Race Hustlers, Profiling & The NYPD

Racial profiling - the suspicion that a person of a particular race is more likely to be a potential criminal threat - is the bete noir of all the race hustlers. They spit out the words "racial profiling" as if it were itself the most vile of criminal acts. They harp on it to inflame the passions of blacks. And indeed, Obama spent a good part of his Zimmerman speech tugging at the heartstrings on this issue.

But blacks are exponentially more likely to commit crime, and particularly violent crime and robbery, than any other racial group in the U.S. When it comes to murder, blacks are ten times more likely to commit such an act than whites or hispanics combined. That is cold, hard reality.

The NYPD has instituted an aggressive stop and frisk policy - one that they carry out primarily in the high crime, majority black areas of the city. Call it what you will, it really is racial profiling writ large. It also makes common sense. By far the most important aspect of the program - it has worked phenomenally, saving thousand of lives, mostly black.

The NYPD program is under attack in both federal courts and the court of public opinion. NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly took to the pages of the WSJ to address the latter:

Since 2002, the New York Police Department has taken tens of thousands of weapons off the street through proactive policing strategies. The effect this has had on the murder rate is staggering. In the 11 years before Mayor Michael Bloomberg took office, there were 13,212 murders in New York City. During the 11 years of his administration, there have been 5,849. That's 7,383 lives saved—and if history is a guide, they are largely the lives of young men of color.

So far this year, murders are down 29% from the 50-year low achieved in 2012, and we've seen the fewest shootings in two decades.

To critics, none of this seems to much matter. Sidestepping the fact that these policies work, they continue to allege that massive numbers of minorities are stopped and questioned by police for no reason other than their race.

Never mind that in each of the city's 76 police precincts, the race of those stopped highly correlates to descriptions provided by victims or witnesses to crimes. Or that in a city of 8.5 million people, protected by 19,600 officers on patrol (out of a total uniformed staff of 35,000), the average number of stops we conduct is less than one per officer per week.

Racial profiling is a disingenuous charge at best and an incendiary one at worst, particularly in the wake of the tragic death of Trayvon Martin. The effect is to obscure the rock-solid legal and constitutional foundation underpinning the police department's tactics and the painstaking analysis that determines how we employ them.

In 2003, when the NYPD recognized that 96% of the individuals who were shot and 90% of those murdered were black and Hispanic, we concentrated our officers in those minority neighborhoods that had experienced spikes in crime. This program is called Operation Impact.

From the beginning, we've combined this strategy with a proactive policy of engagement. We stop and question individuals about whom we have reasonable suspicion. This is a widely utilized and lawful police tactic, . . .

As a city, we have to face the reality that New York's minority communities experience a disproportionate share of violent crime. To ignore that fact, as our critics would have us do, would be a form of discrimination in itself.

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A High Squealing Noise & A Voice Of Sanity

Recently, our Senate Homeland Security Dept. issued a bi-partisan report on the dangers of home-grown Islamic terrorism, identifying as did the NYPD of two years ago the fact that Salafi-jihadism is the driver of virtually all Islamic terrorism in the West. That high squealing noise that you hear is emenating from the major Salafist Groups in America who are doing all they can to stop this report's statement of the obvious from becoming accepted and known by the U.S. public. The voice of sanity that you hear comes from Muslim and former U.S. Navy Officer Zhudi Jasser who point out, "To deny that political Islam and its permutations on the internet from Wahhabism to salafism to Al Qaedism to run of the mill Islamism have nothing to do with homegrown terror is patently absurd."
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It is no secret that Salafi-Jihadis want to see Western freedoms eroded and the triumph of Islam in the West through the imposition of Sharia law. Towards this end, these Salafist organizations whitewash Salafism and spend incredible sums of money lobbying Western governments to adopt the position, in whole contradiction to the tons of unambiguous evidence, that Salafism is not associated with terrorism and that terrorism itself is not associated with Islam.

