« 'Awarding Political Crony-ism Over Competence' | Main | Ralph Peters: Our Blindness to Islam Ties Helps Terrorists »
December 29, 2009
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and the Obama Administration's PC Mindset
Topics: Afghanistan, Political News and commentariesI find this story to be beyond disturbing. It's nothing less than institutionalized political correctness by the Obama administration that's putting America's national security and the safety of every airline passenger at risk.
Via The Prowler at The American Spectator:
When Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was placed on the British government's watch list in May 2009 and banned from entering the country, the U.S. embassy in London (and by extension the U.S. State Department), as well as U.S. intelligence agencies, were notified of this move as part of information-sharing agreements entered into by a number of Western governments after the September 11, 2001 attacks, says a U.S. State Department employee on the condition of anonymity because of concern that by speaking about the situation, their job could be endangered.Read it all ..."We have agreements with a number of different countries that work with us cooperatively on intelligence matters," says the State Department employee. "A number of the treaties work through our justice departments or foreign offices or intelligence and interior or homeland security agencies. Several departments here in Washington got the information from London and it didn't trigger anything within our own system.
This employee says that despite statements from the Obama Administration, such information was flagged and given higher priority during the Bush Administration, but that since the changeover "we are encouraged to not create the appearance that we are profiling or targeting Muslims. I think career employees were uncomfortable with the Bush procedures and policies and were relieved to not have to live under them any longer."
[...] in May 2009, his application for a student visa to return to Britain was rejected because the college Abdulmutallab claimed he would attend was "bogus," and that red flag was shared with U.S. State Department, Homeland Security Department, U.S. Justice Department, and almost certainly U.S. intelligence agencies.
Unquestionably, the pendulum has now swung the other way - the wrong way. Now, instead of prudently profiling or targeting those that commit acts of terrorism worldwide - those that follow the ideology of Islam, we are now shaking down non-Muslims, including old ladies and young children. At the very least we should be taking religious background and an age group (say 15 to 45) into account. Are we waiting to take the logical step of effective profiling only after 100,000 more American lives have been lost?
Back in August 2006, the British Department for Transport sought to introduce passenger profiling that included taking religious background into account:
The passenger-profiling technique involves selecting people who are behaving suspiciously, have an unusual travel pattern or, most controversially, have a certain ethnic or religious background.Whether or not the DfT ever fully implemented the approach isn't clear. If not, they should have, as should the U.S. It's only common sense that instead of focusing on what appears to be inconveniencing everyone due to the ideologues of a single religious ideology, we should be focusing on those that pose the greatest potential for violence - the Islamists.The system would be much more sophisticated than simply picking out young men of Asian appearance. But it would cause outrage in the Muslim community because its members would be far more likely to be selected for extra checks.
Officials at the Department for Transport (DfT) have discussed the practicalities of introducing such a system with airport operators, including BAA. They believe that it would be more effective at identifying potential terrorists than the existing random searches.
They also say that it would greatly reduce queues at secur-ity gates, which caused lengthy delays at London airports yesterday for the fifth day running. Heathrow and Gatwick were worst affected, canceling 69 and 27 flights respectively. BAA gave warning yesterday that the disruption would continue for the rest of the week.
As the saying goes, all Muslims may not be terrorists, but 99% of all terrorists are Muslims. And at the time of this writing, Islamic terrorists have carried out 14,596 acts of terrorism since 9/11, many of which were against their fellow Muslims.
Related: Wall Street Journal - U.S. Authorities Missed Terror-Threat Signs
Posted by Abdul at December 29, 2009 6:47 AM
Articles Related to Afghanistan, Political News and commentaries:
