Don's Tuesday Column

             THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson Red Bluff Daily News   12/15/2015

         Islamic wolves, Muslim sheep’s garb

Last week’s column was written the day of a terrorist attack in San Bernardino by radicalized Islamic jihadists. About that horrendous mass murder: the clear (within 24 hours of the attacks) Islamic motives of the terrorist couple; the predictable coverage straining to avoid saying what I just said with complete certainty; the disgusting and thinly veiled attempts to “normalize” the Muslim perpetrators; the immediate assigning of the attacks to “right wing” motives and gun violence requiring new laws—none of that changed what I wrote last week in “Violence, some causes and excuses.” It all proved my points, actually.

Some columns written prior to traveling can be overtaken by news events and become irrelevant upon printing. That’s not the case here. Islamic jihadist terror is not newly arrived in America and discovered by horrified Americans. The Fort Hood jihadist, the Boston marathon bombers, and numerous “lone wolf” terrorist attacks prove that.

What is hopefully arriving in the minds of our fellow citizens is that among the immigrants from terror plagued lands, among the offspring of immigrants who sought America’s freedoms and liberties for their families and livelihoods—and among the refugees and visa holders—are wolves in sheep’s clothing. This must now include born or naturalized Muslim citizens that 1) travel to terrorist haven nations, 2) use the Internet to frequent radical Islamic websites, or 3) are radical Islamic imams or their followers.

It’s not unlike the truthful observation that not all Muslims are terrorists but most terrorists usually turn out to be Muslims. Someone observed men of Middle Eastern appearance frequenting the San Bernardino terrorists’ residence, but didn’t want to report them out of fear of being labeled racist or “Islamophobic.”

Why do you think that would be? Could instances of Muslims engaging in quasi-suspicious behavior, only to claim offense over being questioned, be to blame for cowing otherwise average, normally suspicious people into looking the other way? They quickly take slights to their thin-skinned religious sensibilities. Could it be that haranguing, chastising and labeling of criticism—even unflattering analysis of Muslims or Islam—as “Islamophobic,” has inculcated something akin to “prior restraint” of sensible, self-preservationist conclusions?

Moreover, those of us free of sycophantic, ideological devotion to the delusion that Emperor Obama has the slightest acquaintance with the truth, can feel vindicated. What a deceptive, agenda-driven Alinsky-ite. Obama didn’t know enough to point to Islamic radicalization for the terrorists’ motives; but he prattled about needing new gun laws.

We observed the shameless exploitation of the “no fly” list as a cudgel against Republicans as if they want terrorists to get guns rather than go against the NRA. Think about it—the “no fly”/terrorist “watch list” has been shown to have a multitude of erroneous entries, names that are similar to known terrorists, even names put on out of some grudge or vendetta.

No judicial proceeding takes place, with the required guarantees and safeguards, for a name to go on that list. That must under law precede any denial of constitutional liberties. No reasonable person would say that someone on that list should automatically be deprived of other liberties, property or livelihood, would they? If someone is truly a potential terrorist by virtue of observable terrorism-related activities and contacts, they should be followed, recorded and subjected to whatever level of prosecution is appropriate.

Once again, the police are minutes away when seconds count. I don’t doubt that the social services building where the employee holiday party took place was a “gun free” zone. Otherwise, unless they have a criminal record, every adult attendee at that party could have been armed and permitted to carry a concealed weapon. How many would that terrorist couple have been able to kill if only a half a dozen law-abiding attendees had been armed—they would have outnumbered the terrorists by 3 to 1.

The killers were Muslim; the holiday party was, effectively, a Christmas party without religious overtones. Just the same, it could have been part of the motive for a devout or fanatical Islamic supremacist. It appears now that the man went to the party, determined that they could slaughter people, as they had planned, with little risk, then came back with his terrorist wife.

No one, myself included, has proposed any extra-constitutional singling out of Muslims in America for scrutiny. However, if someone’s communications, associations or travels raise reasonable suspicions of malign intent to do harm to others, whatever the motive, law enforcement needs to move into action.

Under the “no yelling fire in a crowded theater” principle, Imams at mosques known for radicalism must be monitored. Our Constitution is not, as a famous Supreme Court Justice once said, “a suicide pact.” Only fools would now deny the need for vigilance. If the San Bernardino Muslim terrorists were so successful at hiding their evil designs and preparations that their law-abiding, upstanding Muslim relatives were surprised, America has a tough job ahead.

An August Daily News articles titled, “Despite bombing, IS no weaker than a year ago,” blew up Obama’s nonsense about ISIS being “contained,” the “Jayvee team,” etc. Even after gun- and bomb-wielding Islamic terrorists slaughtered 130 Parisians, Obama declared, “mass shootings…just doesn’t happen in other countries.” What a diabolical fool. Neither “global warming,” “climate change,” nor economic deprivation cause these attacks—Islamism does.