Many in the West willingly drink that highly poisoned kool-aide, whether for votes (Pelosi/Conyers), money (academia), a "can't we all get along" fantasy (Homeland Security), a desire not to upset the Saudis who pump our oil (Bush), pure naivete (Pentagon/Hesham Islam), or simply out of marxian multicultural ethos that deems all cultures superior to our own and beyond judgment (Britain). Thank God for the few voices in government, such as Rep. Sue Myrick and Senator Joe Lieberman, and for the "moderate Muslim" stalwarts outside of government, such as Tawfiq Hamid, Zhuddi Jasser, Ibn Warraq and the Center For Islamic Pluralism, all of whom stand firmly and unflinchingly against this Salafi menace. And, of course, there is Dr. Bernard Lewis, the man who predicted the explosion of Salafi terrorism before 9-11, the man who coined the phrase "clash of civilizations" half a century ago, and the man who described the nature of Saudi Arabia's Salafism to America in his books by likening it to the most virulent sub-group within the KKK.

What set off the high squealing noise you hear was Sen. Joe Lieberman's release of a report by his committee on Homeland Security, Violent Islamist Extremism, The Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat. The report relies heavily on a prior work by the NYPD which analyzed how terrorists are made in the West - i.e., a several step process, the common thread at each step being exposure to Salafist/jihadia philosophy and propaganda.

The Senate Report is a bland but fair examination of the problem and the heretofore uncoordinated efforts in America to address it. In acknowledging the role of Salafi Islam as being at the core of Islamic terrorism in the West, it does nothing more than state the obvious. But the obvious is a message the Salafist organizations do not want America to hear - and CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, joined by the rest of the usual Salafi suspects, is in high squeal mode. They have drafted a letter to Senator Lieberman, in essence equating following the evidence of terrorism back to Salafi Islam as being the equal of profiling. You can read the letter here, or you can just read the response of Zhudi Jasser, Chairman of AIFD. It is so eloquent and articulate, I include it here in its entirity:

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) announced today that it congratulates the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on the release of its timely and insightful Report on "Violent Islamist Extremism, The Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat.

"The report lays out insightful research of the majority and minority staff and clearly lays out the reality and the vulnerability of the United States to Homegrown Islamist Terrorism citing several credible examples. "

AIFD has previously not only agreed with the conclusions of the NYPD Report upon which this Senate Committee report builds, but AIFD has also previously called upon American Muslim organizations to begin the work of countering the ideologies which feed homegrown terrorism," M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D, founder and Chairman of the Board, The American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

The Senate Committee report cites many examples of homegrown terror threats. For example, AIFD has commented on the local Phoenix case of Hassan Abujihaad recently convicted of treason in federal court after a raid in London discovered that he was providing a terror cell with classified information on the whereabouts of his U.S. Navy ship to aid an act of terror against American troops.

The report's description of 'the path to radicalization', 'the terrorist internet campaign' and 'the virtual terrorist training camp' is an especially valuable contribution in the setting of mounting evidence of the threat of cyberjihad. The committee's investigation and identification of ways in which the Internet campaign can play a significant role- from 'pre-radicalization' to 'indoctrination' to 'jihadization' to 'the Lone Wolves' is also a particularly valuable contribution to the body of knowledge available today on this subject.

The report's description of the vulnerability of the U.S. and the potential of Islamists to "erode the effectiveness of our national defenses" should provide a particular warning to Americans to step-up our efforts at counter-radicalization.

AIFD would like to highlight the report's recognition of the need to coordinate a communications strategy against the homegrown threat- especially that flourishing on the internet. We would especially bring forward, the report's comment that "no longer is the threat just from abroad, as was the case with the attacks of 9-11; the threat is now increasingly from within, from homegrown terrorists who are inspired by violent Islamist ideology to plan and execute attacks where they live. One of the primary drivers of this new threat is the use of the internet to enlist individuals…"

AIFD is especially flabbergasted and chagrined as Americans and as Muslims by the scurrilous attacks upon this report and the Senate Committee under the leadership of Sens. Lieberman (CT) and Collins (ME) by the signatories to a letter of protest. This letter of protest does little other than expose the obstructionist techniques of the signatory organizations and their refusal to openly address necessary areas of ideological reform necessary in the Muslim community. If these Muslim organizations are unable to grasp the central ideological theological root causes of Islamist inspired terror, they are either participating in a grand denial, protecting the Islamist mindset, or simply obstructing the contest of ideas against political Islam.

