I was infuriated by the comments made by the Council on American-Islamic Relations who alleged that they are being “unfairly targeted” by an “Islamophobic” U.S. Department Of Justice. According to a report in WorldNetDaily, CAIR released a report entitled, “Guilt by Association” that charged, “the Department Of Justice has continued to take actions in the name of combating terrorism, when in fact they have targeted broadly Arabs and Muslims in this country.” This is a “charge”? Who should we target? The Swedish Olympic golf team?
CAIR gave the White House high marks for reaching out to American Islam in the days immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks, the report says. That was back when the White House was calling the terrorists “hijackers of a peaceful religion” – something we aren’t hearing so much anymore. CAIR complains that, “since that initial period of support, a number of government policies have singled out Muslim individuals and organizations.” Gee, I wonder why? Could it be the fact that all of the terrorists are Muslims?
When a crime is committed, one of the first things any law enforcement officer does is obtain a description of the perpetrator. For example, if the perpetrator is a 17-year-old white male, then all the 50-year old black, Indian, Hispanic, Asian and white men (and women) are eliminated from the search.
But in the hunt for terrorists, CAIR complains that because the Justice Department isn’t out shaking down the Knights of Columbus or the Southern Baptist Convention in the search for Islamic terrorists, it is evidence of “Islamophobia.”
Perhaps CAIR feels the Justice Department was “Islamophobic” when it arrested a member of CAIR’s national leadership recently on-terrorism related charges. Randal Todd “Ismael ” Royer was picked up in June by federal agents and charged with having trained with a Kashmiri terrorist group called Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has links to al-Qaida. Earlier this year, Bassem Khafagi, who had been community affairs director for CAIR’s office in Washington, D.C., had also been arrested. Many of the “charities” operated by CAIR and other Muslim groups have been shut down by the Department Of Justice for funneling the cash directly to terrorist organizations.
The chief lobbyist for another Islamic American organization, the American Muslim Council, was indicted last year on numerous counts of terrorist activity. Sami al-Arian was “outed” by WorldNetDaily two years ago in what liberals later called a “shameful pandering to anti-Arab hysteria,” as if al Arian had been indicted on 50 counts of being an Arab instead of being a terrorist.
In point of fact, al-Arian was one of eight people arrested in a 50-count indictment alleging, among other things, that al-Arian was the North American leader of the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad, raising money and providing support and logistical advice to the group responsible for the deaths of innocents – including more than 100 Israelis and two Americans.
Is this Islamophobia? Anti-Arab hysteria? Not all of America’s enemies are Arabs – just as not all Arabs are Muslims – and it follows that not all Muslims are terrorists.
But all of our terrorist enemies are Muslims, which means putting out an all-points bulletin with the description of perpetrators as Islamic males of Middle Eastern descent is utterly logical.
And looking for Islamic terrorists by stopping old white ladies and looking in their purses is an exercise in politically correct stupidity. The kind of stupidity that organizations like CAIR and the AMC insist will make America safer (for the terrorists).
Everybody remembers when former South Dakota Gov. Joe Foss was detained for refusing to give an airport screener a bit of metal he carried on a ribbon in a box in his luggage. Foss was searched, detained and efforts were made to confiscate the offending property.
Joe Foss was 87. The bit of metal was the Congressional Medal of Honor awarded him as America’s greatest World War II air ace. To the politically correct, it was a thrilling example of American race-blindness. (Wouldn’t want to single out the Middle Eastern guys that walked through while Foss was being strip-searched.)
But CAIR’s charges, as ridiculous and contradictory as they are, are nowhere near as infuriating as the Justice Department’s response. Justice Department spokesman Jorge Martinez told WorldNetDaily columnist Art Moore, that: “We [the Justice Department] have never used race or religion as a criterion …”
Presumably, Martinez is referring to the hunt for Islamic terrorists of Middle Eastern descent, such as those who have been consistently attacking American interests for most of the past decade. Terrorists like the 19 young men of Middle Eastern descent – Muslims all – who murdered 3,000 Americans who were of no particular race, creed or religion – apart from being American.
So, we don’t “use race or religion as a criterion” when hunting down Islamic terrorists?
Why the heck not?
