Fox News trotted out two Islamophobes as terrorism experts on last night’s (12/26/09) special On The Record devoted to the botched terror attack on board a Northwest Airlines airplane on Christmas as it approached Detroit.
Each guest ignored the gist of Greta Van Susteren’s inquiries, in which she questioned the effectiveness of security procedures and responses, in order to push their anti-Islamic agenda and suggest that the only real security improvements needed are less political correctness and more anti-Islamicism. The second guest, Harvey Kushner, even went so far as to suggest that the suspect could not have been well trained by Al Qaeda because otherwise, he would not have chosen Detroit, which has such a high concentration of Muslims, as the nearby scene of his crime. Kudos to Van Susteren for refusing to engage on that level with either guest and for flatly rejecting the theory about Detroit. With video.
First up on the show was the discredited Islamophobe Steve Emerson. As FAIR has reported, Emerson’s work has been cited for misrepresentations and anti-Arab bias. He has also made some major gaffes, including his claim that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing showed "a Middle Eastern trait" because it "was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible." As we previously reported, Emerson alleged on Hannity & Colmes in January, 2008 that radical jihadists have infiltrated the Pentagon, FBI and other U.S. agencies. Yet, when he appeared on the show again a year later, nobody asked any follow up questions.
Emerson wasted no time getting to his anti-Islamic agenda last night. Van Susteren’s main point, that she repeatedly returned to throughout the show, was that there were numerous red flags airline security should have heeded about the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. She questioned why that had not happened and the seemingly illogical responses in the wake of the incident: not allowing passengers any blankets, restricting carry ons to one item and not allowing passengers to leave their seats during the last hour of flights. Van Susteren said that the incident “shows how porous our security is… This whole thing is deeply disturbing as to how effective we are at protecting ourselves.”
Emerson ignored what she was saying in order to push his anti-Islamicism, suggesting that the whole problem with our security is that we're too sensitive toward Muslims. “Well, there’s also, Greta, the issue of political correctness because, frankly, you saw that in the case of Major Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood when no one wanted to report him as an Islamic extremist because they feared that they would be called ‘bigots’ or ‘Islamophobes.’ So I think we have to take that into account now that the political correctness has shifted the pendulum in such a way that people are afraid to actually investigate radical Islamic extremists for fear that they might be racially profiling.” He offered no evidence that fear of being called a bigot was behind the failure to flag Abdulmutallab. Emerson went on to point out “tell tale signs of somebody who’s up to no good” about Abdulmutallab’s behavior that should have triggered a security response: the fact that he paid cash for his ticket in Nigeria, had no checked luggage and only one carry-on bag, that there was some intelligence affiliating him with Al Qaeda. Interestingly, none of the warning signs had to do with the fact that he’s Islamic.
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http://www.newshounds.us/2009/12/27/fox_news_cranks_up_the_antiislamicism_in_wake_of_christmas_terrorism_incident.php
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