Senseless in Seattle: Self-Inflicted Profiling Angst

It must be confusing to be an FBI agent these days. For years now, the practice of profiling, AKA stereotyping, has been officially forbidden, driven underground in the law enforcement community by political correctness and ACLU lawsuits. Fighting the War on Terror with agents blindfolded to race, religion, ethnicity, and other characteristics is becoming increasingly challenging, made more so by the ironic fact that even when the FBI forgoes profiling in potential terrorism investigations it is still criticized by the very groups it strives not to offend. The FBI’s recent release of photos of two unknown men observed conducting what may have been pre-attack operational planning on several ferries in Washington’s Puget Sound area generated an ironic response from Seattle’s Muslim and Arab-American community leaders.

The context of this incident is important to consider. The FBI, after interviewing ferry passengers and staff, was unsuccessful in identifying the two men, who were observed showing interest in critical and restricted areas of the ferries. So unusual was their behavior that ferry staff and passengers reported it to a ferry captain, who photographed the pair. That photo, obtained from the captain, was turned over to the FBI and subsequently released to the news media along with a request for anyone with information about the two men to contact the FBI. The FBI did not refer to the men as Muslims, Arabs, or even Middle Eastern.

That last fact made the swift and emotional response from Seattle’s Muslim and Arab-American community leaders all the more ironic. Their chief complaint was that they had worked hard to establish cooperative relations with the FBI in Seattle, but the FBI had damaged the tenuous partnership by releasing the ferry suspects’ photos without first consulting Muslim and Arab-American leaders. As reported by the Seattle Times:

Dozens of Muslims and Arabs have complained to community leaders about the photographs. The fallout has led to a meeting planned today between Muslim- and Arab-American community leaders and law-enforcement officials.

"We need to get some type of apology from them and figure out how to get back to where we were," said Rita Zawaideh, head of the Arab-American Community Coalition.

Remember, the FBI merely provided the photos to media sources because it wanted to interview the two men regarding their behavior on the ferries, not because of their appearance. Usually when government agencies are criticized in the media by hyper-sensitive groups, they turn tail and flee from the possibility of lawsuits and accusations of profiling. Fortunately, David Gomez, a supervisor in the FBI’s Seattle Field Office stood his ground and accused Seattle’s Muslim and Arab-American leaders of stereotyping in precisely the same manner they so loudly object to from law enforcement:

Gomez said the agency needs to address certain sensitive issues, but "people in those communities have to get over this sensitivity toward feeling victimized."

Many passengers have been stopped and questioned recently, as the ferry system has stepped up security once the FBI concluded the men might be watching the system. The stops are based on activities, not skin color, Gomez said.

Two days ago, a Seattle Times photographer, who is white, was stopped and questioned after taking photographs near the Mukilteo ferry terminal.

The FBI didn't take the photos of the two men to the Arab- and Muslim-American community because the agency doesn't know if the men are Middle Eastern, Gomez added.

"That seems potentially prejudicial to me, and in some ways worse than simply putting [the photos] out the way we did," Gomez said. "It is not us saying these guys look Middle Eastern."

Thus without knowing whether the ferry suspects were Middle Eastern, the FBI followed the most prudent and politically correct course possible in its quest to identify and locate the two men: it simply released the photos without guessing at the pair’s religious preference or ethnicity, and asked for the public’s help in identifying the two men because they were acting suspiciously on a public conveyance considered an attractive potential terrorist target. The FBI played its cards right in this situation, because had it taken the photos to Seattle’s Muslim and Arab-American community leaders asking for assistance, those leaders could have accused the FBI of assuming the two suspects were Muslim or Middle Eastern based on appearance only, a classic cry of profiling. The complaint of Rita Zawaideh that the FBI had consulted with leaders prior to other releases of suspect photos intentionally omits a crucial element: in those prior instances the FBI had already obtained through investigation some indication that those suspects were in fact Muslims of Middle Eastern descent.

