended by the FBI for al-Qaida connections will incidentally reveal that none of them celebrated St. Patrick’s day (although many of the terrorists, much like Mr. Warren and the ADC’s Hussein Ibish, did seem to have a proclivity to celebrate May Day. Maybe terrorism has overtaken watching Michael Moore “documentaries” as being the latest qualifier for one’s progressive credentials).
All of the captured terrorists and would-be terrorists were either radical Islamicists or of Arab descent, but even when confronted with the breadth of evidence before them, the ACLU and the ADC would have federal officials exhaust all possible involvement of the IRA, Basque separatists and disgruntled postal employees in plotting terror attacks against this country before getting around to investigating any of the real threats.
The ADC went on to declare that these new guidelines were “problematic for Arab Muslim, and South Asian communities.” One would think that a terrorist threat following the deaths of thousands of their fellow countrymen (including Arab Muslims and South Asians) would be problematic, but evidently not as troublesome to the ADC as getting frisked at JFK (Lesson learned: If you really want to provoke liberals, find a way to delay their annual trip to the Hamptons).
The ADC ends its press release by saying, “As a civil-rights organization, ADC is committed to enhancing our nation’s national security.” But if this were so, why have they launched a media critique of a president who has adopted a conciliatory policy on racial profiling? What’s next: suing Central Command for using race as a factor in our pursuit of Saddam and sons?
The ADC-ACLU continue to call upon the president to “fully repeal” racial profiling in the United States. In effect, what they are really asking for is the complete dismantling of our efforts to aggressively pursue terrorists longing for the destruction of the American way of life.
If I, an Arab immigrant, can come to terms with the fact that a limited use of racial profiling is necessary for the security of this country, then surely there is room in the national dialogue for those who stand up for our government’s right to effectively protect its citizens.
The ACLU and ADC’s rejection of any sort of middle ground on the issue points to their partisan, leftist agenda, which they apparently place above the national security of this nation. Ironically, were it not for these very officers, protecting the pampered leftist activists from the hostile forces of extreme Islam, the activists would not have the freedom to attack their own government.
Without life, there can be no liberty and pursuit of happiness. I pray the government will continue to take all steps necessary to safeguard us all. Mr. President, save America – profile the terrorists.
Oubai Shahbandar is one of the nation’s leading young conservative activists and currently a senior studying philosophy and political science at Arizona State University. He currently holds the proud distinction of being the first and only conservative student activist barred by his respective university from holding or running for any student government office.
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