Boy, that whole “Oh yeah, disgusting Republican Islamophobia!” thing didn’t take long after today’s attack in Paris, did it?
Rep. Peter King said Wednesday’s attack on a Paris newspaper that killed a dozen people highlights the need for enhanced police surveillance in Muslim communities to help combat terrorism.
“It shows us that we should put political correctness aside and realize that it is important to have police in the communities to be using sources, to be using informers,” the conservative New York Republican told Fox News on Wednesday.
“Let’s face it. The threat is coming from — for the most part, it’s coming out of the Muslim community. It’s a small percentage, but that’s where it’s coming from.”
King said law enforcement spying of certain ethnic communities is nothing new, saying that police for decades have used such tactics to combat the Italian-American Mafia and the Westies, a gang that sprang from New York City’s Irish-American community in the 1960s.
“We have to be able to go in there and find out what’s happening so we can be tipped off and not stand back and treat all communities as if they’re the same,” he said. “If it’s Islamist terrorism, we have to have more surveillance in those communities.”
But remember, Obama is a tyrant who hates freedom of religion or something. Kind of explains everything about this awful nonsense, too. Really is a race to see which minority group Republicans hate the most, isn’t it?
Michael G
In his favor, if anyone knows how terrorists think it would be Peter King, no?
Shakezula
Does that mean we can start putting spies in communities similar to the one hatched Eric Frein?
piratedan
yet for some reason, even though the majority of serial killers are angry disaffected white males, there are no calls to increase surveillance and monitoring of that dangerous subset of society.
Patricia Kayden
@Shakezula: Or that hatched the terrorists who have killed abortion doctors? Or that hatched the Oklahoma bombers?
Southern Beale
The MSM seems to have a blackout on covering the bombing of the NAACP’s offices in Colorado. I wonder why that is?
dubo
I kind of feel like a government making laws stifling the free speech and assembly of a populace is a bigger “attack on free speech” than an individual (or group) of murderers attacking someone whose speech he doesn’t like
Turgidson
I totally agree with Peter King’s logic and believe it should be applied in a fair, color-blind way. Thus, we’d better put aggressive surveillance of white right-wing wackjobs so we can prevent acts like the NAACP bombing, which the media doesn’t seem to realize happened.
What a horse’s ass.
Southern Beale
Also, this 2006 piece from Christopher Hitchens is receiving some attention today:
It’s actually a rather thoughtful piece. I think what he’s basically saying, though, is that people’s fee-fees shouldn’t get so hurt all the time, and I honestly don’t think that argument works. I wish people would just try to be a little bit more tolerant of others’ beliefs and feelings. But you know, it seems it all depends on whose ox is getting gored. So to speak.
jl
@Michael G:
” if anyone knows how terrorists think it would be Peter King, no? ”
History indicates that King knows how they get their funds from gullible or hypocritical supporters across the globe.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Isn’t this the same guy who sent money and guns to the IRA, or is that some other no-neck from New York? I can’t keep ’em straight anymore.
Sherparick
@Michael G: A very good point. He knows from experience how a community supports an international terrorist organization. nysun.com/national/rep-king-and-the-ira-the-end-of-an-extraordinary/15853/
Linnaeus
Next time a white guy shoots up a school or theater, we need more surveillance of white dudes.
D58826
@CONGRATULATIONS!: same guy but by definition as white Christians they can’t be terrorists!!!!
kindness
This is the same Mr. King that smuggled money and guns to the IRA so they could kill fellow Irish & the English.
Bill
@Southern Beale: That’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying your fees fees can get as hurt as you like, it doesn’t matter, I still get to say what I want. And he’s right. Get as angry as you want about me mocking your make believe friend, call me every name in the book, but you don’t get to harm me or shut me up.
And he’s right.
jl
@Linnaeus:
” we need more surveillance of white dudes. ”
No, that would be tyranny. Some terrorist networks are more equal than others.
gene108
Fascinating thought process.
Muslims, by their very existence, are on the same level as Irish and Italian mobsters, who were breaking the law for decades without any meaningful successful prosecutions.
