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Jewish World Review Feb. 18, 2003 / 16 Adar I, 5763

Diana West

Diana West
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Consumer Reports

Mark your Code Orange calendar

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | When asked about Code Orange, America's elevated terror alert level, an attendant at Disneyland's Haunted Mansion in Anaheim, Calif., responded: "I thought the air was cleaner now, and we didn't have to worry about that ozone stuff anymore."

Ozone stuff is right. The New York Times reporter whom fortune chose to favor with this epic disconnect offered no comment on the exchange, but I'm hoping he decided against bringing Mr. Stratosphere down to earth with a deflating headline or two from current events. Better to leave him aloft in that state of buoyant oblivion most people find difficult to reach while hefting 2.5 gallon containers of mountain spring water into the pantry -- which better approximates the working definition of Code Orange for the earthbound among us.

Amazingly enough, the Code Orange custom -- so new that Martha Stewart hasn't had time to come up with a commemorative craft using duct tape and plastic sheeting -- is starting to tie in perfectly with the Muslim religious calendar. That's because Western intelligence intercepts suggest that the major Muslim terrorists may mark the major Muslim holidays with a little jihadi action against America and other infidel-nations -- excluding Germany and France, naturellement.

Our last Code Orange occurred on Ramadan; this time around, it's Hajj, a holiday of pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, the seat of Islam. For Hajj 2003, no fewer than 2 million people from around the Islamic world have traveled to Mecca to hear the message that Islam is "peace" -- which must be what that head Saudi cleric meant this week when he told the assembled masses, "the enemy has exposed its fangs." The faithful also participated in such spiritually cleansing rituals as "stoning the devil," a rite in which each pilgrim hurls seven pebbles at several posts before safely, everyone hopes (this year's death-by-trampling toll at the Hajj holiday was 14), moving on. That's a lot of pebbles.

Not that there's anything wrong with a lot of pebbles. Indeed, who are we-who-buy-duct-tape to say anything about they-who-hurl-pebbles? The same reticence, however, is inappropriate when it comes to the link between elevated terror alerts and Muslim religious observances. The connection isn't open to debate; even Saudi authorities figured on Hajj-related terrorism as being a possibility, announcing their intentions to respond to it "with an iron fist." What deserves comment are the concerted efforts of the Muslim lobby to deny it.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) calls the U.S. government's intelligence findings "unnecessary linkage." According to CAIR Executive Director (and Hamas supporter) Nihad Awad, the main reason "linkage" is "unnecessary" is that "it serves to promote the growing perception in the Muslim world that the war on terrorism is in reality an attack on Islam." Follow the logic: Connecting evidence of a potential threat (Islamic terrorism) to evidence of a potential time frame (an Islamic holiday) is not professional-caliber intelligence work that could save the lives of multi-faith Americans, it's "unnecessary linkage" that could offend the Muslim world. Looks as if Mr. Stratosphere isn't the only one in the ozone.

Of course, that's putting a happy face on a strategy of denial that seems designed to undermine common sense and even discourage its expression. Take the turbulent micro-flap over recent remarks by House Republican Howard Coble. The North Carolina congressman has been loudly denounced as a bigot and bombarded with calls for apology, even resignation from a congressional post, for daring to suggest that "some Arab-Americans are probably intent on doing harm to us." (He also dared to suggest that FDR was correct to intern Japanese-Americans who lived on the West Coast during World War II, but that's another column.)

The fact is, there is ample evidence that some Arab-Americans, acting with both non-Arab Muslims and non-American Arabs, have done their darnedest to harm us, according to government cases pending against Arab-Americans from Washington to Michigan to New York to Florida. In light of FBI Director Robert Mueller's warning this week that, besides the "several hundred" Muslim extremists in this country suspected of aiding Islamic terror networks, the greatest stateside threat is "Al Qaeda cells in the United States that we have not identified," Mr. Coble's hunch that some Arab-Americans may be involved is nothing short of credible. As if to illustrate Mr. Coble's point, Enaam M. Arnout, the Arab-American director of an Islamic charity the government believes kept Al Qaeda in the money, has admitted, also this week, to funneling money illegally to Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Chechnya in the 1990s.

Not that any of this matters, apparently, to James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. In denouncing Mr. Coble's statement as "both false and hurtful," Mr. Zogby is demanding an apology. For what? Such keen outrage would better serve the nation by exposing the truth, no matter how hurtful, instead of hiding it.

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JWR contributor Diana West is a columnist and editorial writer for the Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.