Americans should ask - why isn't the work this committee completed not being done by Muslim NGO's? Rather than address the problems which reports like this address, many American Muslim and Arab organizations prefer to exaggerate their own victimization and ignore their own responsibility in countering the movements which this report fairly exposes.

It is particularly alarming that four of the largest Arab-American and Muslim-American advocacy organizations in the U.S (CAIR, MPAC, ADC, and Muslim Advocates) are discounting this valuable report and actually attempting to impede and delegitimize any honest attempt by Americans to dissect the 'real' causes and threats of homegrown Islamist terror. They cite the NYPD Report as "controversial" and "widely disputed" and "discredited" without any supporting evidence or credible sources for such an ad hominem assertion. By brushing off the N.Y.P.D. Report as "shoddy" and "now discredited" by "counter-terrorism experts and federal law enforcement officials … who have [privately} rejected the report's content and methodology" they operate in the typical Islamist fashion of using 'private' 'unnamed' unidentifiable sources with no substantive ideological counter arguments.

Where is the personal responsibility and regard for American security of these Muslim organizations that rather than focus their efforts on counterterrorism recklessly state: "so far … any potential terrorist threat involving Muslims has failed to materialize here in the United States …" They are entirely discounting the tireless and dedicated work of our intelligence and security agencies that have thwarted some thirty plus attacks against America. It seems that the facts in the report they criticize are of no use to them. If our Homeland Security had this type of lackadaisical attitude of denial, we would have most likely seen catastrophes greater than 9-11. When will Muslim organizations become part of the solution against militant Islamism rather than obstacles in any legitimate effort to study and understand its causes? To deny that political Islam and its permutations on the internet from Wahhabism to salafism to Al Qaedism to run of the mill Islamism have nothing to do with homegrown terror is patently absurd.

These four Arab and Muslim American advocacy organizations allege that there are sharp contrasts between integration and radicalization levels in the U.S. as opposed to Europe. Do they not realize how lack of integration and radicalization are gradual processes that take years to reach boiling points? While Muslims may be more integrated in the U.S., the growing examples of homegrown terrorism which continue to virally spread demonstrate that the only difference with Europe may be our trajectory toward radicalization. The end may be the same, but just delayed due to factors unique in America versus Europe.

How can studying a radical political ideology which cloaks itself in religion and which is separatist, violent, and theocratic be an act of discrimination? To us at AIFD, it's a noble necessary act of science, societal analysis, and of national security.

The N.Y.P.D. Report on Homegrown Terror before this Senate report was also a timely wake-up call to all Americans, and particularly to truly moderate Muslims who need to accept ownership and responsibility of this growing threat to Islam and to America.

Press releases and letters of complaint like that submitted by CAIR, MPAC, ADC, and Muslim Advocates on May 14, 2008, actually further the entrenchment of Islamist ideology on behalf of Muslims in the public square. Rather than distance themselves from Wahhabism, salafism, and other Islamist ideologies which feed the radicalism that this report illustrates, these organizations are acting in denial which only obstructs real reform and makes Muslims appear to be in support of these backward ideologies.

