Anti-profiling to the nth degree

According to Daniel Pipes, the Defense Department responded last week to the arrest of the Islamic chaplain at Guantanamo

by defending its hiring practices. Only under external pressure, notably from Sens. Chuck Schumer and Jon Kyl, did it agree to reassess them. Even then, the Pentagon insisted on reviewing the appointments of all 2,800 military chaplains—rather than the 12 Muslims among them.

Political correctness run amok! Which Christian or Jewish chaplains would be accused (as the Washington Times has reported of their Muslim colleague Yee) of “sedition aiding the enemy, spying, espionage and failure to obey a general order”? By pretending not to see that the enemy emerges from one source, the authorities dilute their focus, render their review nearly meaningless and endanger security.

Meanwhile, as an antedote to our insane policy of “non-discrimination,” John Derbyshire offers his fantasy of what a real war on terror would look like.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 29, 2003 11:00 AM | Send
    
Comments

Derbyshire offers a neocon/Fox News-style fantasy, although it is funny in places. We’ll need a new breed of leader for any of that to happen, and a lot of it shouldn’t anyway. As with the other neocons, I’ll take it more seriously when he slings a rifle instead of a keyboard.

The irony of an anti-military Leftist such as Charles Schumer, the very epitome of the Harvard-bred nation-destroyer who does so much to eviscerate the United States, suddenly getting serious about laxity in the armed forces is rich indeed. He is an unusually vile politician and a duplicitous one to boot. The only good thing about Hillary Clinton’s being elected senator from New York has been watching the camera-hungry Schumer, nominally New York’s senior senator, squirm as his junior hogs the limelight. One can be sure that if the offending chaplain were a Catholic or pentecostal who was spying for Cuba, he would be unconcerned. Schumer is only interested in American national security when Israel’s security is implicated.

Pipes is certainly right about the politically correct paralysis of the Defense Department - and this under a Republican administration led by a (so we are told) strongly Christian president. HRS

Posted by: Howard Sutherland on September 29, 2003 5:47 PM

Derbyshire is pro-war, but hardly a neocon. Just look at the digs on immigration in his article for proof. He is one of the social conservatives at NR, and he often writes for American Conservative. He comes from a country where the conservative tradition really is Empire, so there has been no migration from the Left here. And he makes valid points.

I have already written what I thought of Derbyshire’s article in my web log. More than anything, it was a fun read. But still, I do not think that he has made clear what the end-game of an all out war like he describes has to be. In that kind of war, anything that does not fundamentally change the nature of the Muslim world is not victory. In the end I do not think that we are the sort of country that could fight the war in that manner.

Here is the whole thing: http://thrasymachus.typepad.com/thras/2003/09/a_real_war_on_t.html

Posted by: Thrasymachus on September 29, 2003 6:13 PM
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