I do not think it is entirely coincidental that the drop in big city crime rates – NYC, Philadelphia, etc. – started happening at about the same time as the Feds were able to break the back of the Italian Mafia.
C.V. Danes
Would that King demonstrated the same concern when an abortion clinic got bombed, or the NAACP, for that matter.
C.V. Danes
@gene108:
I think there might be a connection with reduction of lead in the environment there, too :-)
C.V. Danes
@jl:
Yup. Just ask Cliven Bundy.
Zandar
@Michael G: BOOM!
Linnaeus
@jl:
Ah, silly me! I appreciate the correction.
trollhattan
Peter King? Of all people? Irony died.
japa21
@gene108: Much as I hate defending King, he is not saying what you say he is saying. He is saying that there was surveillence of the Italian-American community and the Irish community as a whole in order to look for and get info on the Mafia and the Westies.
What King is wrong about is talking as if there is no intelligence gathering in the Muslim community. I am sure there is. I am also sure there is intelligence gathering and surveillence of the various hate groups and the area from which they spring, including several very extreme fundamentalist “Christian” groups.
The other area King is wrong is when he says that most of the problem comes from Muslims.
C.V. Danes
@Southern Beale:
Its hard to expect someone to be tolerant of other belief systems when their own world view is based on a system of beliefs in which the strength and certainty of their belief is the only evidence of correctness.
catclub
@Southern Beale:
Sacred Cow makes the best hamburger.
J.D. Rhoades
@Southern Beale:
White on black violence is so last week. It’s time to get back to being afraid of Scary Mooslims.
Sloegin
Fascists firebombed that same paper, so it’s not a slam-dunk to assume the usual suspects.
MomSense
Did King say anything about the IED at the NAACP office?
Did anyone say anything about the IED at the NAACP office?
Heliopause
Fortunately, many of our white male domestic terrorists are too stupid to pull off an effective attack, though that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be keeping an eye on them. Rep. King’s a white male, isn’t he? Maybe we could recruit him as an informant.
JohnK
@Southern Beale: From CNN: FBI Investigating Explosion Outside NAACP Office in Colorado
jl
To be more serious about it, in a sense that King does not intend at all, some of his words are correct. Law enforcement does need to monitor possible terrorist activity in Islamic communities. Islamic leaders in the US have said so.
Problem is that the only effective way to do that is to work cooperatively with Islamic leaders, show respect for Muslim’s civil rights. Working cooperatively with Islamic leaders means treating them as legitimate participants in local, regional and national civic affairs and decision making.
And… yeah, I am sure King and his buddies would be all fine with that approach. I am sure they would not scare monger and make misleading and sensationalist accusations whenever a new mosque or Islamic community center was built, or any local, regional or national leader includes Islamic community leaders in decision making, or policy meetings.
I think what King wants is ineffective and discriminatory harassment, and BS stooge informers and provocateurs running around creating info fog and putting suspicion on a wide range of random people who say, or somebody think might say, something king’s wingnut buddies don’t like. And besides being a crime, that would be blunder, but I don’t think King really cares as long as he can keep is political outrage BS machine churning out new material on a regular basis.
There is also, I think, a real problem of equal treatment of Islamic and reactionary white terrorist networks. Problem is that there are many legitimate and influential Islamic leaders who welcome real and respectful cooperation with local, state and national government and law enforcement. While leaders in reactionary white groups want to blow stuff up and kill people (include random police), but they just can’t say it straight out, at least not too often in plain language. So different tactics are required for the two communities. And of course, no hypocritical jackass like King would ever use that as a pretext for making accusations of double standards and persecution of the poor and oppressed white nutjob community.
I wish there was more explicit pushback. Maybe Obama can’t do it himself, but why doesn’t he (politely) ask someone like Biden to go apeshit on the BS of King and his buddies once in a while?
gvg
so far all of the mainstream news sites I’ve checked had the naacp bombing story if you entered a search but it wasn’t on the front page. Nobody was hurt and there is no dramatic manhunt going on while in France there are 4 dead and more wounded and video plus a nice dramatic manhunt happening at about the same time. There has also been a shooting in TX at a VA so that is also going to compete with the kind of attention the bombing might have had…..I also can’t help noticing how much famous people and hollywood type stories fills the front pages of those web sites.
