Counterterrorism Initiatives

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/nyregion/new-york-police-recruit-muslims-to-be-informers.html?hp&_r=0

It is a story inside the United States but its beginnings lie outside our borders, into another culture as Samuel Huntington would say. In the first quarter of 2014, the New York Police Department has conducted 220 interviews with Muslim citizens. Most of these men were waiting to be arraigned had routine parking violations and invalid licenses but were taken in for further questioning. Ever since the September 11th attacks, the United States had sent plain-clothed detectives into Muslim communities to see what they eat, how they pray and so on. Learning about their culture. A culture that has conflicted with our own even before the 9/11 attacks. These counter-terrorism initiatives have since been stopped but with the extra interrogations going on, the N.Y.P.D. is just looking for other methods. These 220 men were all asked the same thing, to work for the police department and go into their communities as informants. Getting the same information that the detectives used to get. Detectives with the debriefing unit received a list of immigrants, cataloged by country of origin, who had been arrested in New York the previous day. A 2007 document showed the team interviewed 564 people from 66 countries. More than a third came from the Middle East. Thirteen years after the attacks, the United States is still on their guard as Western Civilization still looks to clash with the Middle East.

-Max Kachinske