Peter King Needs to Be Object Lesson in Our Failed Counter-Terrorism Approach

Back in January, I suggested that Peter King ought not be hailed for his role in the Irish peace process, but rather called out for his hypocrisy on terrorism.

Peter King would still be in prison if the US had treated his material support for terrorism as it now does, with sentences that can amount to a life sentence. Instead, the raging hypocrite is using the Congressional seat he owes, in part, to his earlier embrace of terrorism to sow bigotry and hatred–and to make the cooperation of the Islamic community, which plays a key role in identifying real extremists, more difficult.

The correct response to King’s actions is undoubtedly to point to this rank hypocrisy. Perhaps the NYT is suggesting it will do just that if King doesn’t back off his fear-mongering. But I believe it is already far too late for polite society to continue to soft-pedal this issue. It is inappropriate for a former terrorist sympathizer to head the Homeland Security Committee. And particularly when King uses that position to pull stunts like this, polite society needs to call out his hypocrisy in clear terms.

Credit where credit is due, polite society is doing that in a big way on the eve of King’s McCarthyite anti-Muslim hearings Thursday.

But it seems time to go the next step. Two people calling King out now (one a victim of an IRA attack, the other a former supporter) suggest that King ought to have a kind of insight that would help our fight against terrorism.

“King’s exactly right to say there’s a difference of approach between the I.R.A. and Al Qaeda,” said Tom Parker, a counterterrorism specialist at Amnesty International and a former British military intelligence officer. “But I personally consider both of them terrorist groups.”

Mr. Parker was at a birthday party for a friend in London in 1990 when the I.R.A. tossed a bomb onto the roof of the rented hall, a historic barracks. Many people, including Mr. Parker, were injured, but none died, by lucky chance of location and quick medical response, he said.

What troubles him, Mr. Parker said, is that Mr. King “understands the pull of ancestral ties. He took a great interest in a terrorist struggle overseas. He’s a guy who could bring real insight to this situation.” Instead, he said, “he is damaging cooperation from the greatest allies the U.S. has in counterterrorism.”

Some who have been close to Mr. King agree. Niall O’Dowd, an Irish-born New York publisher and writer who worked with him on the peace process in the 1990s, broke publicly with him Monday on his Web site, IrishCentral.com, describing Mr. King’s “strange journey from Irish radical to Muslim inquisitor.”

In Northern Ireland, Mr. O’Dowd said, they saw a Catholic community “demonized” by its Protestant and British critics and worked to bring it to the peace table. Seeing his old friend similarly “demonize” Muslims has shocked him, he said.

“I honestly feel Peter is wrong, and his own experience in Northern Ireland teaches him that,” Mr. O’Dowd said. “He’s a very honest, working-class Irish guy from Queens who’s had an amazing career. Now I see a man turning back on himself, and I don’t know why.” [my emphasis]

And I think that’s right. It is downright inappropriate to have an unapologetic terrorist sympathizer head our Committee on Homeland Security. So long as King maintains his terrorist support was justifiable but that of brown people is somehow different, he stands as a symbol of US hypocrisy on terrorism.

If King were to realize that his journey from terrorism to peace is no different than that of Muslims, he might well be able to teach his colleagues about the failures inherent in our counter-terrorism policy, particularly the approach that meets violence with even more violence, often hitting civilian bystanders.

But until he recognizes that, he is absolutely inappropriate to head Homeland Security. And that ought to be clear to polite society at this point.

image_print
  1. AZ Matt says:

    He is a modern day crusader. It is all black and white to him. He should run for governor here in Arizona, fit right in. He would be out there nullifying with the best of them – Sunstroke Republicans

  2. harpie says:

    Authoritarian Nation

    From chapter3 of Bob Altemeyer’s “The Authoritarians”:

    http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/

    “[…] But research reveals that authoritarian followers drive through life under the influence of impaired thinking a lot more than most people do, exhibiting sloppy reasoning, highly compartmentalized beliefs, double standards, hypocrisy, self-blindness, a profound ethnocentrism, and- -to top it all off- -a ferocious dogmatism that makes it unlikely anyone could ever change their minds with evidence or logic. These seven deadly shortfalls of authoritarian thinking eminently qualify them to follow a would-be dictator. As Hitler is reported to have said, “What good fortune for those in power that people do not think.”

  3. chetnolian says:

    Good to see Pete King thinks the Irgun was ok as well. So the common thread I take is that it’s alright to kill Brits. Thanks Pete!

    And I note from the piece you picked up in the NYT, the IRA tried to avoid killing civilians did they? Anyone remember Guildford, Birmingham or the Abercorn in Belfast?

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      It was weeks before Market Street’s cobbles were washed of all the blood from the Guildford pub bombings. In addition to demonstrating the random violence of terrorists, that case also demonstrated what governments do when the are afraid of being seen to be ineffective. Needing to get a conviction for political reasons, the government imprisoned the wrong men for years. Unlike Mr. Obama’s new, improved Gitmo and his secret prisons, those men were eventually freed, though it took fifteen years. For a dramatic version, see In the Name of the Father, a tour de force for Daniel Day-Lewis, Pete Postlethwaite and Emma Thompson.

