There is a bizarre twist to the most recent bombing in New York and the wounding of alleged terrorist Ahmad Rahami. The Rahami family filed a federal lawsuit in April 2011 that claimed that they were being targeted solely due to discrimination against Muslims and profiled by the government. The 11 count lawsuit named the City of Elizabeth, the Elizabeth Police Department, six Elizabeth police officers, chief of police Ronald Simon and police director James Cosgrove. Given the real prejudices that Muslim families face today, there is reason to fear that the situation could become far worse. Donald Trump has called for profiling while Hillary Clinton has called for tougher Visa rules. Notably, a news report indicates that his father actually contacted police two years ago to say that he believed that his son was a terrorist. Thus, the family appears to have rejected his extreme views — precisely the type of tip that the government has sought to generate by working closely with the Muslim community.
Rahami was outspoken in his hatred of gays and Western values, particularly after returning from a visit in Afghanistan with a wife. The trip to both Afghanistan and Pakistan nine years ago appears to have radicalized Rahami. Rahami’s values however did not appear to include supporting his children. Notably, Rahami’s current wife left the United States just days before his attack — raising concerns that she was aware of his plans or activities. Her whereabouts are unknown but the government is trying to locate and contact her abroad.
The Rahami family alleged “selective enforcement” that was “solely based on an animus against plaintiff’s religion, creed, race and national origin.” The cause for the lawsuit was a police order to shut down their chicken restaurant “First American” at 10 pm. They insisted that other businesses were allowed to stay open at that time.
The complaint was dismissed with prejudice in 2012. It is not clear why the case was dismissed with prejudice. Settlements often result in unopposed motion for such dismissal but it can also occur in a party fails to satisfy court orders or establish a basis for the lawsuit.
The lawsuit is likely to play into calls for increased profiling. Ironically, some are likely to see any targeting of the family (which the city no doubt denied) as a good thing. What is clear is that Rahami’s actions (including his shooting of police in his capture) will worsen the situation for millions of lawful Muslims in this country. Indeed, part of the desire of ISIS and terrorists is to create a religious divide in other countries to attract followers and support. The question of profiling is likely to become a central issue in the election. The line between reasonable suspicion and profiling has long been debated in legal circles. Such subtleties are likely to be lost in the wake of the bombing and this shooting.
Joseph Jones asked if I personally monitored Mecca 24/7 to verify that there is no U.S. occupation of Mecca.
Using Mr.Jones’ same high standards, he must have been there and witnessed that occupation.
I look forward to his first-hand, eyewitness accounts of this “U.S. military occupation”.
If he claims that I need to be in Mecca 24/7 to verify that that are no U.S. troops in Mecca, than fairness to his own standards requires his personal observation of U.S. troops in Mecca.
If by some chance he has not met those standards, he should be able to ignore the warning signs as he approaches Mecca not non-Muslims are not permitted there.
I’m sure he’d have no difficulty getting into Mecca. And he’d get a better idea of what a welcoming, pluralistic society Saudi Arabia is, as he observes those phantom U.S. troops in Mecca.
Chuckles.
Here is a very good discussion of this issue.
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/20/calls_to_treat_terror_suspects_as
Reblogged this on Matthews' Blog.
“…Indeed, part of the desire of ISIS and terrorists is to create a religious divide in other countries to attract followers and support…”
True. The following is even more pertinent. ISIS and Al Qaeda (remember them?) perceive the following three Western actions as existential threats against Islam, thereby justifying their Declaration of War (read OBL’s 1996 Declaration of War):
1. USA’s euphemistic marriage to Israel, and infinitely supporting Israel in every disagreement with its Islamic neighbors. (Note the US signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which prohibits signatories from any diplomatic relations w/nuclear armed non-signatories which includes India, Israel, and Pakistan. Al US diplomacy w/Israel is a felony crime against the US Constitution, which includes all US signed Treaties).
2. US military occupation of the holiest land in Islam, Mecca, within the Al-Saud family’s military dictatorship, the worst and most brutal extant on earth (Saudi Arabia beheads more than ISIS).
3. US military support of the most violent and brutal nations holding sway over most of Islam, including Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, etc, etc, etc.
Western actions (not thoughts, philosophy, dogma, freedom, democracy, homosexuality, ideology, etc.) listed above explains exactly why Islam attacks the West. Islam perceives Western actions as existential threat.
The reason the West affirmatively and aggressively hides these motivations is because it would cause Westerners to debate whether the actions should cease, something TPTB shall not abide. There is too much at stake, such as whether the West should let Islam and Israel fight to the death on their own accord, without the West picking winners as is currently the case. Plus the banks and Eisenhower’s so-called “Military Industrail Complex” which make trillions of dollars in profit off war mongering.
If the USA declared a “War On Peace” then peace would arrive almost overnight.
USA’s euphemistic marriage to Israel, and infinitely supporting Israel in every disagreement with its Islamic neighbors.