02/10/03: Love and honor -- lost, found and murdered
02/03/03: A calm that causes concern
01/27/03: Playing politics with a T-shirt mentality
01/21/03: When understanding the East means losing the West
01/13/03: Is a war on Jews a war on democracy?
01/06/03: Bush must take a stand on affirmative action
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12/09/02: Protest Augusta? Why not Sudan?
11/25/02: Something to contemplate this Ramadan
11/08/02: Does Eminem now fit in?
11/04/02: No time for gloating
11/04/02: What's in a name when the name is Muhammad?
10/28/02: Jihad as a First Amendment right
10/21/02: When speaking out isn't allowed
10/14/02: Terrorism in Maryland and abroad
09/30/02: So long urgency, hello indulgence
09/24/02: That one, sturdy, missing word
09/17/02: Fingerprinting, finally
09/09/02: When 'healing' overshadows reality
09/04/02: Tales from the Techno Valley and Forest
08/16/02: Elvis shall rise again
08/14/02: War with Iraq won't harm war on terror
08/06/02: Clinton snaps over Somalia
08/01/02: 9-11 anniversary shouldn't come with apology
07/27/02: An unstable common ground
07/25/02: Hillary fights hard for soft money
07/12/02: Goretheus unbound
07/10/02: Rosie takes a shine to Republicans
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06/25/02: Blame the murderer, and the messenger
06/21/02: Up front and personal with Atta
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05/03/02: Pioneering television
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03/31/02: Speeding to conclusions
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03/19/02: The Big Lie lives on
03/15/02: The tunnel vision of '9/11'
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03/08/02: Hating the indoctrination of hate
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02/22/02: The White House heist
02/20/02: Making the grade
02/11/02: Studying student visas
02/06/02: Understanding arrogance
02/04/02: The professor's war
01/29/02: Disconnected dialogue
01/23/02: Anti-Indiscrimination
01/18/02: How much is enough?
01/15/02: Oh brothers, where art thou?
01/10/02: Air on the side of caution
01/04/02: Blacks seeing red at Harvard
01/02/02: Clinton's campaign continues
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12/24/01: Taliban Idyll
12/19/01: Right is right
12/17/01: Hillary strikes out
12/13/01: Lost files, lost presidency
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11/09/01: A beef with bin Laden's Beef Noodles
11/07/01: Facing up to the FBI's past mistakes
11/02/01: A school that teaches patriots to shutup
10/30/01: The gap between Islam and peace
10/26/01: The ties that bind (and gag)
10/24/01: This war is more than Afghanistan
10/22/01: The fatuous fatwa
10/19/01: Left out
10/16/01: Whose definition of terrorism?
10/11/01: Post-stress disorder
10/08/01: How the West has won
10/01/01: Good, bad or ... diplomacy
09/28/01: Drawing a line in stone
09/21/01: Prejudice or prudence?
09/14/01: When our dead will finally rest in hallowed ground
09/07/01: We want our #$%^&*() audience back!
08/24/01: The transformation from Green Mountain State to Green Activist State is all but complete
08/17/01: Enlightenment at Yale
08/10/01: From oppressors to victims, a metamorphosis
08/03/01: Opening the dormitory door: College romance in the New Century
08/01/01: How-To Hackdom: The dubious art of writing books about writing books
07/20/01: Hemming about Hemmings
07/13/01: Justice has not been served in the Loiuma police brutality case
06/22/01: When PC parades are too 'mainstream'
06/22/01: When "viewpoint discrimination" in our schools was not nearly so gnarly a notion
06/15/01: Lieberman flaunts mantle of perpetual aggrievement
06/07/01: Is graciousness the culprit?
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05/29/01: Campus liberals should be more careful
05/18/01: 'Honest Bill' Clinton and other Ratheresian Logic
05/11/01: Dodging balls, Bugs, and 'brilliance'
05/04/01: Foot in mouth disease and little lost Tories
04/20/01:The last classic Clinton cover-up
04/20/01: D-Day, Schmee-Day
04/06/01: For heaven's sake, a little decency!
03/30/01: The sweet sound of slamming doors and clucking feminists
03/23/01: America's magazines and the 'ick-factor'
03/09/01: Felony neglect
03/02/01: Who's sorry now?
02/23/01: 'Ecumenical niceness' and other latter-day American gifts to the world
02/16/01: Elton and Eminem: Royal dirge-icist meets violent fantasist
02/12/01: If only ...

© 2001, Diana West