Author: Daniel Pipes
Publication: The New York Post
Date: February 4, 2003
Startling news came last week out
of the FBI: The leadership had directed all of the bureau's 56 field offices
to count mosques in their regions as part of waging the war on terror.
Newsweek, which broke this story,
explained that the information on mosques would specifically help "set
numerical goals for counter terrorism investigations and secret national-security
wiretaps in each region." The New York Times acquired a closed-door statement
by a senior bureau official confirming the mosque data would be used "to
help establish a yardstick for the number of terrorism investigations and
intelligence warrants" expected from field offices.
Reactions on the Left and among
Islamists were predictably outraged. The American Civil Liberties Union
denounced the mosque-counting as "tailor-made for a witch hunt." The Religious
Action Center of Reform Judaism expressed "deep concern" about fundamental
constitutional protections being abridged. The Muslim Public Affairs Council
deemed it going "beyond the pale of legitimate law enforcement."
But the most colorful response came
from the American Muslim Council, a Washington-based militant Islamic group.
AMC characterized mosque-counting as an act of "political repression" by
the U.S. government and wrote a letter to the United Nations pleading for
relief from this and other "shameful and undemocratic practices."
Barraged with criticisms, the FBI
dissimulated, pretending that the purpose of mosque-counting has nothing
to do with preventing possible mosque-based terrorist actions but is intended
to learn the "vulnerabilities" of those structures, the better to protect
them from possible assault.
Why does the leading law-enforcement
institution in the United States hide its counterterrorism efforts? It's
known that some mosques throughout the West have been used as a base for
terror, filling a variety of roles:
* Inciting violence: Brooklyn's
Al-Farooq Mosque was where the blind sheik inspired the 1993 World Trade
Center bombing.
* Planning operations: Milan's Islamic
cultural center served as al Qaeda's main European base.
* Storing weapons: London's Finsbury
Park Mosque, in a raid last month, yielded a stun gun, a blank-firing replica
firearm, and a gas canister.
Nor is the FBI alone in hiding its
methods. The Immigration and Naturalization Service last month began requiring
"certain temporary foreign visitors" from 25 countries to register in its
offices. The INS pretends it is unaware that (with the exception of nearly
nonexistent North Korean visitors) all the affected persons hail from Muslim-majority
countries.
The INS does so via the time-honored
bureaucratic practice of hiding behind ungrammatical obfuscation: "Under
this program," it states, "temporary foreign visitors (non-immigrant aliens)
coming from certain countries or who meet a combination of intelligence-based
criteria are identified as presenting elevated national security concerns."
Say that again?
Actually, there is a good reason
for the FBI and INS to lie or mumble about devoting special attention to
Muslims: This practice contradicts declared policy. When President Bush
states that "Islam is peace" and refers to "the peaceful teachings of Islam,"
how can his law-enforcement or immigration staff acknowledge that Islam
has any bearing on their work?
A vast disconnect, in other words,
exists between the high-flying words of politicians and the sometimes sordid
realities of counterterrorism. This discrepancy has real costs:
* Government employees on the front
lines face a dilemma: To do an effective job, they run the risk of being
accused of running afoul of studiously impartial government regulations,
or even of breaking the law.
* The public is confused: Policy
statements piously reject any link between Islam and terrorism, but the
actions of fighting terror implicitly make just such a connection.
* Militant Islamic groups exploit
this duality to argue that U.S. government declarations are mere puffery
meant to disguise what really is a war against Islam.
* Ordinary Muslims are confused.
Do they believe their ears, or their eyes? Do they listen to hypocritical
politicians or straight-talking Islamists?
The gap between theory and practice
can only be addressed by honest and open debate. Does the body politic
want law enforcement to pay extra attention to Muslims? Does it favor Muslim
visitors having to fill out extra paperwork? These practices exist at present,
but in a limbo, without sanction or legitimacy. They need either to be
ended or made official.