Ed Koch comes out swinging on the Islamic terrorism threat and what we ought to say and do about it

The former New York City mayor, a.k.a. “a liberal with sanity,” was interviewed by Neil Cavuto on the Fox News Channel. Here are highlights:

KOCH: Well, what bothers me is that the attitude of the administration—and I`m a supporter of the Obama administration … But, in any event, the attitude is not that of a war. Charles Krauthammer had a magnificent article, tough as nails, when he attacks the administration as thinking of it as a police action. This is not a police action. We`re going to be at war for the next 30 years. We are afraid to call them “Muslim Islamist terrorists.” We’ll call them anything but because we don`t want to alienate Muslim countries. That`s ridiculous. Of course the vast majority of Muslims—there are 1,400,000,000—are not terrorists, but there are hundreds of millions who are. They want to kill every Christian, every Jew, every Hindu who won`t convert. [Emphasis added.] And we ought to put it on the table. And when we put people through the lines, what, do you want to take some little elderly woman who just came out of Saint Patrick`s and pat her down? Yeah, if you have time.

CAVUTO: You`re okay with, in this case, profiling?

KOCH: Absolutely. All I care about is that, when I get on that plane, I want to have a reasonable assurance that I`m going to land safely….

CAVUTO: And you also mentioned about the message we`re sending the world when we try to step back from calling this for what it is-

KOCH: Right.

CAVUTO: -a war. Now, the administration`s tried to avoid that to have better relations and to reach out—

KOCH: Has it helped?

CAVUTO—to those 1.4 billion Muslims.

KOCH: Has it helped?

CAVUTO: Well, his approval and America`s regard has gone up in those countries. He says and they say—

KOCH: Isn`t that nice? Did they stop trying to kill us?

CAVUTO: So you say, just, he`s wasting his time doing that?

KOCH: I am saying speak the truth. And there are no other people who are out there trying to kill us, other than Muslim fanatics. There`s nothing illegal, immoral to say that is the case. And you can also say the vast majority of Muslims are decent, law-abiding people. But that doesn`t mean we shouldn`t pat down specially if there are Muslims in line and we know that to be the case, boarding a plane. I don`t see anything wrong with profiling. What, are we crazy?

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LA writes:

The remark about “hundreds of millions” of terrorists may seem over the top; but if we think of it as meaning not just people who personally commit terrorism but people who support terrorism, then it is certainly true.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 09, 2010 10:30 AM | Send