Back in the world we actually live in, ‘infinite support’ to Israel amounts to a ‘security assistance’ subsidy worth 1.2% of Israel’s gross domestic product (which is used, among other things, to purchase equipment from American arms manufacturers). That subsidy could be withdrawn tomorrow and the result would be an ordinary recession worked out over a business cycle. We also share intelligence with Israel. Ask Jonathan Jay Pollard if our co-operation with them is ‘infinite’.
The contextual importance of American subsidies to Israel has declined almost monotonically since 1984. It did grow very large between 1973 and 1984. A great deal of that was financing the peace settlement between Israel and Egypt. The Arab world objected vociferously to American ‘support’ of Israel prior to 1973, when aid flows were an inconsequential trickle. The upsets are only weakly influenced by aid flows.
As for ‘disagreements’ with ‘Islamic’ neighbors, these are in and of themselves manageable frictions (f’rinstance, over the rubrics of border controls re the Sinai and Gaza). The intractable problems are not with the Arab states (bar Syria), but with paramilitary and parastatal organizations like Al Fatah, Hamas, and the Hezbollah. Since these organizations aim to harass Israel and aspire to destroy it as a polity and society, it’s not surprising we side with Israel in these ‘disagreements’.
Thanks for agreeing that Islam perceives Western actions/behavior as an existential threat, which they do. Which is why OBL declared war on the USA. In which declaration OBL said he would attack the USA, resulting in the USA fighting a losing war on their homeland (the “Graveyard of Empires”), leading to economic ruin (debt finances all wars including this one), and ending in the USA’s self-destruction, the path we are now on.
Also, thanks for agreeing that all USA diplomacy w/Israel is a federal felony, which it is (same as Pakistan and India).
The rest of your post is as useful and pertinent as the proverbial “tits on a billy goat.”
Israel’s sum total significance to the USA is absolutely zero. Hence, picking Israel over any of its neighbors is wrong, period.
Israel owes every second of its past existence to the USA, the very opposite of Israel’s constant reminding the US of the Judaic “holocaust,” something the USA and Russia ended w/much blood spilled and money spent. (Also, Judaic claiming unique use of the term holocaust is contrary to history where other nations suffered greater loss of life.)
Nothing would improve life in the USA as quickly as the USA washing its hands of its Israeli entanglement.
Any use of the word “peace” relative to Israel and its neighbor is ludicrous and oxymoronic.
Most of Israel’s brain washing of the West started w/the “Scofield Reference Bible,” first published early 20th C. Scofield’s was the first bible w/liner notes directing readers to a particular philosophy.
In the OT God said to childless Abraham: “I shall bless those who bless thee, and curse those who curse thee.” Scofield interpreted this to mean that God would be charitable and merciful to those who act likewise to Judaics, and incinerate anyone who went against Judaics.
Modern evangelicals still staunchly and vehemently promote this view. The entire SBC/Southern Baptist Convention rests on this interpretation. It is SOP for many SBC to print this vs. atop every Sunday bulletin, and I have often seen such myself. Of course, taken to its natural conclusion, modern Western evangelicals believe the US must militarily fight every single enemy of Israel, and to not do so means that God would destroy the USA. This explains the painting of so-called Christian crosses on US bombs. (A “P” with an “X” at the bottom of an elongated stem is the Latin representation of Jesus Christ (seen on the back of modern Priests to this day). After Emperor Constantine’s alleged conversion to Catholicism, his first use of “PX” was as a hand held sign leading his troops into battle.)
The fact that God spoke this vs. only to Abraham, when he was childless, and Israel did not exist, is of course lost on these brain washed idiots.
Further: Scofeild was a drunk, deserted his family, and was a convicted criminal fraud. Strangely, Oxford broke their policy to publish only prior published authors. At that time, Judaics had control of Oxford’s Board of Directors. The SRB is continually edited since the first publishing. Another strange occurrence is that Oxford hides the fact that dozens of authors after Scofield continually edited the SRB. If one did not know better, they would presume the long dead Scofield authored the entire book. Lastly, Scofield was not particularly good w/grammar, and there is no evidence he was trained in the original Bible languages.
Israel owes every second of its past existence to the USA,
Only in your poison-infested imagination. The United States government has never lost one soldier in the defense of Israel. The closest it came to offering real-time assistance when Israel was facing an acute threat was a weapons shipment during the 1973 war.
Prior to 1973, aid to Israel by various and sundry U.S. government agencies was negligible, something Israel could easily have done without. It was only during the period running from 1973 to 1984 that it grew contextually large. It has been in a state of continual decline since 1984.
Israel has built up a productive base which generates over $200 bn of goods and services annually. Its human capital is its own. Foreign direct investment accounts for < 3% of all capital formation in Israel. If you bracket out natural resources rents, it's among the most affluent of countries outside Europe, North America, and the Antipodes, with a per capita product just a shade lower than Japan's.
It is with that productive base and that skilled population that Israel's been able to build what is, pound for pound, the world's most effective military.
Teaching Spastics to Dance – we have lost American sailors in the defense of Israel. They attacked our ship as a defensive act.
You really need to see someone about this pointless seething resentment.
US military occupation of the holiest land in Islam, Mecca, within the Al-Saud family’s military dictatorship, the worst and most brutal extant on earth (Saudi Arabia beheads more than ISIS).