In their joint letter these organizations persist in their fear mongering, victimology, and divisiveness stating that the report is, "inaccurately labeling American Muslims as a suspect class …" when referring to the N.Y.P.D. Report's noble aims of protecting all Americans – Muslim and non-Muslim. In fact, if there is any appearance that Muslims are a suspect class, which has yet to be proven, it is most often because victim oriented organizations like CAIR, MPAC, ADC, and Muslim Advocates stay silent against the ideologies which threaten U.S. security. If Muslims were to lead the charge to reform our community and counter Islamist ideology no such label could ever stand in the court of public opinion.Rather than moving toward accepting Muslim responsibility and ownership of the issue, and becoming the Muslim frontline to terror, the focus of these four large Muslim organizations, within the Muslim community, is on stifling all criticism of political Islam, squelching all contradictory ideas, and most of all permitting no dissention. They prefer to label the critic of Islamist movements as outside what they set as the de-facto Muslim mainstream which in reality leaves them outside the American mainstream.The only area of agreement we have in their entire rant concerns American Muslim input into the Senate report. Certainly, it is also our hope that these types of investigations and reports solicit more Muslim input in order to get as many Arab and Muslim American organizations on record as possible about these central ideological issues. It is more important now than ever to get Muslim organizations on record regarding their stances on Wahhabism, Islamism, Salafism, governmental sharia and Caliphism, to name a few. "AIFD would also finally recommend that Muslim input to such investigations include anti-Islamist and anti-Wahhabi Muslims ready to ideologically counter the real sources of Islamist radicalism," adds Dr. Zuhdi Jasser.

For more information about the American Islamic Forum for Democracy please see http://www.aifdemocracy.org/null.

Well said, Dr. Jasser. Dr. Jasser's cause is an extremely worthy one, to take back his religion. When you hear someone ask "where are the moderate Muslims," point them to Dr. Jasser and ask them to give their full support, both in time and money. Better to give one's dollars to Dr. Jasser than to have it recycled through the oil wells of Saudi Arabia only to come back in support of CAIR and the cause of Salafi triumphalism.

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CAIR Seeks Repudiation of NYPD Report Tying Terrorism to Salafism

Most of the allegedly "mainstream" Muslim organizations that the average person will have heard of are anything but mainstream. They are not representative of the typical Muslim in America. Instead, they are organizations that are largely, if not wholly, funded from the coffers of Saudi Arabian billionaires, the Muslim Brotherhood or other foreign radical organizations or individuals. Their mission is to further the political goals in the West of the radical ideologies they both represent and misrepresent. The latest effort comes from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), and their target is the NYPD, who last year identified Wahhabi / Salafi Islam as the driving force behind radicalization and terrorism by Sunni Muslims.
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Some time ago, the intelligence division of the NYPD published a document called Radicalization in the West. If you have not read it, you should do so. You can find it here. The document was notable for being the first governmental publication to my knowledge to fully document the relationship between Wahhabi/Salafi Islam and terrorism. The NYPD authors merely looked to prior terrorist attacks in the West and found Wahhabi Salafi dogma - and indoctronation in that dogma - to be the common thread. This was merely stating the obvious to anyone familiar with Islam's history over the past century.

This finding, documented by the NYPD, is so clear as to be beyond any reasonable argument. Indeed, for but one other example, I would recommend that you read, in conjunction with the NYPD document, this autobiographical skectch from Tawfiq Hamid, a former terrorist in an al Qaeda type organization, who details how he was seduced by Salafi Islam into becoming a terrorist. If you have not read it, do so. His concluding paragraph is an appropriate warning on this issue of identifying the cause of terrorism:

The civilized world ought to recognize the immense danger that Salafi Islam poses; it must become informed, courageous and united if it is to protect both a generation of young Muslims and the rest of humanity from the disastrous consequences of this militant ideology.

I have also posted repeatedly on the critical importance of shining a bright light on Wahhabi / Salafi Islam, such as here, as have various "moderate Muslims, including the head of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, Zhudi Jasser (see the video of his recent debate with a Salafi imam), terrorism expert Walid Phares (see his interview here), and Stepehn Suliman Schwartz, head of the Center for Islamic Pluralism - an organization whose site contains a dedicated "Wahhabi Watch." Their voices are clear - but nowhere near as loud as those many organizations funded by billions in petrodollars and tasked specifically to muddy the waters and further the political goals of the Salafists in the West. Zhudi Jasser explains the situation in his essay that I have blogged below:

“[P]olitical imams” (imams who use their pulpit to preach an Islamist domestic and foreign policy agenda) . . . are apparently a majority of imams in mosques around the U.S. Not only are political imams in the majority of mosques but the salafist orientation seems to predominate mosques also. This is augmented in the public place with their supporting and collaborating Islamist organizations which include ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), MAS (Muslim American Society), ICNA (Islamic Circle of North America), MSA (Muslim Students Association), the North American Imams Federation, The Assembly of American Muslim Jurists, and the MPAC (Muslim Public Affairs Council) to name a few. . . .

