In short, there were no illegal or harmful actions perpetrated on the Muslim community by the NYPD.
It also should be noted that the Justice Department’s new rules for profiling allow the FBI to use demographic mapping as an effective tool in investigations. So the FBI will now do what the NYPD says is no longer viable. Such confusing policies often have demoralizing effects on the rank and file.
New NYPD Commissioner William Bratton recently said that the officers in the department suffered from “low morale.” He blamed the previous administration for that.
So now what happens to the detectives who formerly worked in the unit? We are told they are being transferred into other divisions within the Intelligence and Counter Terrorism bureaus. They’ve become the scapegoats. Hopefully their careers will not be stigmatized by this action. I, for one, do not think such actions as these boost morale.
So what is the department going to do differently to address the threat of Islamic terrorism?
You can’t deny it. New reports out of Yemen revealed the meeting of a large cadre of Islamic terrorists led by Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the head of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, calling for attacks on America.
“We must eliminate the cross. … The bearer of the cross is America!” he says.
And we know that at the top of al-Qaida’s list of targets in the United States is New York City.
The Department does not deny this. It posted on its website the reality of the terrorist threat in New York City and the need to protect its citizens. “New York City has experienced first-hand the threat of international terrorism and remains number one on al-Qaeda’s target list,” it says. “The NYPD Counterterrorism Bureau is constantly fine tuning its strategies and operations to meet this threat head on.”
Which makes the announcement to disband a segment of the overall Counter Terrorism initiatives all the more confusing. It appears to be nothing more than political pandering and placing the blame where it is not deserved.
Fine tuning strategy is one thing. Finding a scapegoat to satisfy the few is quite another.
Originally published at The Investigative Project on Terrorism. / Steve Emerson