If Philadelphia is a terrorist haven, what is there to apologize for? "Police brass clash at mosque sit-down: The commissioner apologized for a chief inspector's view that Phila. is a terrorist haven, but the chief inspector didn't budge," from the Philadephia Inquirer, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
The head of the Philadelphia Police Department's counterterrorism unit is standing by his assertion that the city is a hideout for terrorists.His boss, Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson, apologized for him and contradicted him during a lunch yesterday with bemused and offended Arab Americans and Muslims at the Al-Aqsa Mosque at the edge of Northern Liberties.
But Chief Inspector Joseph E. O'Connor would not take back the comment he made after the London transit bombings that Philadelphia is "notorious for fund-raising and recruitment" by terrorist organizations.
"I do know they recruited at a mosque," said O'Connor yesterday, referring to the London bombers. "I'm not saying that it's happening here... . I don't know."
"It's not happening here," Marwan Kreidie, head of the Arab American Development Corp., a community organization, told him.
"It could," O'Connor shot back.
When pressed, he could not provide any details to back up his assertion that the city is a terrorist haven.
Johnson, sitting beside O'Connor at a lunch intended to mend fences at the Germantown Avenue mosque, jumped in to say that O'Connor's position is not that of the Philadelphia Police Department.
"We do not feel that way, and that's coming from me as police commissioner," Johnson said. "Joe O'Connor has his own opinions.
"There's nothing that would indicate there's a problem with the Muslim community collecting money for or harboring people who are extreme Muslims," he said. "No one at the FBI has ever said those things to me, and as far as I know, they don't feel the same way, either."
O'Connor, former commander of the department's elite SWAT team, was suspended for 10 days and passed up for promotion in 2002 after he failed to report an accident involving his command car in 2000. He was finally promoted and transferred to the antiterrorism unit in 2003.
"I never meant to offend anybody in the Islamic community," O'Connor said yesterday after the meeting with mosque and community leaders. "I was surprised they were offended. I was kind of taken aback they were not more offended by the attacks" in London. On July 7, bombers detonated explosives in three Underground stations and aboard a bus, killing 52 other people; two weeks later, attackers failed in attempts to bomb four transit targets.
The failure of the police commissioner to back up the head of the Philadelphia Police Department's counterterrorism unit, and to disavow that head's remark in front of a Muslim audience, is disturbing, and more than disturbing. This act of public appeasement and abasement should not be forgotten. It delivers the wrong message to the local Muslims (described as "bemused and offended" -- false victimhoos, false bemusement, secret delight at seeing the police chief, all for their benefit, contradicting his terrorism chief). This is not the way to obtain coopoeration in the only way that has proven successful -- fear of repercussions. It is instead a way to dishearten not only the terrorsim chief, Joseph O'Connor, but all those working on the support system for terrorism who know whereof they speak.
Johnson, the Police Chief, if he could not bring himself to second the observations of the head of the counterterrorism unit, at least could have seen fit to remain quiet, to not appear to undercut or contradict that counterterrorism expert, and to be seen, publicly, appeasing Muslims at the cost of politce solidarity. He could simply have shut up -- but did not.
This should be remembered. And if there is another incident by the Police Chief like this, a public appeasement and abasement, then it should be time for him to go. At the very least, it would be a salutary lesson for other appeasers in other police departments. We can't go on like this.
The public appeasement of our elected officials, church, business and other leaders is disturbing. It shows ignorance and a type of obsequiousness that demonstrates that the speaker has given in to the role of, in this case a dhimmi, and sadly, in other cases, those guilty of wronging.
Appeasement almost never achieves the stated goal. It creates more violence or more of the same anti-social behaviors that were attempted to be extinguished.
The Philadelphia police are inviting jihad and perhaps more terrorism. They absolutely don't understand the nature and consequences of jihad.
Give the police "Time", they will understand, of that I have no doubt! The question is this; who will be left to witness the awakening?
kwg1
"I was surprised they were offended. I was kind of taken aback they were not more offended by the attacks" in London. - Chief Inspector Joseph E. O'Connor
Here is a man who has not lost his moral compass. He is standing up for what he knows (that the London bombers were recruited in mosques) and what he doesn't know (whether or not that same kind of recruitment is happening in Philly).
I hereby nominate Chief Inspector O'Connor for hero of the week. any seconds?
Second!
It seems clear that only perhaps several more Jihadist attacks on Western soil, on the scale of 911 or far worse, will wake up all these numbskulls of ours from their torpid irrationality.
If you would like to commend Joseph O'Connor
http://www.ppdonline.org/hq_commend_form.php
Irresponsibility is more like it, Dr Pepper, although irrational fits also. Irrationally irresponsibleland, thats where the practitioners of PC run to when confronted by reality. For some of them, reading RS P.I.G. book would make them bleed from the ears. O'Connor does not seem to be contaminated by PC, his mind is not clouded like his infected superiors. People with clouded minds should not be making important decisions. Send O'Connor a copy of RS P.I.G book and encourage him to either convince his superiors, or find a way to act on what he knows in spite of them. Someone has to take the bull by the horns.