The entirety of mosques and Islamist and anti-Islamist Muslim organizations do not represent all American Muslims. Most American Muslims are actually unaffiliated with any element of the organized Muslim community. Some, if not most, are unaffiliated simply because they separate religion and politics. In fact, statistics would show that only a small minority of American Muslims maintain membership in any “Muslim” organizations. . . .

Read the essay here.

The degree of infiltration of these Salafi organizations in the West is significant. Equally concerning is their effectiveness in misrepresenting Salafism in the West and their resort to claims of Islamaphobia or some other sort of improper act whenever a light is shown upon their bloody, violent and highly racist version of Islam. The latest is CAIR's attempt to squelch the NYPD's report, "Radicalization in the West." They must not be allowed to succeed.

This from Stephen Suliman Schwartz writing in the Daily Standard:

LAST YEAR THE New York Police Department (NYPD) issued a clear-sighted and path-breaking document titled Radicalization in the West: The Home-Grown Threat. Prepared by Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt of the NYPD Intelligence Division, the report was serious, well-researched, and articulate. It traced radical Sunni Muslim activities in non-Muslim countries to the "jihadi-Salafi" ideology, better known as Wahhabism, created in Saudi Arabia and supported by major extremist resources in Pakistan (the jihadist movement of Mawdudi) and Egypt (the Muslim Brotherhood). It was posted on the internet by Republican congressman Pete Hoekstra of Michigan . . .

Radicalization in the West met with enthusiastic approval from anti-extremist, moderate Muslims, but with predictable condemnation from the "Wahhabi lobby" represented by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its allies. On November 23, 2007, as disclosed in documents made available to me, a statement was composed, in the name of the "Muslim community," protesting against the NYPD's release of the report. Employing the typically arrogant, peremptory, and militant idiom of the Islamist movements, the statement called on New York police commissioner Raymond W. Kelly:

* "To cease distribution of the report to other jurisdictions' law enforcement agencies while the NYPD carefully responds to and corrects the report's misconceptions and errors;

* "To clarify what policies have been adopted by the NYPD as a consequence of the report, and in particular respond to concerns expressed in [a] Community Statement submitted by diverse Muslim community representatives;

* "To issue a public statement to the effect that the NYPD is working with members of the Muslim community of New York on developing a sound, rights-respecting policy on 'radicalization' that will not lead to religious or racial profiling;

* "To commit NYPD to a regular schedule of ongoing dialogue to address the issues."

The Wahhabi lobby activists in New York then completed their "Community Statement." It consists of little more than nitpicking over the sources and conclusions of the NYPD report, notably rejecting any association of Wahhabi "Salafism" with jihadism. But more important, the defenders of Wahhabism arrogated to themselves the right to decide what the city's police should do in response to the challenge of radical Islam. The extremists would set the NYPD's overall agenda, forcing Commissioner Kelly and his personnel to work according to Wahhabi guidelines and at the Wahhabis' convenience.

The radical Muslim response to the NYPD report predictably employed the pretexts of alleged "profiling" and "inappropriate" criteria. But the report did not embody "profiling;" rather, it was an academic-style work based on open source documents and serious expertise, and utilized a case study approach drawing on terrorism incidents abroad. These included the March 2004 Madrid metro massacre, in which 191 people died and some 2,000 were injured, the November 2004 murder of Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam, the July 2005 London transport attacks, with 52 commuters killed and 700 hurt, and thwarted conspiracies in Australia and Canada.

