Ellen said that she believed that attorneys in the FBI's National Security Law Unit (NSLU) would have had to review the Phoenix EC before any action could be taken on it because the issue of racial profiling was "hot."
In other words, after determining that the lead and the theory that resulted from it had been confirmed, "Ellen" (a code name for an FBI agent) would have to run it by a
committee first to see whether it offended the tender sensibilities of "racial
profiling" before it could be shared with other FBI agents. While the entire
law-enforcement and intelligence communities knew of a brewing threat from
radical Islamists to attack the United States, at home and abroad, the FBI was
more concerned with possibly offending Arabs instead of protecting US assets and
American citizens.
It’s possible that 3,000 people died because of Political correctness.
Of course, Political correctness has not gone away. This brings me to the issue of the MSM’s obsession with Koranic desecration. Based on media reports, you would be forgiven for believing that George Bush ordered Donald Rumsfeld to give Korans to prisoners in Guantanamo for the express purpose of urinating on them or flushing them. How many people know the way the Army bends itself into a veritable pretzel to avoid treating the Koran the way the average Christian treats the Bible?
Here’s Diana West in the Washington Times:
But the Army doesn't just distribute its Korans like any other religious book. That is, the Bible may get passed around, rifled through, dropped, tossed and stuffed into hotel room drawers. But not the Koran. According to Army policy, the standard operating procedure is: "Handle the Koran as if it were a fragile piece of delicate art."
[snip]
The guard is directed to don "clean gloves ... in full view of the detainees prior to handling." He must use "two hands ... at all times when handling the Koran in a manner signaling respect and reverence." Why "respect" alone isn't abundantly sufficient isn't mentioned. While signaling two-handed respect and reverence, however, the guard must be mindful that "care should be used so that the right hand is the primary one used to manipulate any part of the Koran due to the cultural association with the left hand."
[snip]
At first glance, this scene may seem to exemplify a bizarre excess of good manners, an absurdly obsequious respect for a largely foreign faith. Since when does the United States specifically direct its soldiers to show two-handed "reverence" in the handling of any religious book? But it seems to me that there's more behind this charade. The "clean gloves" and "detainee" towels are the tip off. The fact is, under Islamic law, non-Muslims are deemed unfit to touch the Koran. That much is generally known. What is not usually considered is the reason: According to the Islamic law, we are unclean.
[snip]
In effect, then, with its official policy of clean gloves and detainee towels, the military is promoting, enabling and accepting the Islamic concept of najis -- the unclean infidel -- a barbarous notion that has helped fuel the blood lust of jihad and the non-Muslim subjugation of dhimmitude. Our soldiers are many things: self-sacrificing, bold, loyal and true. They are not unclean.
[snip]
What is it about the MSM and Liberals in general that they ridicule Christians when they express their offense – non-violently I might add – at the desecration of Christian objects such as images of a crucifix dipped in urine? Remember that controversy? Where were the sensitivity police then? Where were the NY Times, Newsweek, NBCCBSABCCNN and NPR? Is one religion to be revered above others? Is one group’s sensitivity to be respected while another group’s sensitivity is to be ridiculed? Is the violence of one group to be respected while the mildness of another is an object of contempt?
What is it about getting a Koran wet or touched by an Infidel that gets the MSM aroused? I would really like to know.
UPDATE: Here's Roger Kimball at The New Criterion on the subject:
“Handle the Koran as if it were a fragile piece of delicate art.” Hello? It’s mighty nice of the US government to provide terrorists with their spiritual resentment training manual, but how far do we have to go to mollify people who believe their religion requires them to blow up innocent people?
[snip]
Should we laugh or cry at this exhibition of politically correct hyper-sensitivity? By all means, let us treat prisoners with the dignity and respect they lack in their own lives. Let us not besmirch or ridicule the Koran. But let us also preserve some rudimentary contact with reality. These people are terrorists and suspected terrorists. Many--probably most--of them have dedicated their lives to slaughtering innocent Westerners, inspired, note well, by the very document our soldiers are enjoined to handle as a “fragile piece of delicate art” (as distinct, one supposes from a “sturdy piece of delicate art”). Operating in the realm of fiction, Evelyn Waugh might have made an amusing episode out of this absurdity (talk about “Black Mischief”!) Perambulating in the precincts of real life, however, we should have the fortitude to acknowledge that the comedy has gone rancid. Those sections of the army’s “Detention Operations Group Standard Operating Procedures” that bear on the Koran should be respectfully excised, using only the right hand. They should then be carefully conveyed in a “clean, dry detainee towel” to the nearest outhouse and . . . flushed down the toilet.
Not a bad idea.
UPDATE 2: From Soxblog
Here’s my main point: Someday inevitably there will come another 9/12, the somber day after another disastrous terrorist strike. And virtually every American will remember the halcyon days when America felt so at ease that it stood by idly subscribing to newspapers and periodicals that made front page news out of a single kicked Koran.
And on that day, that 9/12 that sadly waits somewhere down the road, I’d like to say there will be hell to pay for the media that have covered this war in such an unabashedly America bashing manner. But there will be a far worse penalty than that – irrelevance.
There’s a popular country music song at the moment called “My Give a Damn’s Busted.” For most of the readers of this site, I bet, your “give-a-damns” were busted on 9/11. And every time we think of taking it into the shop and having it repaired, the media give us good reason to leave the darn thing inoperable. Is this what we’re supposed to get hot and bothered about? Our country is so decent that it provides our enemies with 1600 Korans. Five of those Korans are dealt with less than reverently. Still, 1595 out of 1600 ain’t bad, especially when you consider the fact that our enemy when dealing with prisoners prefers to skip the distribution of holy books and skip right to the beheadings.
None of this is to say that America is incapable of outrages and that such outrages when they occur shouldn’t be promptly and aggressively addressed. And the miss-treatment of the five Korans was wrong. But front page news? Not in my book. The problem is, the media (in its desperate attempt to relive its glory days of hobnobbing in parking garages with embittered G-men passed over for promotion) is perpetually trying to create new and embarrassing scandals.
So a warning to the Times and the L.A. Times and the Globe: Irrelevancy is barreling down the tracks. Brace yourselves.
1 comment:
i have to get a copy of this "koran" to see where it says murder is acceptable....and after that i'll flush it !
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