The nature of the cooperative relationship previously established between the FBI’s Seattle office and Seattle’s Muslim leaders should be reexamined. While it is not uncommon for law enforcement to approach such leaders when there is some indication a suspect has ties to a particular religious or ethnic community, it would be unusual for a law enforcement agency to feel obliged to allow those leaders to preview all alerts or lookouts (BOLOs) prior to public release when an agency does not know the religion or ethnicity of a suspect. It would be irresponsible to share such law enforcement sensitive data, and it would be profiling. Should the FBI be required to select leaders from every conceivable ethnic or religious group, who will review suspect photos prior to public release? In a nation so diverse, suspects would have long since fled before the FBI could “consult” with representatives from an endless number of cultural communities.

By their own outrage at the FBI’s failure to consult them before releasing the suspects’ photos, Seattle’s Muslim leaders revealed their own penchant for profiling, clearly becoming angry after viewing the photos on the Internet and coming to their own conclusion that the two suspects were in fact Muslim and Middle Eastern based solely on physical characteristics. Had the FBI come to those same conclusions based on the same criteria, an ACLU lawsuit would have arrived at the FBI’s Seattle office before the ink had dried from its printing. Law enforcement agencies face a serious quandary, forbidden from officially teaching agents the art of profiling while simultaneously condemned for carefully avoiding it.

Seattle’s Muslim and Arab-American leaders did not need law enforcement profiling training to conclude from a photo that the ferry suspects were likely Middle Eastern Muslims. Unlike law enforcement, those leaders are allowed to judge by color rather than character. Their response conjured memories of the peasant mob in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who when asked by Sir Bedevere how they knew a village woman was a witch replied, “Because she looks like one!” Apparently Seattle’s Muslim leaders applied the same logic when they viewed the ferry suspects’ photos. To its credit, the FBI withheld such superficial judgment, preferring instead to wait for investigative leads that might establish the suspects’ ethnicity.

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FBI, Seattle, Ferry, Terrorist Targets, Muslim Leaders, CAIR, Profiling, Arab-Americans, David Gomez, Rita Zawaideh, Terrorist Attack Planning, Puget Sound, War on Terror

Blowing Down Gore's House of Straw Polls

Only in America can only thirty-five people gather in a living room to talk politics, cast a vote for their favorite candidates, and find the results of their tiny get-together linked to as a major story on the Drudge Report, a news site that attracts around 14.5 million hits per day. Matt Drudge is a master of titillating or misleading headlines, and Wednesday's story link "Gore Wins Democratic Straw Poll in Arizona" was a good example of Drudge's subtlety. Everything in the headline was technically true. Al Gore did in fact win a straw poll in Arizona. The Drudge headline, however, was apparently selected to create the impression among potential readers that Al Gore won a substantive political victory in a statewide Democratic straw poll in Arizona, when in reality his straw poll victory was neither statewide nor substantive. Forty Democrats from the Scottsdale area gathering in a living room to vote in a straw poll is hardly a sweeping political movement worthy of international media attention, nor can any credible political observer extrapolate from it the eventual outcome of the Arizona Democratic primaries. But don't tell that to Matt Drudge, whose headline gave Gore credibility where none was merited.

The epic tale of Gore's Lilliputian victory in a Scottsdale living room straw poll as championed by Drudge appeared in the Arizona Republic, and the Republic clearly made every effort to report the straw poll results as a genuine story with deep political ramifications not only for Arizona Democrats, but for the national race for the party's nomination as well. However, a careful reading of the article revealed that only thirty-five of the forty Democrats who showed up for the straw poll actually paid the $20 fee to obtain a ballot and vote. Votes for "first choice" and "popularity" were later tallied accurately (no hanging chads in the Southwest), and unannounced but quietly salivating at the prospect candidate Al Gore won the "first choice" vote with 51 percent followed in a distant second place by John Edwards with 17 percent of votes cast. These numbers may seem meaningless, but as they say in TV infomercials, "but wait, there's more!"

We rarely associate the words "Democratic votes" and "calculator" with the words "fun" or "interesting," yet the application of a calculator to the Scottsdale straw poll results generates more entertainment than one would initially think. For example, it was fascinating that Democrats, who have whined for 7 years that the popular vote should count more than electoral votes or percentages reported the Scottsdale straw poll results in, of course, percentages only. No raw vote count totals were provided in the Republic news report. Why? Perhaps because the media can take insignificant poll results and make them sound as if the participants in the poll represented a much larger segment of the overall population than they really did. A handy calculator helps illustrate how this is achieved.

