Sunday, July 31, 2005

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS HELPS SUICIDE BOMBERS

In response to the serial subway bombings in London, Mayor Michael Bloomberg prudently ordered the police to start searching the bags of New York's subway riders. But there will be absolutely no profiling, Mr. Bloomberg vowed: the police will select one out of every five passengers to search, and they will do so at random, without regard for race or religion. In that case, the security move is doomed to fail.

Young Muslim men bombed the London tube, and young Muslim men attacked New York with planes in 2001. From everything we know about the terrorists who may be taking aim at our transportation system, they are most likely to be young Muslim men. Unfortunately, however, this demographic group won't be profiled. Instead, the authorities will be stopping Girl Scouts and grannies in a procedure that has more to do with demonstrating tolerance than with protecting citizens from terrorism.

Critics protest that profiling is prejudicial. In fact, it's based on statistics. Insurance companies profile policyholders based on probability of risk. That's just smart business. Likewise, profiling passengers based on proven security risk is just smart law enforcement. Besides, done properly, profiling would subject relatively few Muslims to searches. Elderly Muslim women don't fit the terrorist profile. Young Muslim men of Arab or South Asian origin do. But rather than acknowledge this obvious fact, the New York Police Department has advised subway riders to be alert for "people" in bulky clothes who sweat or fiddle nervously with bags. Well, a lot of people wear bulky clothes. A lot of people fiddle with their bags. And for that matter, a lot of people sweat. Could the Police Department be any more general in describing the traits of an Islamic suicide bomber? Could its advice be more useless?

Truth be told, commuters need to be most aware of young men praying to Allah and smelling like flower water. Law enforcement knows this, and so should you. According to a January 2004 handout, the Department of Homeland Security advises United States border authorities to look out for certain "suicide bomber indicators." They include a "shaved head or short haircut. A short haircut or recently shaved beard or moustache may be evident by differences in skin complexion on the head or face. May smell of herbal or flower water (most likely flower water), as they may have sprayed perfume on themselves, their clothing, and weapons to prepare for Paradise." Suspects may have been seen "praying fervently, giving the appearance of whispering to someone. Recent suicide bombers have raised their hands in the air just before the explosion to prevent the destruction of their fingerprints. They have also placed identity cards in their shoes because they want to be praised and recognized as martyrs."

The bodies of the London suicide bombers were recognized by their identification cards. And on the eve of the 9/11 attacks, the hijackers shaved and perfumed themselves with flower water in a pre-martyrdom ritual called ablution. But don't expect the federal authorities to screen for these indicators on Amtrak, which pulls into Penn Station in New York and Union Station in Washington, two of the biggest commuter-rail depots in the country. Not only is there no passenger profiling on Amtrak, but there's no screening or mandatory searching of carry-on bags. The only restriction on bags is a 50-pound weight limit - and that's not much comfort when you recall that the bombs used in London weighed only 10 pounds.

Once an Islamist suicide bomber is sitting next to you on the train, your chances of escape are slim. The only solution is for the police to stop him well before he boards your car. But with the system as it stands, that terrorist could easily slip in through the numerical window of random security screening. By not allowing police to profile the most suspicious train passengers - young Muslim men who fit the indicators above - Mr. Bloomberg and other leaders not only tie one hand behind law enforcement's back, but they also unwittingly provide terrorists political cover to carry out their murderous plans. Call it politically correct suicide.

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FRAUDULENT DIVERSITY

Some people learn things the hard way, and not all of them live in Washington. Our English cousins are getting a brutal lesson in reality: Multiculturalism will kill you if you don't watch out.

Many of the Muslims in Britain were put out this week when the cops in the West Midlands raided a block of apartments in Birmingham just before dawn and arrested several suspects in the latest London terror bombings. The raids showed "insensitivity" toward Islam, and the authorities, ever eager to improve "community relations" with what Kipling might have called "the lesser breeds without the law," invited the "moderate" chairman of the Central Birmingham Mosque to participate in a press conference to discuss the raids.

The session had hardly begun before one Dr. Mohammed Naseem began a denunciation of the West, of Britain, of the police and other assorted infidels who had libeled Islam by suggesting that Muslims were in any way responsible for the bombing campaign in London, in which more than 50 men, women and children have died. Prime Minister Tony Blair, he said, is "a liar," and the security forces are evil. The suspects were merely innocent commuters, and he isn't interested in hearing about DNA evidence because DNA science "could not be trusted." Well, of course it can't, since DNA science was developed after the eighth century, when the prophet set out everything that would ever be known about anything.