I think its just not interesting enough to people magazine readerships to put down my fellow Americans.
If there was more gore, it would probably get more attention so I guess its all for the best?
Someday a police department will just matter of factly call this kind of thing terrorism and the media won’t even notice at first…heh.
beltane
If France had open-carry, this never would have happened.
jl
@gvg: I wish I could completely agree with your comment.
But there has been equal amounts of blood and gore, sorrow and tragedy, when unbalanced and troubled wingnut whites and blacks assassinate two police. But compare the political reaction.
And I think, while still very rare, more random police have been murdered by white nutjobs trying to start a revolution than blacks who said they were upset over discriminatory police treatment of black males recently.
There is a big audience in white community for inflammatory pants-peeing over anybody not like them. I think that is a sad but very real fact in the US.
Jonny Scrum-half
If a white, right-wing nutjob kills someone, or if lots of schoolkids are shot to death, the only appropriate reaction is national mourning. Commenting on the killer’s demented rationale or suggesting how to reduce gun deaths would be politicizing a tragedy.
If a Black nutjob kills 2 cops, or if a Muslim religious nut mass-murders a bunch of people, the only appropriate reaction is to blame liberals.
beltane
French media is reporting that the attackers have been identified, though not apprehended.
Roger Moore
@Southern Beale:
Which applies both to the people whose beliefs are being mocked and the people who choose to mock them.
Mike in NC
@beltane: Do baguettes count?
beltane
@Mike in NC: Maybe if they’re day-olds.
gene108
@japa21:
I got what he’s saying, but the reason there was surveillance was because the Italian Mafia, for decades had been above the law and violated the law every chance they got.
My point is that there was actual illegal activities going on that centered in Italian and Irish communities, the criminals involved only dealt with people, who were Italian (Sicilian preferred) or Irish and unless the Feds figured out how to infiltrate those communities, they were not going to get far enough into those criminal enterprises to break them up.
There is not Muslim Mafia, in this country as far as I know, that has been operating above the law for decades, years, months, or days.
The two are not the same.
He’s advocating singling out Muslims because people in France got killed, we do not know who did it, but maybe suspecting Muslims is not beyond a reasonable doubt and therefore America needs to racially profile Muslims within our borders unless we end up like France today.
King is conflating a bunch of unrelated things and is being flat out racist.
Bill Murray
@gvg: the NAACP bombing happened a few days ago, so wasn’t competing for time then with anything that happened today
Citizen_X
I gotta say, I kind of admire King for the way he conflates standard, legal/constitutional police work, like infiltration and wiretapping of suspects, with a lack of “political correctness” (i.e. “take the gloves off”). Slick bit of agitprop there, Sir!
beltane
@gene108: There also wasn’t a wholesale targeting of Italian-Americans. Yes, the social clubs and restaurants where known mobsters frequented were bugged and otherwise put under surveillance, but it’s hardly the case that ordinary Italian-Americans were routinely harassed by law enforcement.
Mike in NC
@Bill Murray: Also, too, for the past few days the US media was fixated on whether or not Prince Edward kept his fly zipped in the presence of a minor. Priorities!
jl
@gene108: I agree. You made the point better than I did. King’s point would be relevant if he were talking about tactics needed for reactionary white terrorist networks. But I think he would be the first to cry like a stuck pig if there was a serious effort to monitor white reactionary groups that might be involved in terrorism.
The vast majority of the Islamic community, including its leaders, are eager to cooperate with all aspects of US government and legitimate and non-discriminatory law enforcement efforts that respects their civil rights.
This might be a case of King being seriously confused or so ignorant he does not know what he is talking about, though I am sure the bad faith angle and the bigotry is ready to kick in at any moment.
