6 imams, Aviation Security, John Doe protection

Bennie Thompson vs. terrorism tipsters

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From today’s Washington Times:

For two months, Mr. Thompson has deployed the profiling argument against this measure, tucked into the House transportation-security bill. The good news is that a bipartisan House majority already passed it 304-121 seven weeks ago. But sadly, Mr. Thompson is expected to strip it from the bill. He is expected to be the lead House negotiator in the coming weeks when the bill reaches conference committee, and if he is, he will have considerable sway over the final product.

Mr. Thompson would stand alone among key homeland-security players, all of whom support immunity, if he blocks it. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat who chairs the Senate committee and ranking Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, both support it. So does Rep. Peter King, New York Republican, the ranking member in the House homeland-security committee.

How damaging it would be to leave tipsters on the hook; there could be few better ways to staunch the flow of information. Think of last week’s Fort Dix tipster and ask yourself whether you would report suspicious behavior in a similar position.

The cutting edge of this debate, the case of the anonymous U.S. Airways passengers in Minneapolis, is not encouraging. These passengers observed six imams refuse to sit in their assigned seats, request metal-bearing seatbelt extensions and speak loud condemnations of the United States. After frightened passengers reported this behavior, the imams were removed from the flight. Troublemakers are routinely removed for less. But the “John Does” were sued along with the airline and regulatory authorities.

Iraq, War on Terror

Perish the thought, not the al Qaeda in Iraq: Dems

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This morning, in the New York Post:

“Your soldiers are in our hands … What you are doing in searching for [them] will lead to nothing but exhaustion and headaches,” said the online statement from the Islamic State of Iraq – one of al Qaeda’s Iraqi incarnations.

The warning recalls Pelosi’s words from 2006; she said she felt “sad” over President Bush’s insistence that al Qaeda is operating in Iraq.

Or Reid, who recently called on the president to “change course [away from Iraq] and turn our attention back to the war on al Qaeda and their allies.”

For the Democrats, the War on Terror should be waged exclusively outside Iraq’s borders. What’s happening in Baghdad and Anbar province, they maintain, is nothing more than a Sunni-Shiite civil war – one from which America must cut and run.

All the current Democrat Party’s candidates for President and, minus a very few, those in Congress would disengage from the al Qaeda in Iraq. It is all too much. The enemy keeps counter-attacking, the war is so brutal, and our side also suffers casualties.

The real war is where the enemy is yet, for the Democrats, it is like the 1960’s all over again. They cannot get slogans like “What if there was a war and nobody came?” out of their heads.

Our leaving Iraq will not end the sectarian violence and the al Qaeda will not just go away. Our enemies fight wherever they find targets of opportunity — wherever they find us.

In the War on Terror, there is no place to run from here.

Taking the fight to the enemy is more than a theory. While our enemies know that, the Democrats running for election next year and now running the House and the Senate remain in a state of denial.