December 29, 2005

Will U.S. Officials Cave to Muslim Pressure Again?

Sadly, pathetically, this one wasn't hard to predict: U.S. officials are vehemently denying that they secretly monitored Muslims because of their faith. America's "Wahhabi Lobby" is up in arms over the program, which monitored radiation levels at over 100 Muslim sites in the Washington, DC area alone from 2001 to 2003. Here's more, from the Washington Post:

The focus on the Muslim sites, which was first reported last week by U.S. News & World Report, has stunned and angered officials at mosques and Muslim and Arab-American organizations. Two such groups have filed Freedom of Information requests, known as FOIAs, in recent days to try to learn which sites were monitored. They also have requested meetings with the FBI, which ran the program along with the Energy Department.

And of course, the FBI is all too willing to comply. Just what we needed: another round of pandering to radical Islamist pressure groups like CAIR and MPAC:

Michael A. Mason, who oversees the Washington Field Office of the FBI, said in an interview that he hoped to meet next week with the groups.

Perhaps the most amusing comment in the Washington Post article came from--you guessed it--a representative from CAIR:

"We'd like our federal law enforcement agencies to know the American Muslim community stands firmly behind protecting our nation's borders," said Arsalan Iftikhar, legal director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of the groups that are seeking the addresses of the sites involved. "But, at the same time, we are not willing to give up our guaranteed constitutional and legal rights in order to do that."

Yes, CAIR is so "firmly behind" the War on Terror that it has opposed virtually every piece of terrorism legislation and every terror-related arrest made in the U.S. since 9/11. With an extremist organization like CAIR claiming to speak for America's Muslims, it any wonder that Islamic sites were monitored? Indeed, we are embroiled in a war for our very survival against radical Islamic fanatics: so why should the FBI apologize? Just listen to this excerpt from the same Post article:

The testing began several months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when a series of events had convinced U.S. officials that another terrorist attack was imminent, the official said. Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in May 2002 on suspicion of planning an attack with a radiological dirty bomb; Osama bin Laden was threatening to strike again.

In addition, documents discovered in Afghanistan indicated that terrorists could possibly use a U.S. mosque to hide radioactive material, said Jack Cloonan, a former FBI counterterrorism agent.

'Nuff said.

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