Shakezula
@jl: Exactly. With lots and lots of well-publicized arrests. It won’t matter if suspects are released the same day because they didn’t do anything wrong, because shouting TERROR SUSPECT will be enough to keep up the illusion that those people really are dangerous and so should be subject to MORE harassment.
David Koch
The only way to stop a bad mooslim with a gun, is a good mooslim with a gun.
amiright!
Citizen_X
@jl:
Hell, the right screamed when the DHS just wrote about potential terrorism from reactionary groups. And all the DHS’ predictions turned out to be dead on!
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
All of ’em! (Well, they really hate Black people the mostest of all, but they have a hard lump in their hearts for everybody who isn’t a straight, rich, Protestant white guy.) I think even the few Republicans who aren’t rich, straight, white, Protestant or men hate everybody who isn’t a rich, straight, Protestant white guy. I don’t understand it, but there it is…
JaneE
They should monitor every group that has a larger-than-average number of terrorists among their members. The terrorist-to-group-member ratio of Islam is far lower than that of quite a few other American organizations. That doesn’t stop the right-wingers from screaming bloody murder when they find out that the FBI is keeping an eye on the terrorist groups they support.
I just hope that someday someone asks Mr. King how many people died from the terrorist bombs he funded.
beltane
French police have arrested 3 suspects. That was fast.
Mnemosyne
@beltane:
Here’s a French language report, but I have no idea if this is a reliable source or the French equivalent of the NY Post:
metronews.fr/info/attentat-a-charlie-hebdo-les-trois-suspects-ont-ete-identifies/moag!6R1qjYdgLbxjQ/
If internet translators are not letting me down, it appears that the suspects are French Muslims, not al-Qaeda as was previously reported.
mdblanche
I agree with Peter King. We must put aside political correctness and focus police resources and police surveillance on the Irish Catholic community to deal with the terrorism threat that comes out of that community. That is what he’s saying, right?
mdblanche
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Be fair to Peter King. He hates Protestants too.
beltane
@Mnemosyne: My French is rusty but it seems that the two brothers were well-known to law enforcement.
AxelFoley
@Southern Beale:
The bolded may be the reason.
Villago Delenda Est
Peter King is just…
Well…unprintable unprintable unprintable.
Vile right-kind-of-terrorist supporting filth.
orogeny
For years’ I’ve gone along with the “It’s just a few fanatics” line about Islamic terrorism. But, at this point, I’ve given up on defending Islam. If these were Catholics, I would expect the Pope to strongly denounce Catholic terrorism and loudly and publicly excommunicate anyone involved in that kind of activity…support as well as action. The kind of “Ooooh we really don’t like that kind of thing” response we see from Muslim leaders is meaningless. When I see fatwas being issued for the murderers and their supporters, I’ll believe that Muslims really are against this kind of thing. Until then, I’ll believe that they’re just shining us on about their opposition.
Tree With Water
In keeping with an earlier post, I’d rather the Bush crime family be surveilled rather than any Muslims. The Koch brothers (et.al.) too, if it has to come to that. In that case, I’d rather see a list of the people congressman King talks to- for starters- than any scuttlebutt about the goings on at any mosque.
NotMax
@orogeny
As a fatwa is a proclamation issued by a religious authority of a rank and office whose sectarian designation includes that power, it can be in favor (for example, there have been fatwas encouraging voting) or in condemnation. Perhaps you meant to say a fatwa against rather than for.
And there have been plenty of those type issued including, IIRC, by the Grand Mufti of Egypt and by Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani in Iraq, among others.
orogeny
@NotMax: I did indeed. Poor choice of words on my part. What I really mean is official religious condemnation for their actions.
Villago Delenda Est
@orogeny: Islam has no “central authority” like the Pope. Well, they used to have one…the Caliph. But there hasn’t been a Caliph since the last Ottoman Sultan abdicated over 90 years ago.