The Arizona Republic reported the vote count as follows:

When tallying the votes, the local party leaders considered both the "first choice" of voters and the "popularity" of candidates.

The popularity vote was important because it showed who voters would chose if Gore does not run.

Gore won the first choice by 51 percent, followed by Edwards with 17 percent, national front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton with 14 percent, Sen. Barack Obama by 9 percent, Sen. Joe Biden by 6 percent and Rep. Dennis Kucinich by 3 percent.

Edwards won the popularity vote by 29 percent, followed by Gore with 26 percent, Obama with 19 percent, Clinton with 14 percent, Kucinich with 6 percent, Biden with 4 percent and Richardson with 2 percent.

All those double-digit percentages certainly helped readers forget that only 35 people actually participated in this vote. Thus, Al Gore's 51 percent, which when converted to actual votes signified that he was the first choice of a whopping 17.85 actual voters in an Arizona living room, seems much less impressive than merely reporting that he garnered 50 percent of an Arizona straw poll. Perhaps if they find that hanging chad or a pregnant chad gives birth they will find the other 0.15 of a vote.

Likewise, Edwards' second place finish with 17 percent converts to only 5.95 actual votes. However, the big mystery was Bill Richardson, who as Governor of New Mexico and a fellow southwest Democrat, only polled 2 percent, which when converted is only 0.7 of a vote. By reporting Richardson's straw poll showing in percentages rather than vote count, the Arizona Republic performed a small act of sympathetic kindness. When your party holds a straw poll in a neighboring state and you receive only seven-tenths of a vote, it may be finally time to "redeploy" and wait for other career options than the presidency.

Despite a valiant reporting effort by the Arizona Republic and international recognition courtesy of a Drudge Report link, a community straw poll involving thirty-five votes simply could not be taken seriously, especially when compared to the well-organized statewide Republican straw poll held in Iowa and won by Mitt Romney. Romney's opponents and snide media pundits were quick to minimize the perceived importance of Romney's decisive victory in the Iowa straw poll, but perhaps the irrelevance of the Scottsdale Democratic straw poll will serve as a contrast that will bring Romney's success in a larger poll more sharply into focus.

The time fast approaches when Al Gore's performance in straw polls and primaries will signify something substantial and ominous in the realm of electoral politics. The Scottsdale straw poll was not the long-awaited sign of the Al Gore apocalypse upon us. The so-called "Democratic straw poll in Arizona" merely gave one homeowner and thirty-four members of her community a few moments to bask in the global warming of a media spotlight.

Technorati Tags: Al Gore Straw Poll Arizona Democrats Arizona Republic Drudge Report Matt Drudge Presidential Candidates Scottsdale Bill Richardson John Edwards Poll Results

'Ugly American' No-Confidence in al-Maliki

Is a no-confidence vote from Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) a blessing or a curse for a head of state? Perhaps the more germane question is, do Iraqis take note of or care what Senator Levin thinks of their government's internal affairs? Over the weekend, Levin visited Iraq with Senator John Warner (R-VA) for the express purpose, as we reported Friday, to shift attention away from news that the upcoming report on the progress of General Petraeus' surge strategy would be positive and increase support for continuance of the war effort. Levin telegraphed his distraction playbook, stating openly that he intended to focus his trip and subsequent media interviews on one topic: the political nature of Iraq's problems and that they can only be solved through political means.

On Monday, Levin wasted no time reporting on the results of his brief "fact-finding" stint in Iraq. In just two days, despite hearing glowing reports of the difference made by the surge strategy in the overall security in Iraq, Senator Levin dismissed all such good news and did what any good Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman who wishes he were Secretary of State would do: he called for the ouster of a government that has worked for years at extreme personal peril for unity and functional democracy in Iraq. Although that description also applies to the Bush administration, which Levin has also worked assiduously to thwart, Levin's no-confidence vote was for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. In smug superiority rivaling that of the infamous "Ugly American" of literary renown, Levin made these less than statesmanlike public remarks about the elected leader of a government that is surrounded by mortal enemies and looks to the United States as perhaps its only reliable ally:

I hope that the Iraqi assembly, when it reconvenes in a few weeks, will vote the Maliki government out of office and will have the wisdom to replace it with a less sectarian and a more unifying prime minister and government," said Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.