The degeneration of the press conference into low comedy, and then into farce, embarrassed only some of the cops. The superintendent of police said Mohammed -- the chairman of the mosque, not the prophet himself -- was probably suffering from shock brought on by "the unusual events of the last few hours." This excuse-making was of a piece with the way the British police authorities, perhaps suffering toxic shock themselves, have behaved in the wake of the London atrocities.

The day after the first blasts on July 7, a police deputy rebuked a reporter who asked about the nature of the Islamic threat. "Islam and terrorism," he said sternly, as if rebuking a child for telling a potty joke, "don't go together."

Remarked the London Daily Telegraph yesterday: "When senior police officers go to great lengths to make such prim and dubious politically correct statements, then it is not surprising that Muslim leaders such as [Dr. Mohammed Naseem] end up believing them, and expect to be taken seriously when they take those assertions to their logical conclusions."

Public opinion in Britain, in fact, appears to be saying enough, already. There's a growing consensus that the British have been taken for suckers by the Muslim immigration wave that has overwhelmed the sceptr'd isle. The discovery that the suicide bombers of July 7 were homegrown, second-generation Englishmen, first bewildered many, then angered most. The diversity that everyone was encouraged to celebrate turns out to be fatuous, fraudulent and sometimes fatal.

The one-sided celebration of diversity is beginning to grate as well. Julie Burchill, a columnist for the Times of London, notes that "English toddlers are being forced to celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid when they are still trying to get their heads about the Easter bunny."

There's a sordid creepiness in the way the diversity of even the dead -- that Muslims are killed along with everybody else -- is celebrated by those who can't get their own heads around the fact that the Islamic haters hate us simply for taking up space in a world that would otherwise be all theirs, with nobody to complain about the ranting, raping and beheading that is the worship ritual of the radicals.

The real phenomenon of the age of terror is how the "infidels" -- the Christians, the Jews and the unbelievers -- have kept their cool and their ideals intact in the wake of a rich provocation to retaliate. Few of us in the West necessarily believe the mantra of Tony Blair and George W. Bush that "Islam is a religion of peace" (any more than Messrs. Blair and Bush, despite their huffing and puffing about it, necessarily believe it themselves). But polls here and in Britain consistently show that the majorities are clearheaded about who the villains actually are. It's a tribute first and last to the enduring power of Jewish ethics and Christian faith that shapes and informs the societies of the West -- to which so many millions of Muslims aspire.

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NO FREE SPEECH ABOUT ISLAM

Radio talk-show host Michael Graham was suspended by station WMAL-AM yesterday for repeatedly describing Islam as a "terrorist organization" on his program. Graham said he has been ordered off the Washington station, without pay, for an indefinite period while the station investigates the comments that drew complaints from a Muslim group, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Officials at WMAL, which is owned by the Walt Disney Co., had initially declined to take disciplinary action against Graham. However, WMAL President and General Manager Chris Berry said last night that Graham would be suspended for making statements that "crossed the line." "We do not condone his position and believe his statements were irresponsible," Berry said in a statement.

Graham, 42, said on his mid-morning program on Monday that the fault for recent acts of terrorism lies not with Islamic radicals alone but also with Muslims generally because religious leaders and followers have tacitly supported extreme elements. "The problem is not extremism," Graham told listeners. "The problem is Islam." He also said, "We are at war with a terrorist organization named Islam."

CAIR denounced the comments as "hate-filled" and asked its members to contact the station's advertisers to express their dismay. Several hundred people across the country sent e-mails to the station and some of its advertisers, said Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR's communications director. "I think this action is long overdue and appropriate," Hooper said of Graham's suspension. "I think it's a testament to the determination of individual Muslims who contacted the station and its advertisers to say Islamophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry are unacceptable." One advertiser, Moore Cadillac Hummer, wrote a letter to CAIR denouncing Graham's statements but did not say it would pull its ads, he said.

Graham, whose program is part of WMAL's lineup of conservative talk shows, remained unapologetic and defiant. "I honestly don't know what Disney is investigating me for, unless it's for doing a compelling talk show that gets people's attention," he said. "I thought that was my job." He also said, "If fighting for free speech and for the truth in the war on terrorism means getting fired by some corporate suits at ABC Disney who can't stand up for free speech -- so be it. But I will not recant." However, station sources say Graham is unlikely to be fired and will be back on the air after the current controversy cools down.

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