We never occupied Mecca, except in the fiction and static infested space between your ears. We had some troops stationed in Saudi Arabia between 1990 and 2002, stationed on the other side of the country entirely, there with the consent of that country’s government, and there for reasons of state. The average census of troops was 6,200 during those years, enough to occupy securely Riyadh, perhaps, had they been deployed there, not a country with a population approaching 20 million. In a country with a seven-digit population of expatriates, 6,200 American soldiers was not going to be noticed by anyone.
While we’re at it, the House of Saud is not running a military dictatorship. It’s a traditional regime of a rather retrograde character. The military regimes in the Arab world are in Mauritania, Egypt, and the Sudan. The regime in Algeria, Syria, and the Yemen has a military aspect or origin.
The “U.S. military occupation of Mecca” is the ” lie that never dies”.
I have previously called out others for repeating that lie.
There comes a point were I become less concerned about determining if some who comment on this site are abysmally ignorant, or outright liers.
I just wish that they’d spread their bull—- somewhere else, and make more room available for fact -based exchanges here.
Do you personally monitor all Mecca 24/7 to make such a ridiculous claim?
It does not matter to Islam anyway. They perceive it, just like you likely perceive Israel has meaning to the USA, when its sum total significance to the USA is zero.
Thanks for confirming the rest of my post, including that all US diplomacy w/Israel is a federal felony.
I encourage readers to research for themselves the veracity of the claim that there’s a “U.S. military occupation of Mecca”.
I don’t think it’s really necessary to try to visit Mecca to find out who is correct on this issue.
Then again, hiw can I meet the impossibly high standards set by conspiracy loons?
E.G., since I wasn’t on the moon to witness the moon landings, maybe they didn’t really happen.
That kind of “logic” is interesting, and there are all too frequent examples of this “logic” in the comments section of these columns.
Do you personally monitor all Mecca 24/7 to make such a ridiculous claim?
That’s not a ridiculous claim, that’s the truth. Our interest was in defending Kuwait, which is nowhere near Mecca.
Turley has allowed his comment boards to be infested with malicious head-cases, ’tis true.
For readers who don’t already know it: Snowden’s document releases confirmed the CIA and other paid USA operatives often and regularly post in social forums to help sway public opinion in certain desired directions.
If you were such operative, I would dare you to invent a more telling, obnoxious, and self-righteous user name than “Teaching Spastics to Dance.”
These scum bags think of Americans as lambs to be lead to slaughter, labeling those who have the temerity to disagree as “Spastics.”
JJONES…Given that you are one who is not to be fazed by the facts, I won’t waste much time on you.
Your comment about “the U.S. military occupation of Mecca” speaks volumes about your disregard for the truth.
Joseph, people contend with you because you don”t know anything and you’re given to loathsome cretiniousness, including a bad case of Jew hatred.
US military support of the most violent and brutal nations holding sway over most of Islam, including Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, etc, etc, etc.
These are not ‘the most violent’ or ‘the most brutal’ nations ‘holding sway’ over ‘Islam’, nor are any dealings the U.S. Government has with these governments the source of the political culture or political dynamic in these countries. Turkey has long been one of the more congenially governed countries in the region (at least outside it’s southeastern Kurdish-majority zones), and Jordan has (since 1989) been one of the more blandly governed as well. The Jordanian monarchy has always had limited ambitions, domestically and in foreign relations. Egypt was one of the more liberal countries in the Arab world from 1973 to 1993, and about average after that. Electoral institutions are not sustainable in most of the Arab world at this time.
The source of most if not all the USA’s losing wars (every war since WW2 except for maybe the Grenada farce), including the current several we fight) is the philosophy introduced a C ago by President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson introduced America to the philosophy that we can and must improve the lot of non-Americans by exporting Western style democracy to every corner of the globe. To say this philosophy resulted in more death and misery and destruction throughout the globe is a major understatement. Strangely, and horribly, America still holds fast to Wilson’s insanity, in spite of the trail and mounting death, destruction, and debt it leaves in its wake.
America’s foreign policy must be to simply trade w/whoever desires to trade with us. Enter in peace, leave in peace, etc. Let each and every nation on earth to work out its problems with its neighbors on their own terms. Let them all suffer their own consequences without our picking winners and losers, and without practicing regime change. As evil and self-centered are USA leaders, I’m offended that they act as if they have better moral authority than anyone else on this planet. They don’t, and they should not act as if they do.
America’s penchant for losing wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Korea, etc.) must stop. The Constitution gives only the people’s Congress the right to declare war, and does not give Congress the right to transfer this power to the President or anyone else. The reason is because they noted the King’s penchant to war, and wanted to prohibit this power from falling in the hands of one mere mortal quasi-Monarch.
No one gets paid to listen to you rant, and no one can profit from it.
No clue how Korea qualifies as a ‘losing war’ in your mind, or the 1st Gulf War. There is no war which has been motivated by any sugar plumbs dancing in Woodrow Wilson’s head.
Joseph Jones – just what is your strategy for fighting this War on Peace?
This guy, like all these terrorists, is @ his core just an angry loser. Jihad makes them “somebody.”