Levin and Sen. John Warner of Virginia, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, just completed a two-day visit to Iraq.

The two senior lawmakers issued a joint statement saying that while the U.S. military "surge" in Iraq has given Iraqi politicians some breathing room, they have failed to make the compromises needed to bring peace to that war-torn nation.

"We are not optimistic about the prospects for those compromises," the Levin and Warner said in their joint statement.

Levin in a teleconference with reporters went a step further, suggesting the Iraqi parliament have a vote of no confidence and replace the Maliki government, which he said is built too much upon sectarian allegiances and connections.

We have heard American congressmen express a desire for Fidel Castro's demise. We heard congressmen and presidents declare their hopes for the downfall of oppressive communist governments in the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. Yet we cannot recall having heard a member of congress actively promoting a hope that an allied government, democratically elected, would be voted out with no consideration given to the repercussions of such statements. That Senator Warner, who traveled to Iraq with Levin, did not immediately disavow Levin's meddling in Iraqi electoral politics makes him perhaps equally responsible for whatever may eventually result if al-Maliki's government is crippled by a no-confidence vote.

In his quest to diminish the upcoming surge progress report in September, Levin appears not to care what havoc his misinformation campaign may wreak. Note that Levin and Warner on one hand praise the surge strategy for increasing public safety in Iraq and turning Sunni tribes against al Qaeda, but on the other hand they minimize the overall importance of the surge by dismissing it as merely giving al-Maliki's government "breathing room." We are quite certain that our troops in Iraq and their commanders are not risking their lives daily merely to give, as Levin called it, a "non-functional" Iraqi government a bit of breathing room. Levin may be the most adept senator in the current Democratic Party stable at forecasting storms of doom from the clouds attached to every silver lining reported from Iraq.

Looking down his nose over studious-looking spectacles at squirming victims dragged in front of his Armed Services Committee hearings is Levin's forte. He waxes professorial as he lectures four-star generals on how they should be conducting wars, and one can easily conjure up such mental images when reading Levin's further report of his meetings with Iraqi government officials:

In many meetings with Iraqi political leaders, of all different backgrounds, we told them of the deep impatience of the American people and the Congress with the lack of political progress, impressed upon them that time has run out in that regard, and told them of the urgent need to make the essential compromises.

Somehow we doubt that Iraqis, who have survived bombings of parliament and daily face potential assassination, were overly intimidated by Levin's impatience and impertinence.

Absent in these encounters were rebuttals and chastisements from the State Department for Levin's intrusion into diplomatic issues constitutionally assigned to the executive branch. Ordinarily State objects rather publicly when congressmen journey into realms of statecraft and issues of consequence such as ousting elected governments. Nancy Pelosi's 2007 Syrian Odyssey was loudly condemned by Secretary of State Rice for protocol reasons, but more substantively because of its potential for disrupting Middle Eastern relations. It is baffling that despite the fact that Levin and Warner were entitled to such brief fact-finding trips to Iraq, Levin's proclaimed hope for the removal of the sitting Iraqi Prime Minister during an ongoing war were not decried by State aggressively and decisively.

The fact that this appeared to be a bi-partisan (thanks to Warner's presence) knife in al-Maliki's back surely will not lessen the pain of the wound. Levin and Warner clearly had come to their conclusions about the al-Maliki government prior to their two-day visit to Iraq, raising the question of why they made the trip in the first place. What information did the pair obtain by meeting with and talking down to Iraqis that they did not already possess through military and intelligence reports? A two-day stay is hardly enough for anyone to become an expert on complex issues like nation-building or the consequences of no-confidence votes, unless perhaps Levin and Warner stayed in a Holiday Inn Express. Levin's verbal attack on al-Maliki was merely the opening salvo of an expected full-scale bombardment that will intensify as the surge progress report date nears.

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Carl Levin, John Warner, Armed Services Committee, Iraq, Al-Maliki, No-Confidence Vote, Ugly American, Surge Strategy, Surge Report, General Petraeus, Iraqi Government