But for Islamists in America, charges of "profiling" and "inappropriate" methods are the preferred reply to critical discussion of almost all significant matters. Those who investigate Wahhabism are accused of "profiling" Saudis, even though numerous Saudi subjects hate and reject Wahhabism. Questioners about radicalism in Islam are alleged to "profile" all Muslims, notwithstanding the recognition and repudiation of extremism by millions of ordinary Muhammadan believers. According to the radicals, they themselves represent the Muslim mainstream, their practices and beliefs are harmless, and any questioning of them amounts to persecution. Unfortunately for the extremists, many Muslims disagree with them, considering them a deviant phenomenon, their habits and views distorted, and their worldwide quest for domination worthy of decided opposition.

This month, the Wahhabi lobby plans to drop its manifesto of grievances on Commissioner Kelly, on April 17. In minutes of a meeting held in New York on March 3, officials of CAIR present included Faiza Ali, Aliya Latif, and Omar Mohammadi, joined by Islamist agitator Syed Z. Sayeed, religious adviser to the Saudi-backed Muslim Students Association at Columbia University. They noted that the NYPD had asked for a detailed reply to the report. The participants at the March 3 get-together also observed that while they would prepare such a response, CAIR itself has financed and is working on a more thorough text designated its "long-term analysis/alternative model of radicalization." . . .

Here is a preferred outcome for this absurd contretemps:

* The New York Police Department should be congratulated, not assailed, for publishing a serious analysis of radical Islam in the West.

* The Islamist organizations should accept that if they disagree with the views in the NYPD document they should do so in a polite, respectful manner, without issuing self-righteous demands or irresponsible charges. Of course, they won't agree to such a thing. One might even argue that the NYPD and the anti-Islamists, not the Islamists, have been "profiled"--by the radicals. . . .

* And, finally, New York police commissioner Raymond W. Kelly should inform the aggrieved extremists, with maximum politeness, that he will spend a minimum of time listening to them. He should then file their laborious plea in favor of extremist ideology where it belongs.

Read the entire article. There are many people who are unable to differentiate between the vast majority of Muslims and those Muslims who are imbued by the Salafi ideology and its variants in Pakistan - and Iran, for that matter. But such differentiation is necessary if we are ever to win the war of ideas for the heart and soul of Islam. And the first step along that road is to educate the populace as to the nature of the beast. That is what the NYPD did with their report. And this is why CAIR and other Salafi Islamists want to see the report repudiated.

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Counterterrorism Concerns in the UK

In today's Telegraph, Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command discusses his major worries across the pond:

. . . The abortive Glasgow bomb resulted in talk of an alleged "doctors' plot" among NHS professionals. Did this show that elements of the Muslim middle classes are at least as vulnerable to the call of radicalism as marginalised figures in the ghettoes?

"Middle-class bombs will kill just as well as working-class bombs," he retorts. "It show the dangers of profiling or stereotyping. What we've seen are people from all social classes, all educational standards and a whole host of nationalities. The only thing they have in common is a sense of grievance."

What about studies by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre — which consists of representatives from 11 Government departments and agencies — on radicalisation in prisons and universities?

"I'm very worried in both these cases. There is a prison population of 80,000. Muslims are around eight per cent of that, even though they number around three per cent of the general population.

"A tiny proportion of that eight per cent have been convicted of anything to do with terrorism. So I do worry about the pernicious influence of extremists."

He goes on to say there are two conflicting approaches. "Either you put them all together and you end up with a 'university of terror' or you disperse them and run the risk of such influences being spread everywhere." What about the threat of radicalisation in mainstream universities? He says: "We have seen significant members of terrorist networks in full-time education. It's still present and it's of great concern – but we need more study." . . .

Read the article. As to the issue of the Doctor's plot, recent research shows confirms neither socio-economic status nor degree of education correlate with whether a Muslim will become a terrorist. On a related note, the NYPD looked at the radicalization process in great detail in its report issued earlier this year. They also concluded that, because of the subtelties associated the radicalization process, it was difficult to develop a profile of the typical terrorist beyond exposure to and immersion in Salafi jihadi Islamist ideology.

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