      • PPDCUS says:

        Peter King’s terrorism blindness reminds me more of Patriot Games’ (1992) bar scene where Jack Ryan threatens Paddy O’Neil with drying up all American funding support for the IRA.

        In PG, there’s also the satellite re-tasking sequence where CIA monitors an SAS Libya-like strike against US/UK enemies in the desert. (Coming soon to a nightly newscast near you.)

        Tom Clancy sure knows how to convert fiction into prophecy.

    • Knut says:

      My Scottish landlady’s husband was murdered by Irgun. He was at the King DAvid Hotel when they bombed it.

      • chetnolian says:

        There’s a wonderful new TV Drama which will probably get aired in the USA soon called “The Promise”, which tells the story of Palestine, at the time of the Irgun, and now. Try to see it.

  4. pseudonymousinnc says:

    I’m happy to acknowledge that King played a part in the peace process, but the obvious point to be made is this: he got off on the vicarious thrill of hanging out with “freedom fighters” at the Felons Club, even as his Provisional IRA mates ruled over the Catholic council estates of Belfast and Derry like a bunch of warlords or mobsters. If you grew up poor in Northern Ireland at that time, and had a brain in your head and any ambition, you got the fuck out.

    If King were honest about the blinkered and rose-tinted perspective of many Irish-Americans like himself during the 1980s towards “The Cause” — at a time when non-violent nationalists needed support — he might be able to put that to good use. But he’s never acknowledged or shown regret for those days.

  5. Adam503 says:

    I’m sorry, but some of you guys aren’t 100% totally honestly dealing with the fact there’s a very obvious reasons Peter King is able to pull this kind of stunt against Muslims and the tea party are particularly hateful toward Muslims.

    The Kabuki pulled on the United States on 9/11. False Flag. Psychological operation. Evidence of controlled demolition. Whatever you want to call it, it’s got to be dealt with.

    This tea party craziness is directly connected to 9/11. Muslims had absolutely nothing to do with the events of 9/11. I know it. You all know it, too. This mess is going to continue as long as we continue to perpetuate the lie that Muslims attacked the United States on 9/11.

    • wallbanger says:

      “Getting people to realize that we were not attacked by Muslim terrorists on 9/11 is going to be impossible. They’ve drilled that lie in pretty deep now. And even if they weren’t behind 9/11 many people around the world – oppressed by US policies – were not all that upset to see the US experience the terror that the USA visits on countless millions of people around the world.

      How long has you thinking divorced from reality? Or is it just a trial separation?

  6. gvandergrift says:

    It is inappropriate for a former terrorist sympathizer to head the Homeland Security Committee.

    It is downright inappropriate to have an unapologetic terrorist sympathizer head our Committee on Homeland Security.

    he is absolutely inappropriate to head Homeland Security

    ___

    I think you need something stronger than inappropriate.

    Obscene. Obscenely hypocritical. Appalling. Terrible opticals.

    Peter King is the only ex terrorist sympathizer in Congress.

    It is obscene to have Peter King, the only former terrorist sympathizer in Congress, chairing the House Homeland Security Committee.

  7. chetnolian says:

    It’s even more personal for me. During the height of the “Mainland” IRA campaign they bombed Tube Stations. I was travelling regularly into London and using the Tube. I was always aware of the risk. Surprisingly, though we have had a much worse (Muslim) Tube bombing since I don’t feel the same. Why is that? Less risk or am I just getting old?

  8. SanderO says:

    Getting people to realize that we were not attacked by Muslim terrorists on 9/11 is going to be impossible. They’ve drilled that lie in pretty deep now. And even if they weren’t behind 9/11 many people around the world – oppressed by US policies – were not all that upset to see the US experience the terror that the USA visits on countless millions of people around the world.

    So it’s possible that Muslims were recruited, helped and duped into the act by their intel MIC handlers. That would make perfect sense.

  9. wallbanger says:

    Everybody agrees most muslims are good people. In fact, thousands of devout muslims are fighting alongside our troopers in Iraq and Afghanistan, helping to kill the insane fanatics. Some of the Imams here in the states, however, could be a little more proactive in notifiying the police when some of the sexual frustrated young men at the mosque shave all of their body hair and start to talk about Jihad.

  10. djfourmoney says:

    And people still openly wonder if America is still racist. YES IT IS and I wish most of you would listen to Black People when we tell you that ain’t shit changed in the Republican Party its the same old pasty white man’s party with full support of the ultra right wing mostly mid-western or southern based “Concerned Citizen Councils” aka White People Concerned over the Secular Browning of America.

    Plan and Simple, we should offer these ass-hats a one way ticket to some country where we can be rid of all of them.

  11. nextstopchicago says:

    Amusingly, when I click on the link to the Post story, Apple’s Safari browser tells me that the security certificate is invalid, and I may be attempting to reach a site that is posing as the Washington Post.

    I’ve felt that way for quite some time about the Post, but anyway.

    Though now that I’ve clicked here, to make a comment, the link seems to have changed and successfully leads to a NY Times article. I wonder if EW was in process of changing it just as I accessed it.