Are you smart enough to remember things that happened prior to 15 minutes ago? Oh, you are? Well, then you're probably not a Democrat.
Back in 2014 the New York Police Department dropped a program that monitored potential suspects of Islamic extremism.
Created in 2005, the program was pretty cut and dry: plain clothed detectives were sent out to mosques and gathering places for Muslims to see if anyone was pushing extremist rhetoric on the community. While it might seem a bit intrusive, this happened in a city of 8.5 million people with as many as 800,000 Muslim residents in the greater metro area, many of whom are foreign born nationals. It's also the same geographic location as the biggest Islamic terror attack in United States history.
Known as the Demographics Unit, the program seemed to make sense. After all, New York City has a history with Islamic extremism that resulted in thousands of people dying. But when liberal activists and special interest groups caught wind of it's existence, it had to go.
In 2014 the New York Times reported that the Demographics Unit would no longer exist. They didn't make this decision on their own. They were pressed into the move by a feminist Sharia Law advocate & liberal activist named Linda Sarour. You might remember Linda from the Women's March in DC earlier this year. She's part of the Arab American Association of New York. She also called for a Jihad against President Trump [her words, not mine]. And she really dislikes Israel [the only Jewish state on Earth].
Back in 2014 Sarsour said, "The Demographics Unit created psychological warfare in our community.” She didn't offer any evidence to support that claim, but it sounded great when she said it so the New York Times enthusiastically published the quote. That's when Sarsour met with high ranking members of the NYPD to advocate for the end of the Demographics Unit [which had renamed the Zone Assessment Unit in more recent years].
The department’s intelligence chief, John Miller, agreed with Sarsour that the division had to go. No more Demographics Unit.
Fast-forward to October 31, 2017. That's when New York City terror suspect Sayfullo Saipov allegedly rented a truck from Home Depot and used it to kill 8 people and injure 11 as he mowed down pedestrians. He became an internationally known Islamic extremist. But his story didn't start there.
Saipov happens to be a foreign-born Muslim from Uzbekistan. He first arrived in the US in 2010 in Ohio during the Obama-era. He got a green a card, he moved to New Jersey [after briefly spending time in Florida] and he worked as an Uber driver to support himself.
He also frequented a mosque in New Jersey. Lets talk about that mosque for just a moment, shall we?
The Omar Mosque in Paterson, N.J., located near the suspect's home, is one of the many mosques in the New York metro area that was previously being studied by the NYPD. The location was believed by investigators to be a possible destination for, “budding terrorist conspiracies." And it turns out those investigators were right. In fact, the mosque was being monitored by the NYPD going back as far as at least 2006. They knew about this place and the possibility that it might be the hang out destination for a potentially lethal terror suspect. Detectives believed someone at this mosque was capable of infiltrating a terror attack [and they were right].
There are some people who will hear this news and think, "it's wrong to investigate innocent people." I strongly disagree. Investigating people is called "detective work" and it's what you're supposed to do when you're [get ready for this]... a detective. I realize it's not politically correct [whatever that means] to profile people for criminal investigations, but unfortunately for members of the offense-industry, profiling actually works. It's how detectives do their jobs. Like it or not, profiling is an essential part of investigating violent crimes. Serial killers tend to be single middle-class white men from the suburbs, cartel members tend to be Latino and ISIS inspired terrorists are typically [drum roll please] Muslims.
But because of people like Linda Sarsour, it's now deemed racially insensitive [even though Islam isn't a race] to profile people because they're Muslims. I'm not saying Linda Sarsour is responsible for yesterday's terror attack, but she certainly helped make it easier for Muslims terrorists in NYC to execute successful massacre-attempts on law abiding citizens.
Spare me your diatribes about "xenophobia". We're Americans. We don't fear foreigners, we embrace them. America grants the legal right of passage to work and live in the United States to over a million foreigners every year. That's more access granted to foreigners than any other country on Earth. Heck, even the people who were murdered in NYC this week were foreigners from Argentina and Belgium. They were literally foreigners. But because of someone inspired by Linda Sarsour's religion, they're now dead. The NYPD intelligence efforts to combat Islamic extremism weren't just designed to protect American citizens, they were also intended to protect visiting foreigners.
The left's go-to talking point after these types of attacks is always "Islamophobia". If they can't blame guns [like Hillary and her calls to ban "silencers" after the Vegas attack], they'll distract from the tragedy by turning the tables and making victims out of the community that surrounds the attackers. Linda Sarsour made that same point in 2014 when she convinced the NYPD to stop investigating possible Islamic extremists. Yesterday millions of people in New York should have realized she was wrong. Hopefully they got the message.