You might as well expect someone to proclaim himself (it has to be a him) Tsar of all the fundy protestant fuckheads to condemn the murder of some doctor who made the mistake of providing full health services to women. Not going to happen. Ever.
orogeny
@NotMax: I just did a bit of research, and you’re right, there have been fatwas issued against terrorism. Why is it that when a fatwa is issued against someone like Rushdie, it is done very loudly and publicly, but not so with ones against terrorism? Perhaps I changed my mind too quickly out of anger over this incident. Maybe it IS just a few…
beltane
@orogeny: Who amplifies messages? The media. Also, tot he best of my knowledge, JPII did not publicly condemn IRA terrorists, who after all were not abortion providers.
Dream On
“In the hot days immediately after the fatwa, with Salman himself on the run and the TV screens filled with images of burning books and writhing mustaches, I was stopped by a female Muslim interviewer and her camera crew and asked an ancient question: “Is nothing sacred?” I can’t remember quite what I answered then, but I know what I would say now. “No, nothing is sacred. And even if there were to be something called sacred, we mere primates wouldn’t be able to decide which book or which idol or which city was the truly holy one. Thus, the only thing that should be upheld at all costs and without qualification is the right of free expression, because if that goes, then so do all other claims of right as well.”
– Christopher Hitchens
NotMax
@orogeny
One reason is that at the time Khomeni was a head of state, so in effect overtly promulgated assassination as national policy. Rushdie, a multiple award winning author, had already been deemed an apostate by the Iranian Shiite religious establishment.
Roger Moore
@orogeny:
Because our media chooses to make a big deal about the fatwas we don’t like and ignores the ones we do. A huge chunk of this is that the media has a narrative of Islam being opposed to liberal Western ideas. Any news event that reinforces that narrative- like a fatwa condemning Rushdie- gets publicized, while any news even that contradicts the narrative- like ones condemning attacks on unarmed civilians- is ignored.
Villago Delenda Est
I’d say that Peter King is about as low as scum can get in the House, but the fact of the matter is that the competition for scummiest of the scummy is so fierce and is engaged in by well over half the body that it’s rather pointless to say it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore: The Narrative is all. The Narrative must be served, at all times. We live for The Narrative.
War is Peace, etc.
Bobby Thomson
@Mike in NC: Andrew. (Randy Andy). Ed doesn’t have a fly yet.
mike with a mic
The racism of white men, who have a position of privilege, is far worse than the murder of white men by brown men who suffer from bigotry.
And it will remain so until hundreds of years of a change in power makes it so.
Fuck him, It’s OK to attack Christianity, but racism is not. He should have died, and this death helps destroy racist white power. The cost may be high, but that’s OK and is even required to turn things around. As a liberal, I’m OK with the killing because racism and white power are the greater evils. And anyone who does not view the destruction of the white patriarchy as the most important cause is not a liberal.
orogeny
@Villago Delenda Est: Y’all have convinced me…the problem is with the media rather than Muslims in general. My initial comment was posted in anger after the murders. Further research and a bit of contemplation, along with ypur comments have changed my mind.
orogeny
Beltane, I’ve changed my position, but the comparison to the IRA is bogus. During the Troubles, religion was no more than an identifier of the combatants…there was no Provo claiming the Catholic version of god’s sanction for their actions.
MCA1
@jl: This: “Problem is that the only effective way to do that is to work cooperatively with Islamic leaders, show respect for Muslim’s civil rights. Working cooperatively with Islamic leaders means treating them as legitimate participants in local, regional and national civic affairs and decision making.”
Normal, rational Islamic leaders would love to get their message out and be a part of the solution. It would have numerous benefits – not only tactical, access related, but also because the more the mainstream elevates rational, moderate people, the more it invalidates the extremists. The more you don’t give a platform to the rational, measured, sophisticated and responsible people in any group, the more voice you give to the tiny sliver of nutjobs that could be claimed to be in that same group. Because they speak with actions, and if there’s no legitimacy, prestige or power to be gained by hewing to the mainstream they fill the void. It would be true for Christians, too, if there were no outlet for moderate Christian leaders to be heard on TV and in the papers, and no voice attached to the establishment to delegitimize the Westboro types.
Socraticsilence
@Michael G:
Man I would have loved to ask his opinion on informers and the treatment of those suspected of being such in say Belfast in the 1980s.