Wolfgang von Skeptik

New Policy on Muslims?

IF YOU READ NOTHING else about the war today, read the Asia Times columnist who goes by the name of Spengler: he has apparently scooped the world on an unannounced Bush Administration decision to at long last abandon political “correctness” and get tough on Muslim communities for their sullen countenancing of terrorism. If Spengler is right, it means the administration – or at least part of it – has finally awakened to the post-9/11 reality that pandering to Islamic victim-identity cultism hinders the war effort. The administration’s pandering-policy, apparently the result of a combination of factors – among them the anti-Second Amendment bias of Tom Ridge and Norm Mineta plus Grover Norquist’s curious belief that kindness might convince Muslims to vote Republican – has become increasingly controversial. It was undoubtedly behind the airline outrages reported by Annie Jacobsen of Women’sWallStreet (in which Arab “musicians” deliberately terrified the passengers on a Northwest Airlines flight but were freed without penalty by the feds), and it is almost certainly why Bush has allowed Mineta and Ridge to sabotage the armed pilots program and let Mineta steadfastly obstruct the vital security measure of profiling. But Spengler thinks a new day has dawned. I’m not so sure; I think the armed pilots program and profiling (or lack thereof) are the most accurate measurements of the administration’s determination, and until the obstructionism stops, I will remain skeptical. Spengler, however, is convinced, and his analysis is available here. I surely hope he is right.